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.

Thursday 6 September 2012

Last days of summer!

We have been trying to make the most of the last days of summer recently and unfortunately that has meant I am falling behind on blogging. So here I am, what have I been up to?  One night this week we finally got our barbeque up and running and we had a lovely family evening. It was a reasonably warm evening and Beast was enjoying herself running off with the leftover corn cobs.  She was hoping for more but we ate it all!



 On Tuesday it was a mini holiday.  We piled in the car and went to New Quay (Wales) and went on a dolphin spotting trip.  It was pretty choppy but we had a great time. We only spotted a few dolphins in the distance but we also saw a couple of seals, including a little baby one (I took a photo but it was a bit blurry because of the waves) and some cormorants sitting on the rocks.  We stopped for drinks and sat out in the sun.  Silly, we live only about 20 miles from New Quay and we so rarely go there.  I got a few nice photos of the cliffs and I am sure I will paint some of them! They are truly inspiring both in colour and form.  I hope you all had a great summer in spite of the weather.  I am making sure that my family and I will enjoy every last nice day this month!



 I hope you enjoyed this little peek into our summer, now it is back to some art and craft.  By the way these photos on here are my first try at making collages, I just discovered this feature on Picassa.  I think I may have some fun with this!