Wednesday 24 October 2012

Friday 12 October 2012

In the pink

Had a bit of a funny time, I was very much enjoying making some new CD shard brooches when I was rather clumsy an broke my heat gun.  That put a stop on making brooches for the time being though.  The troube was I had set my mind to making them and I totally could not get into anything else for a while.  So I haven't really done much crafting at all.   However my new gun arrived a few days ago and I have made a pretty pink brooch amongst others.


Anyway this sort of set the theme for my treasury this week and I made a Craftyfolk treasury that is filled with pretty pink items.  Well I hope you'll enjoy


'In the pink' by astridsgardenshop

Crafty Folk Weekly Featured Seller Treasury ChallengeThis week - Little HarrietA bit of Girly pink never goes amiss, so enjoy!


Pretty Pink Floral Bracelet ...
$10.00

Cat kitty nightdress case ha...
$17.50

Pink Beaded Charm Bracelet, ...
$17.50

Peach & Rose Soap Bar: Pink...
$4.25

pink wrap bracelet, suede, n...
$17.00

Felted Flower Brooch/Hair Cl...
$18.00

Pink Flambé hairbow haircli...
$9.00

Pink Dangle Earrings, Pink P...
$8.75

Mermaids Wish Spell Bottle N...
$15.00

Pink chalcedony earrings, pe...
$44.00

Ipad Cover English Rose
$18.00

Cat ACEO
$5.00

Crochet stitch markers, bead...
$5.00

Spike Earrings Dangle Drop P...
$3.00

Aran BFL wool, hand-dyed wor...
$11.00

Light Pink Keep Calm and Car...
$10.00

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

Monday 8 October 2012

Home-Sweet-Home

It has been a while since I have done a Home sweet home post but today I realised I had not shared my Flipper in the bathroom with you.  Flipper is  quite special to me.  I have always been creative and have been busy with many crafts and mastered quite a few (but still not crochet!  What is SO HARD about that?) but I had never ever painted and very rarely worked in colour. However one day after I had painted my loo I wanted to do someting special to it.  I had come to the wall colour accidentally as I had mixed a bit of midnight blue paint with white to get light blue.... OK that turned out to be a very deep turquoise.  Not a problem as I love that colour but for such a little room there was rather a lot of it.  I left it to dry and wet to iron some duvet covers and one of them had this beautiful dolphin on it.  Yes, I had a lightbulb moment then!  I sketched the outline on the wall and started with some paints to make it real.  It was a wonderful project and I realised that painting wasn't so different from drawing.  So Flipper was my first painting and it has led to many more enjoyable hours painting although not quite on this scale.


Thursday 27 September 2012

Butterfly necklace





Today I have been busy making a necklace.  I thought it might be nice to share how I made it.  So here it is.

Collect everything you need:
  • 1" square punch
  • small shape punch
  • tacky glue
  • thick vilene
  • two contrasting, thick papers (I used wallpaper)
  • hole punch
  • two types of beads
  • eye pins
  • strong jump rings
  • needlepoint pliers, flat nosed pliers, snippers
 Punch out 15 or so squares of vilene. I used the punch upside down so I can see the fabric in the punch and use it most economically.


Punch out 15 squares of each of the papers.

Take the squares you want to be on the top and slide them diagonally into the punch.  You may have to try out  a few times to get the placement right.

                                                                                                                                                                                                           

 



 Glue two squares onto each side a square of vilene. This will be your base.  The vilene is to strengthen the bead.
Glue the butterfly squares on the base bead taking care not to get too much glue into the butterfly cut-out


Punch a small hole on opposite sides of your square and your bead is finished.

Now you can start turning it into a necklace.  Make 15 links with your eyepins and beads.  They should look something like this.

  Now it is a case of putting it together.  Link the squares with the beaded links with  strong jump rings.  The fifteen squares and links are long enough to make a necklace that passes over your head, and you can make it longer by adding more squares of course.

Anyway here is the finished article

 Hope you enjoyed this tutorial  and you make some of these fun necklaces.