I collected my flowers from a random park we did some filming at out on the East side of town. I tried to get a variety but I ended up sticking with a lot of daisies because they’re my favourite.

Cut a piece of baking paper double the size of the flowers you’re pressing and fold it in half.

Lay the flowers down and make sure they don’t overlap. If they do overlap they will get stuck to each other and you won’t be able to get them apart easily.

You may need to smoosh them down with your fingers to get them to lay the way you want them.

Fold the baking paper over the flowers so they are completely covered and press gently so the flowers lay nice and flat.

Transfer the baking paper into the middle of a book. I didn’t have any thick books so I just used a stack of thin ones with 1-2 layers of flower sinside.

Stack the books somewhere out of the way. If you don’t think they are heavy enough stack something on top, I used a subwoofer from the TV.

Leave them for at least a week. I was very impatient and kept peeking inside but it really did take a week for them to dry properly. Apparently you can speed it up by using your oven/microwave but I think it’s nicer to have something to look forward to!

So one week later…

Smooshed and lovely!

The small detailed flowers worked a lot better than the bigger ones.

So pretty!

Cherry blossoms:

And all kinds of others:

After gently removing them from the paper I put them in some tupperware and left them overnight to completely dry out.

This was a really fun project and really just the start because now you get to decide how to use the dried flowers 😀

The edges on the grip part on the hook that came with the kit were razor sharp!

To begin with I wrapped it in some fabric tape which solved the sharp edges but not really the fact that it can be painful to hold over long periods of time because of the width.

Needle felting to the rescue! I wrapped the hook in some white roving starting around 4cm from the hook and needle felted it together to form a kind of sheath. It was a little tough to get the felting process started without stabbing myself so I wet the who thing and rolled it around between the palms of my hands then continued to poke at it with the felting needle.

What I ended up with was this, which was great but because of my colour choice… it looked quite a lot like a tampon hahaha!

The addition of a pink spiral of roving and some more needle felting  helped with that problem!

Now it’s thick enough to grip easily and squishy so that I can work for hours without any pain. I love solving silly problems like this!

It’s a shame you couldn’t do the same thing with knitting needles really! Anyway, hope you found that useful, let me know if you have any other clever crafting tips!

My inspiration was the little red hair clips she has:

For this you need:

• Red yarn
• White yarn
• Yellow yarn
• 3mm  crochet hook
• Scissors
• Yarn needle

To begin, I measured out the lens I was making a case for. Hilariously I had to take half of these shots using the macro attachment I was trying to make a case for so I had to keep pulling it on and off to measure.

I used some red yarn I had left over from my first cardigan project. While it was the same ply as my other yarns, it was much thicker so I used this regularly and doubled the other yarns to match it. I’m using a nice small hook with puffy yarn so I can get a really tight stitch amigurumi style.

Begin by creating a magic loop/ring with 6 stitches.

Pull it extra tight so the hole doesn’t show at all.

For the next round increase by doing 2 sc into every second stitch. So 1 sc, 2 sc, 1 sc, 2 sc etc until you reach the end of the round.

Continue spiralling outwards to form a flat circle.

To keep the spiral growing, do 2 sc into every third stitch. So 1 sc, 1 sc, 2 sc and repeat until you have a circle which is the size of your lens. Finish the circle by slip stitching in the next stitch and then tying off.

Next do another sc round of white and tie off. My yarn was thin so I doubled it for a really sturdy case.

Now to start the yellow part aka the hair.

You want to do another sc round in your light yellow colour but for this round only work your stitches into the back part of the white loop. This will leave a ridge of white so it looks like the edge of Sailor Moon’s hair ornament.

See how it creates a really sturdy border below?

Slip stitch into the next stitch to end the circle and then chain 2. We are now going to make the sides so you will probably want to flip the piece you’ve made so far over so you can work into the other side.

This row is also worked into just the back of the stitches to create a ridge.

Turn the work and sc in the opposite direction that you were doing the circle. Stop when you have gone around the edge of the circle 70%. At this point, make sure you can fit your lens comfortable through the gap between the sides.

Now chain 2 and go right back around the other way. You may need to continue going back and forth like this for a few more rows depending on how tall your lens is.

Once it’s high enough, put it aside and make the back piece.

The back piece is worked separately in yellow yarn as a big circle again. It’s basically the same thing as the front piece but in one colour. So create a magic loop and then spiral out increasing until it is the same size as your completed front piece.

You can either crochet it directly onto the front piece or just sew it on using a yarn needle. I found sewing gave a cleaner finish in this project so I went with that.

What you should have now is a nice big circle with a hole in the front that you can slip your lens into.

It wasn’t immediately obvious what it was so I decided to add a long hair wrist strap to mine. To do this, I chained as long as the strap needed to be (around 50 stitches) and then single crocheted into the chain. If you chain fairly loose and keep your tension tight when you do the sc it should spiral up nicely.

I then just stitched it onto the case at the opening.

Last double check to make sure the lens can get in and out easily!

To give it a little more depth I stitched on some white highlights to the red section so it would look  a bit shiny.

I’m really happy with how this turned out, its been living in my bag happily for months now and my lens has been much more protected. I’ve even dropped it a few times accidentally but the cushion of the thick yarn has protected it! The wrist strap is very handy for when I don’t want to take a bag with me or have other stuff to carry.

Also: super cute 😀