Archive for the ‘Tutorial’ Category

Time for a tutorial ^_^ It’s been a little while since I’ve done something yarn related so today I’ll show you how I made a garden themed stand thingy for my tea pot.

You need:

• Crochet hook
• Green yarn
• Purple or pink yarn
• Matching styrofoam flowers

Please note my crochet instructions will be a little vague because I’m not familiar with how to write patterns in crochet, you should be able to get the idea from the photos though.

Start with the purple yarn and chain 5.

Join to the first stitch to form a circle. Chain 4.

Follow around the circle as if you were making a granny square, you should DC 3 times into 1 stitch, chain 2 then DC into the next stitch etc until you reach the beginning.

Join, chain 4 and start the next row. For proper instructions on how to make a  granny circle click here.

Keep going though add 2 lots of 3xDC in each gap so this row is larger. For the next few rows I alternated between 2 and 1 lot of 3xDC in each gap to form a circle.

You will need to make it large enough so that you can comfortably sit your teapot on top with a couple of inches on each side.

Finished:

Next grab your green yarn and tie it to the middle.

Start making a chain and when it’s long enough to fold in half and push through one of the holes single crochet to the next group of double crochets. This part is quite free-style as it depends how big the holes in your crochet are etc.

But right side up it should look like this:

Continue doing this around and around until you’ve got one loop to go through every hole:

Right side up it looks like this:

I didn’t think it looked stable enough so I added a little stitching with a needle and thread.

So you’re done with the basic shape, now it’s all about decoration!

Now it’s time to add the flowers. The reason it’s important to use styrofoam flowers is in case you spill tea on them. Where as fabric flowers will get wet and eventually mold, styrofoam can just be wiped off.

I decided to use large pink flowers and smaller white flowers. I arranged them around the edge alternating between the colours. I used the wire stems to loop into the crochet piece then attach to flower opposite to make it sturdy.

I also stitched them lightly in place for peace of mind. Finished:

The bottom looked like this… quite ugly so I added a large circular piece of felt to the bottom and stitched it all together.

And there you have it… very spring-ish.

All you need is a tea pot! Looks like you found it at the bottom of your garden

This is the first tutorial of many to come revolving around how to organise and host a tea party! Now you’ve got something to put the tea pot on, next time will be all about how to decorate the tea pot itself!

When Tiff visited Japan a little while ago she brought me a few presents home and the funny thing is that one of the things she brought was the exact same cute strawberry tart felt kit that Celeste got me from Singapore!! Clearly I have very distinct tastes right?

So when she saw the post I made about it, she swapped it for another one in the series! How nice is that? So after the response from last time I thought I would show you this one too ^_^

I bring you the Cute Strawberry Pudding!

Obviously again I can’t take any credit for making this tutorial because I was just following their instructions. Full credit goes to the original company but I took photos while I was making it I though you might find it interesting anyway ^_^  You can find most of the materials around the house and you can easily substitute anything you like.

The cute package it came in:

The cute instructions:

What you need:

• 1 circle of yellow felt
• 1 smaller circle of brown felt
• 1 large and 1 small circle of cardboard
• 1 curved rectangle of yellow
• 1 pointy circular star thing for the whipped cream
• matching thread and needles
• 1 quarter circle of red felt
• 1 tear drop shape of white felt
• 1 larger tear drop shape of pink felt
• 2 small green tears shapes of green
• stuffing

Start by sewing the smaller side of the curved rectangle to the brown circle.

You’ll end up with something like this:

Stitch it closed around the seam:

Pop the small circle of cardboard here:

Now fill it with stuffing and put the large cardboard circle on top:

And the large circle of yellow felt:

Sew the whole thing shut.

Now let’s start the strawberry!

Using a needle and white thread stitch a seed pattern like this:

With red thread running stitch the top of the strawberry and gather it.

Now stitch the white tear to the pink tear with big white stitches like this:

And the go up both sides sewing it to the red:

Stuff it!

Then stitch up the hole

Tadaaa! Strawberry slice!

Add the little leaves to the top:

Now time for cream! This is what the piece you need looks like, using your needle and thread sew straight through each point.

Add a tiny bit of stuffing…

And pull the whole thing shut.

Now stitch the pieces together and you have a pretty yummy looking pudding! Heehee I forgot to cut off one of the threads >_< Now you can attach it to a magnet (which is supplied) or a headband or an obnoxiously huge cute ring

Super cute right? Thanks so much Tiff!

The last few weeks have made me really sick of the calender programs on my iPhone. I miss pen and paper, for like 8 years I used my trusty black leather Filofax for everything and it was with me every single day. Then I got my phone and I got caught up in all the applications so the filofax started gathering dust. After a few years without it I missed the poor old thing! I drafted my very first comic book in it so it’s very nostalgic! ^_^

Unfortunately the whole black leather thing doesn’t really go with my look anymore and with no cash to spend it was time for a re-think! There’s no point it just sitting there doing nothing, Filofaxes are there to be uuuused!

Digging into my fabric scraps box I found a couple of pieces for inspiration I think this post is more of a guide than a tutorial because I’ll just give you the general idea and you can take it and run with it how you like rather than making exact versions.

I decided on a light pink satin cover and ironed it flat. I then used hot glue around the edges of the diary to attach it:

Flattening the whole thing out I trimmed the extra fabric off.

And glued down the edges. I was careful not to glue any of the inside pockets shut in the process.

The outside:

That was a bit plain for me so I decided to add a band of colourful floral fabric that was a scrap from a dress I made ages ago. I ironed it out and folded the edges over.

Very carefully I glued it around the middle.

Cuter already right?

I carefully covered the clasp thingy too and then cut a small hole so it could still click closed. This is it pre-hole:

And post hole showing how it closes:

I was so caught up I kind of forgot to take photos of the next bit sorry! Basically I used the floral fabric to completely cover the inside including all of the pockets. I’m sure you can use your imagination ^_^ I then added lace around the outsides to hide all of the glued areas. So it ended up like this:

I realised I needed some cute paper to write on too! Luckily I had a bunch of supplies left over from a Cristina Re gift bag I was given when we had out tea party earlier in the year so I set to work.

I used an old page of diary to find the right size to fit my diary.

Then I carefully cut it all out.

Hole punch at the ready…

Taadaaa cute paper!

I needed new dividers as well so I used one to get the shape and cut them out of thing cardboard.

Lastly I added some black and white flocked paper and stickers as decoration.

I used the flocked paper on the back too.

And there you have it! Super cute new diary/planner/Filofax thingy all finished and ready to be used!

I’m really happy with the way it came out and it suits my personality perfectly.

I’ve been using it for a good few weeks now and it’s made life much easier

I actually enjoy writing on such pretty paper too

Do you guys use a paper planner or are you all iPhone/Blackberry junkies?