Years ago I was watching the elections in the States and I noticed that red and blue had a symbolic value for the political parties.
So they have in the Netherlands, but the funny thing is it has an opposite meaning. The US Democrats are blue and the Conservatives red. The Dutch right wing is blue and the left one loves red.
As I am interested in every aspect of colour, I decided to look more closely into the symbolic values of red and blue in general, not just in politics.
My personal challenge of 2022/23 to make a collage (almost) daily sparks a lot of creativity and inspiration. The easiest way to work on a collage is at home where I have all my materials and tools, making it extra challenging when we go on a trip. How do I make a collage then?
Last year I solved that ‘problem’ by taking lots of pictures and either making a Canva collage or collecting small items and putting those together in an assemblage. The end result was a photo.
This time I planned to make collages in a creative travel journal, where I wanted to include more elements of a day.
Gelli printing is a form of monoprinting. Each piece of work is unique and usually depends largely on chance.
A Gelli print can be created in different ways. In this article, I describe a number of pure Gelli printing methods and combinations with other techniques.
It is great fun to experiment with this technique. For me, that is the biggest charm of Gelli printing. For starting hobbyists, the advantage is that the learning curve is really low.
In 20 Ideas on how to make money after retirement on another website, I offered some possibilities to earn extra cash. But what if you have no idea how and where to start to make money from your hobby? I’ll give you some ideas here.
One of the most important conditions is that you are creative in coming up with possibilities.
“But I’m not creative at all,” I hear you say. Well, that’s the first thought you should let go of. Everyone is creative, for the simple reason that you are not born with it and can develop it.
In an adaptation of Edison’s quote:
“Creativity is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”.
Printing is to multiply images and/or texts by making several identical prints of a master form.
Printing had everything to do with my past profession as a graphic designer and still is a joy as a relaxing activity in my present life.
In this article, I will list an overview of several techniques emphasising simple printing techniques that can easily be practised at home.
For the sake of completeness, I will also mention professional printing techniques.
If you start a new hobby, you will make mistakes. That’s part of the game, also when you make cyanotypes, and it’s okay.
Some mistakes are final, but that’s “tuition money” most of the time. Other errors can either be covered up or corrected. And some mistakes have a surprising effect. Beautiful results came from accidental errors.
The most important tip is to keep a log so that you know what you did. By the way, a log is also convenient to repeat successful results.
Questions in the comments on a blog are always great. It’s a marvellous chance to dive deeper into something. For instance: How to customize your WordPress theme.
Catherine’s question on WordPress Tips for Beginners is how to find or change a font that a theme uses.
The answer is about fonts, but almost all other elements like colour and sizes that use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) can be changed this way. A website I consult often about CSS is w3schools. The explanation is good and there is a lot to find.
In How to Make Money from your Hobby or Passion? one of the mentioned possibilities is having your own website.
Most hosting providers offer a one-click process to install a WordPress blog, which makes starting really easy.
So this article WordPress Tips for Beginners is not about installing, but about aspects to make visiting your website a great experience.
I will explain 12 aspects that – once implemented – will give your visitors a great user experience. Making sure they want to come back.
At some point in the past, all the buzzing was about ‘Blogging! You have to blog!’ I am talking about the early years of this century.
Blogging has existed since 1994, I just hadn’t heard about it then. I only had websites for my business and because I was intrigued I started blogging as well in 2001.
There are many free ways to start a blog and you can set it up in a couple of minutes. When you are thinking of starting a blog, it is better to start writing right away. Don’t fuss about the name, the title or the design. Write!