When I got them home I noticed some of the stitching was undone so I repaired that first.

Then I decided on a theme: lace and chain. Easy.

Design done.

Sewing… done :D

Last for some extra interest I added the chain over the top part too.

DONE!

Detailed, easy to do and best of all only $3.99.

Now I wish it would actually be cold on a day that I need to leave the house!

Earmuffs for the win!

First thing I did was remove the horrible collar and cut it into a boat neck.

Next I cut the bottom into a more flattering “U” shape.

I cut down the front to remove the zip and sewed it back together again. This made a more flattering neck shape too.

There wasn’t really a need to finish the cut seams because this kind of polar fleece doesn’t fray but I zigzagged them anyway with contrasting thread.

Next some details! Plain black is boring so I used up some striped scraps to cover it with cuter hearts.

All different sizes and directions to make it adorably random.

Then of course my sewing machine died so James spent 20 minutes trying to fix it while I sulked on the couch.

Once it was fixed I zigzagged around the edges. Had I been even lazier I would have just used fabric glue :D

DONE!

So what do you think? I’m loving it, removing all of the thick edging makes it drape so much more and it’s super comfy now!

Sorry guys it’s too comfy… nap time!

Tshirt/sweater surgery for the win :D And an old crappy jumper which was going to be thrown out now has a new life!

So what’s a girl to do when the shops are closed and she needs one for some photos or she can’t find them in her area? Make one of course!

What I’m showing you today isn’t completely a hair donut, rather a hair sausage which is more versatile that a donut and can be worn in so many different ways (tutorials on those ways are up coming of course).

The end result is a light squishy tube which is flexible and held in shape via wire.

You need:

• Polar fleece or similar stretchy fabric
• Thick wire for the inside
• Needle and thread
• Stuffing or fabric scraps if you’re desperate
• Pliers to cut and shape the wire.

Cut a piece of the wire a long as you want the sausage to be. Remember it needs to be able to wrap comfortably around a ponytail with a bit to spare and the ends will need to be curled over so they aren’t pointy. I made mine around 25cm and then curled the ends into circles as seen below.

Fold a piece of polar fleece in half and lay the wire on top.

Cut out a trapezoid shape like below and make it substantially longer than the wire, the long end of mine was almost double that of the wire.

Stitch from one corner up the side and around to the other side. Leave a gap so you can turn it inside out.

Turn it inside out ^_^

You should have something along these lines…

Put the wire inside.

Stitch on each side through the wire loops. This will hold it in place and make sure it doesn’t slip around inside.

Because the polar fleece is bigger than the wire it will look something like this when you sew each loop.

Fill the whole thing with stuffing.

It should be packed in there fairly tightly but not so much so that it can’t bend.

Stitch the end up and you’ve got a hair sausage!

To use it you just need to make a ponytail, wrap this around and the form the bun around it.

The reason I prefer the sausages to donuts is that you can use them in a variety of ways including in vintage style rolls etc. I’ve seen a lot of sock versions of this too, have you ever tried them?

I’ve got tutorials on how to use it in a variety of ways coming up soon :D

Felt circle on the back…

Make a nice flat surface for the magnet.

Magnet on!

Done! That took all of about 3 minutes :D

Quick crafts for the win!

Project 2. The Glass Bowl

We found this bowl in the Black Hole (the place people leave stuff for hard rubbish pick up downstairs)

I found some mirror strips in my craft stash.

Very simple project but it looks so expensive.

Wrap the mirror as a band around the top. Add some netting to the inside. Stick in a bunch of fake flowers!

Cost Breakdown:

• Vase $0 (I’ve seen the vases for $5 at the junk store though)
• Flowers $0 (you can get bunches at junk stores for $2 though)
• Mirror $2
• Netting $0.20
• Total cost $2.20

It’s basically a big tall glass bowl.

These little mirror pieces come on adhesive backing and were $2 at a junk store.

I cut them into strips of 3.

Peeled off the back and stuck them to the top of the bowl.

No seriously that’s it.

I added some random netting material I had to the inside so it had another texture then dumped a bunch of fake flowers in too.

Pretty neat huh?

To top off that area I put down an lace matt which I think my grandmother made (you can buy lace doilies at thrift stores for next to nothing) then added a couple of candles on top. Clutter like this looks so much better if you keep the colours similar so I used creams and pinks throughout.

I’m very happy with the results and that’s another area down in the house!

I hope some of you give this one a go!

• Popsicle sticks
• Hot glue gun
• White paint
• Decorations
• Sharp scissors

Start by deciding how big you want the box to be, my base was 8 sticks. Lay out the correct number of popsicle sticks like this:

Now you need to make cross beams to stick it all together so cut the appropriate length sticks.

Glue three of them down onto the base so it’s completely secure.

Now to start making the sides. Cut the sticks to the correct length so you have one for each side of the base.

Then cut enough picket pieces for each side. Mine were half the length of each original stick so that make it nice and easy to measure. Glue them to the first side piece.

Then add two more sticks on top of that to make it look more fence-ish ^_^

Repeat for the other sides and you have this:

One by one glue each side upright onto the base.

And you now have a box!

For extra strength I glued in some cross pieces to the corners.

Now you just need to make it look prettier!

Paint the whole thing white.

Mine needed a couple of coats before it looked right.

Now it’s time to decorate, this is the most fun bit! I wanted mine to be very spring-ish so I used fake flowers to make it look like a window box.

I glued a sculpey flower between each picket.

Then floral lace around the inside so it was peaking out of the gaps between the pickets.

Pretty cute yes?

The last step was adding a nice bow to the front :D

Done! The most time consuming part of this was waiting for the paint to dry because, well, it was like watching paint dry ;) Other than that it was quick and easy but it looks adorable and is the perfect size to hold eyelashes still on their trays.

You’ll get to see how it all matches into my vanity when finish the diary entries on that :D

What do you all think?