Half-Arsed Crafts' New Website!

We've done some serious adulting lately and set up a shiny new website - welcome to our new home!

We used Bluehost to purchase the domain and set up a new site on Wordpress. It was surprisingly easy to do (honestly, we're rubbish at this sort of thing and there was only minor cursing and no breakages during the entire set up - this is some kind of miracle!)

The address and look of the site is pretty much all that's changing. We'll still be sharing all the best and laziest easiest craft and design tutorials plus running occasional competitions and give aways.

Hope you like the new look site, let us know what you think in the comments and any ideas for blog posts that you'd like to see in the future.

Cheers!

250 Mother's Day Crafts Roundup

Mother's Day is nearly here (at least in America, which is where my mother happens to live) so here's a collection of all the best handmade gifts, cards and crafts the internet has to offer.

Live, Laugh, Rowe have a great collection of 25 Fabulous Handmade Gift Ideas that are fun and affordable.Covering everything from e-book covers; jewellery and table runners; to scarves; nesting bowls and salted caramels, you're certain to find something perfect to make.

I Heart Crafty Things have a tutorial to make this awesome Unicorn Card. Click here to go straight to it. To make it even easier you can subscribe to their weekly newsletter at the bottom of the post to get their free unicorn card template.

Head over to For Creative Juice for their list of 28 Creative Handmade Photo Crafts and you'll find all sorts of ideas for adding a personal, photographic touch to crafts including candles, ceramic ornaments, wall hangings and luminaries. You'll also find lots up ideas for upcycling items by adding or transfering photos onto them.

You can find tutorials for 36 Homemade Mother's Day Gifts over at DIY Projects. The tutorials include photo frames, homemade spa recipes, a personalised tote bag pattern, magnets and paper flower tutorials. There's a good mix of ideas for both kids and adults to make something special for Mother's Day.

DIY Joy have collected 37 of the Most Thoughtful DIY Mother's Day Ideas, from easy and quick crafts to handmade arts and crafts projects, these 37 DIY ideas are super creative and crafty. From spa day gift baskets to cute table accessories that will have Mom think of you every time she sits down to at her desk, you are sure to find something awesome to make for your mom here.

If you've been following Half-Arsed Crafts for a while you might recall some of our own tutorials that would make ideal Mother's Day Gifts, such as our very fancy Pastel Clay Dipped Jars;

Our pretty Faux Brick Heart Bowls;

And our super easy No Sew Wall Pockets.

What Moms Love show how to create a Keepsake Keychain using shrink film. It's so simple kids can easily create awesome looking initial keyrings by following their tutorial. They also show you how to trace photos to make stunning headshot charms as well. Click here to see both tutorials.

The 36th Avenue have an incredible list of 100 Handmade Gifts to make for less than $5. You can find everything from homemade soap and candles, to sunglass cases and monogram key chains. They also have recipes, DIY plant makers and jewellery trays. Some of the tutorials are seasonal but the majority would suit any occasion so there's plenty to choose from. Click here to check them out.

Head over to DIY in PDX for their 16 DIY Gift Ideas. They have some great ideas including leather liquor bottle labels (try saying that fast), concrete ring cones and cheese boards. Click here for the link.

Finally, Popsugar have collected 12 Creative and Easy Crafts to make using crayons including luminaries, candles and these pretty hanging heart crayon decorations. You can find their tutorials here.

If you make any of these for your mom, do let us know in the comments!

It's Competition Time!

As Spring appears to have finally sprung let's celebrate with a giveaway!

For a chance to win the bundle of postcards and cards shown below, simply subscribe to this blog by smashing the subscribe button, which you can find on the landing page here.

For extra chances to win you can follow us on Facebook and/or Instagram and comment done on the post to let us know. Each follow + comment gets you another entry into the competition but remember to subscribe to the blog (and confirm your email address) first.

The competition will run for 2 weeks, ending on Friday 18 May at 12pm (BST).

The winner will be announced on Facebook, Instagram and in the comments section of this blog post.

All of the cards are available for sale in our Zazzle store (Brouhaha Bazaar). There's 15% off everything until midnight (BST) on 5 May if you want to purchase any of them separately.  You can find the links for each card on the images below. The same images are also available for sale on lots of different products in our Zazzle store. If you'd like us to do a tutorial on how to sell your designs on Zazzle let us know in the comments!

Wanderlust Postcard

Watercolour Arrows Postcard

Lets' Go On An Adventure Postcard

Happy Beathday Card

Wanderlust Card

Good luck!

