Hurricane Sandy - how I'm helping

I am so heartbroken every time I see new updates and especially fatalities on the news from Hurricane Sandy. I've been puzzling over the last few days how best I can help. I finally decided to make apple crochet charms, the symbol for new york, and donate the profits to Red Cross. I made this apple today and I'm pretty happy with it. I might get green ribbon to go with the 'apple' theme more, but I really like the tiffany blue too. I am keeping my fingers cross for everyone on the East Coast who all have a very long recovery ahead.
Check them out at: https://www.etsy.com/listing/113668320/apples-for-hurricane-relief-crochet

Fresh Perspective: Starting anew on etsy

Well it's been a little bit since I've posted. I started a new shop called ABunnyandBear on etsy. Sadly I decided to give up on my jewelry venture, the competition is just way too rough, I wasn't getting any traffic. On the upside, I sold something the third day my new shop was open yay! I think I'm going to focus more on drawing, I'm all crocheted out for a while.

What markers, pens, paints do not fade from canvas shoes

I've always wanted to do a fantastic drawing on canvas shoes to be able to walk around and show off my hot digits. I definitely get the urge to doodle when I see toms or vans with awesome drawings and illustrations on them. Sadly, I've always had the fear of seeing my work slowly leak down the shoe and end up in a horrible mess if I step in a puddle. What if the marker smeared? Would these shoes be unwashable?? I took up the cause of trying a variety of different markers, pens, paints and finishes to answer this question: what mediums fade when used to draw on canvas shoes when washed?

You can see the exact results for each medium after washing below but here's the summary:

- Sharpie markers - YES stood up really well, did not smear when putting all purpose sealant on
- Gel pens - faded if left alone, looks good with sealant.
- Staedtler finelines - no, washed out and smeared. Boo
- Copic markers - Yes but some colors smeared when putting sealant on.
- Prismacolor markers - YES did not fade, did not smear
- Liquitex acrylic paints - YES - may need a sealant if you want a shiny smooth finish.


RESULTS:

You can see the pictures for the exact results for each medium after washing below but here's the summary:

- Sharpie markers - YES stood up really well, did not smear when putting sealant on, some may change color when sealant is put on (dark blue turned purple for me)
- Staedtler finelines - no, washed out and smeared. Boo
- Copic markers - Yes but some colors smeared when putting sealant on.
- Prismacolor markers - YES did not fade, did not smear
- Liquitext acrylic paints - YES - may need a sealant if you want a shiny smooth finish, light colors may fade a bit

THE METHOD:
I used a black and light colored canvas strip to draw on with a variety of markers and  acrylic paints. The right side of each strip has all purpose craft sealant painted over it.

The sealant gives it shiny finish as you can see (bottom)

Here is the list of exactly what I used:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
BLACK STRIP:
- metallic sharpie in red gold
- metallic sharpie in gold
- metallic sharpie in silver

- gelly roller in white
- sigma gel roller in white

white acrylic paint strip with the following markers drawn on top:
-- black sharpie
-- black copic marker
-- silver sharpie paint pen
-- purple sharpie
-- pink fat sharpie
-- blue copic marker
-- orange copic marker
- yellow acrylic paint on white

- yellow acrylic paint by itself.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
WHITE STRIP:
- sharpie in purple
- sharpie in green
- sharpie in blue
- sharpie in black
- fat sharpie in pink

- staedtler marker in blue
- staedtler marker in orange

- copic fineliner in black
- copic marker in yellow
- copic in red
- copic in black
- copic in purple
- copic in blue
- copic in orange
- copic in green

- prismacolor marker in grey
- prismacolor in dark grey
- prismacolor in tan



After washing.................................I washed the two strips in hot water with tide detergent, scrubbed with good vigor 

BLACK STRIP:

here are the results for the black strip.

As you can see the metallic sharpie paint markers stood up really well!

The white gel pens... not well at all.

The white acrylic background fadeda bit without the sealant - this may be a thickness issue I suspect this would be better if I had painted more layers. The markers on the white painted strip all seem a little faded to me, the sharpie changed color from blue to purple with sealant. I definitely think acrylic paints need a sealant.






WHITE STRIP:
Here's the white strip after washing.

The sharpies stood up surprisingly well again. Once again the blue got a purple-ish cast.

The second group with staedtler markers were obliterated. They smeared when I put the sealant on too - definitely no on those.

The copic markers stood up quite well also but did smear a bit when putting sealant on as you can see with the red line on the right.

The prismacolors stood up well and did not smear with sealant. Sweet!


Well there you go, good luck all!