Author: Irish Bees Don't Do Mondays

A blog for me, about the things I like. After Effects, Procreate, Illustrator, Photoshop, Drawing, Painting, Paper Cutting, Sewing, Embroidering, up-cycling old furniture. Whatever grabs me in the moment/

Photoshop inspiration – USB stick tutorial

by Irish Bees Don't Do Mondays, posted in Photoshop

I made these USB sticks in Illustrator  – they look pretty sensational. The credit is down to the tutorial I followed: ‘How to draw a USB Flashdrive. The link to it is here: Noupe.

So much amazing talent out there.

When I get a chance, I’ll write up the tutorial to make the glowing orb scene above. If you’re fairly familiar with Illustrator and Photoshop you can probably deconstruct the images and work out the technique. The orb is a simple ellipse with a gradient mesh applied and given a colour around the perimeter (Illustrator ). It was taken into Photoshop, given a dark background and highlighted with a Lens Flare and a few layer effects. There’s not much more to it.

As we get closer to Christmas, I start looking for Christmas Photoshop tutorials. I Google and check the images for something to inspire me and will, if the end result looks worth it, will spend the time and effort to recreate the effect. This is where I am at the moment…. searching and falling down bloody awful wormholes in Pinterest…

I found out recently that there is a way to exclude Pinterest from searches : type in the search term and append with -site:pinterest.com. It’s that easy. A pain in the bottom to do it every search but better than losing the will to live in Pinterest. If only people would include their URL or other contact information on images…

The weather is getting damper and chillier. The heating is on regularly and the living room is gorgeously cosy since we had a new fire put in a while ago. Both cats have large fluffy, padded catbeds in front of it and can often be found on their backs, feet up, sprawling across them. We even bought them an advent calendar from Lidl (for cats – filled with little cat treats).

Soup is becoming a staple as the weather gets colder. Made a big pot of chicken and vegetable soup yesterday. Some for tea and some to freeze for another day. The scents and smells of it while stirring with a long spoon (to let the devil come out of the steam)  was mouth watering. It didn’t disappoint. We ate it with chunky wedges of granary bread – my absolute favourite is the low GI bread from Lidl, and that’s what we had.

Today is wetter and colder than yesterday so might have soup again for tea. There’s a nice thought.

Create a Gradient ‘Slinky’ effect with Illustrator

by Irish Bees Don't Do Mondays, posted in Illustrator

The effect above is a simple and quick one to create using Illustrator.

All you need is an ellipse, a gradient and the Transform Effect tool. I don’t have the latest version of Illustrator but know the Transform Effect tool is available in CS6 and earlier. Hopefully, whatever version you’re using, you’ll be able to follow the tutorial and have fun with it.

You can download the free tutorial here:

Create a gradient slinky in Illustrator

Papercut Letter O

by Irish Bees Don't Do Mondays, posted in Papercutting

This cutting will be going in an A3 frame for O**** and needs to be ready for the weekend.

Ireland is on red alert today because of hurricane Ophelia. Our little country isn’t used to extremes of weather and so this kind of thing takes us all unawares. It is certainly ferocious out there. but luckily I’m nowhere near the worst of it. Shops and offices everywhere are pretty much closed for the day. Buses and trains aren’t running.

Being stuck in was a good reason to bake. Today’s choice was  lemon cupcakes (with the juice and zest of two lemons) cupcakes.

Crochet baby hat

by Irish Bees Don't Do Mondays, posted in Baking, Crochet

The yarn is Elann Pippilongcolor  (*update 2019 – the yarn has been rebranded to Impromptu Lite*) in Crystal Spring shades, perfect for a pair of crocodile stitch bootees and a little hat.  The pattern is a free download from MyLittleCityGirl.

I made some apple, blueberry and cinnamon cupcakes, using muscavado sugar instead of the usual castor for some extra rich flavour. The blueberry colour turned the butter icing a lovely shade of deep raspberry which was enhanced with a drizzle of  imperial purple edible food glitter.

Papercut L for Lisa.

xoxoxo

Papercutting for new baby

by Irish Bees Don't Do Mondays, posted in Chatting

Working on a baby papercutting today.  This is the latest version.

I listened to Shogun all afternoon while working on it and was tken with the costumes. The Japanese characters looked like Quality Street chocolates come to life. Or Roses. I nicknamed the Japanese girl ‘love interest’ as Strawberry cream, the regular soldiers, the Jaffas, as, very obviously, the orange creams, and there were various chocolate truffles, golden cups and guest appearances from Ferraro Rochas and Raffaelas.

Back to the office tomorrow. Hope my little train doesn’t get bumped off the rails by the Drogheda train. They are often due at the same time on the same track, which obviously isn’t possible. Nine times out of ten, the Drogheda train turns up first. I can only assume the Drogheda train bumps it off the track, face first, into some bushes. My train invariably turns up some 5 minutes after the Drogheda train, rubbing its eyes and brushing bits of twig and  woody things off its face when it turns up.