The Big Fat List of Photoshop Tutorials

We've searched long and hard for all the best Photoshop tutorials we could find so that you don't have to. Enjoy!

Actions

Creative Bloq have a collection of 60 Photoshop actions and they're all completely free! Find them here. 

You can find 100+ free Photoshop actions over at The Photo Argus. Check out their list here. 

Beginners

Life Hacker has a video tutorial that promises to teach the basics of Photoshop in under 25 minutes! Click here for the tutorial.

Digital Information World have created a useful cheatsheet for beginners - access it here.

Who better to learn the basics from then Adobe themselves! Find their basic tutorial here.

Tools

Photoshop Essentials can help you learn how to use the Background Eraser Tool here.

First Effect 555 has a YouTube tutorial on how to use various Photoshop tools. Find the video here.

Vandelay Design have a collection of tool tutorials. You can find them here.

Portrait Effects

The Photoshop Training Channel show you various methods of adjusting facial features here.

Head over to Vector Tuts to learn how to create a floral portrait here.

Adobe have a great tutorial on adjusting and exaggerating facial features using Face Aware Liquify. Find the tutorial here
.

Photo Manipulation

Design Tuts Plus have a collection of 20 photo manipulation tutorials. Find them here.

PSHoudini from Deviant Art shows you how to create your own personalised Pokeball.

Inspiration Hut have a great list of 19 useful and creative photo manipulation tutorials. Check it out here. (A couple of the links no longer seem to work but the majority are still active).

The ever amazing Spoongraphics show you how to create a stunning watercolour effect in this tutorial.

Specky Boy has an amazing list of 100 manipulation tutorials for you to try. You can find the list here.

Design Your Way have curated a list of 91 of the best photo manipulation tutorials. You can find them here.

Cutting Things Out

Visit Spoon Graphics' YouTube channel - they have a ton of excellent tutorials on how to do just about anything in Photoshop. You can access their great 'how to cut out anything' lesson here.

Digital Arts Online also have a great step-by-step guide to cutting out an image in Photoshop. You can find their tutorial here.

Special Effects

Trip Wire have a list of 135 Effects Tutorials for Photoshop. You can find them here.

Freelancer have a collection of 26 special effects tutorials which you can find here.

Visit Vandelay Design for a list of 40 lighting and abstract effects tutorials. You can find the list here.

Useful Tricks

Head over to The Creative Business to learn how to quickly add watermarks to your pictures. 

Creative Bloq have made a list of 120 tips, tricks and fixes which you can access here.

Fonts and Typography

Design Tuts Plus have collected 100 of the best Photoshop texts effects. You can find them here.

Click here for a lesson on typing in a circle from It's Organised.

Learn how to create a text portrait in this great tutorial by Photoshop Roadmap. Click here then check out the rest of their amazing Photoshop lessons.

Debbielundphoto shows you how to put an image inside text using this clipping mask tutorial.

Head over to Blogpixie to find out how to create your own rose gold font in this tutorial.

Brushes

Inspiration Hut come up trumps again with their list of 100's of free brushes to download. Check it out here.

Creative Bloq have a collection of 55 free brushes you can access here. This is a great website with tons of free lessons and tips on graphic design, illustration, 3D art and more.

Vandelay Design have added to their enormous collection of Photoshop tutorials with 35 lessons on mastering Photoshop brushes. Find the list here.

Backgrounds and Texture

Learn how to create a bokeh blurred background with this tutorial from Photoshop Café. Then check out their myriad of other free tutorials.

You can find a huge number of free backgrounds at Brusheezy. Click here to go straight to them.

Superdevresources have a collection of 17 different Photoshop background and texture tutorials for you to have a play around with. Click here.

Shortcuts

You can find a list of 60 really useful Photoshop shortcuts here.

Noble Desktop have a printable list of lots of different keyboard shortcuts to use in Photoshop. Click here for the list.

Best of Collections

GTechdesign have a collection of 23 Photoshop tutorials to enhance your skills here.

Webneel have a huge list of 56 video tutorials showing you everything from light effects, blending and skin retouching, to creating poster effects and digital painting techniques. Take a look at them here.

Head over to Graphic Design Junction for their 50 best of 2016 tutorials including a step-by-step guide to how Levente Szabo created the artwork for this BAFTA Awards poster (click here to go straight to it).

Digital Arts have a collection of 86 Photoshop tutorials for you to have a go at. You can find them here. 

Have we missed any of your favourite tutorials? Let us know in the comments and we'll add them to the list!