Project 3. That Stupid Corner!

There is a corner in our lounge that I hate. It has a box platform plastered in and because it’s next to the TV and the heater it’s terrible for decorating. I want to sove this puzzle by putting our black hole vase there and filling it with flowers and other trinkets.

I have a random collection of flowers and bits and pieces to use.

This is my vase, we found it in the throw away pile downstairs. I call that place The Black Hole because it magically makes cool stuff appear but more on that in another post! I like this vase because it’s tall and has a pretty floral pattern with a classic shape.

These are the flowers I had to fill it with. Some of them are from my junk store stash, some were given to me by Celeste when she moved and some are keep sakes. There’s the peacock feather James found me at the zoo and my flower from the Langham as well as some little jewel trinkets.

The reason I chose these flowers in particular was because they all had complimentary colours and interesting textures. Some of them are soft, some pointy, some little, some big and some tall, some short.

Most of them had wire stems so to get different heights I just bent them to the length I wanted or snipped off the bottom. I preferred to bend them though so the vase looked fuller.

To fill the vase I started with the biggest  tallest pieces in the back.

I added pieces in odd numbers, so 3 long pointy pieces with small flowers.

Then the rest of the tall pieces around the back. There was no point adding them to the front as they would be covered by smaller flowers.

I didn’t stick to just flowers either, feathers, jewels and anything with a nice texture is good to fill in gaps.

Next I added a layer of medium flowers to fill the entire front of the vase so you couldn’t see in through the gaps anymore. The big roses were really good for this and because they also had some netting sections it was even better to give variety.

I put some large diamantes and crystals throughout the whole thing.

And lastly added some little tiny flowers to cover any annoying gaps.

To dress the corner up a bit I first put an old cake stand on the box. This gives the arrangement extra height and it’s a good place to store the cake stand which never actually gets used XD

Taadaa!

After playing around with the placement  added a pretty green bow and moved some of the taller flowers so it looked like a one sided sweep and pointed towards the window. I really like the way it brightens up the room!

What do you guys think? Another project done!

So you need:

• Ric Rac
• Glue or needle and thread

Twist the two pieces together so they form one long strand.

The length you need will depend on how big you want your flower but you do need a decent amount.

Roll the end into a little spiral. Fix it with a stitch or a dot of glue on the back.

Roll, roll, roll and roll some more until you have something along these lines :D Poke the end underneath.

Stitch or glue it all on the bottom!

Flip the outer layers down so they sit flat. I think its easier to do this if you’ve glued the bottom because stitching can have a lot less give to move it around.

Done!

Cute!

Just promise me you won’t be putting them on any scary dresses XD

Instead add them to something slightly more subtle and slightly less neon such as a pearl headband!

Hope you enjoyed and it doesn’t bring back any horrible memories of your grandma’s sewing XD

You need:

• Base shoes with a decent heel and an ankle strap. I’ll do another version for non-ankle strap shoes later.
• Faux fur
• Material for the inside, I used polar fleece
• Sewing machine or needle and thread (sewing fake fur by hand is VERY tedious though)
• Ribbons (optional)

So before I start just a quick tip on sewing faux fur: make sure the hairs and pointing away from the stitching as much as you can before you sew otherwise it will get caught in the stitching and be very annoying to get undone later. Also if you’re going to cut, separate the pile down the cut line before you snip so you get minimum hair all over the place.

Right, so we need to measure how long the faux fur needs to be. Wrap it around one of the shoes and use that as a length measurement. Remember to include a seam allowance and it’s always better to cut too much than too little.

So this is the height and width I ended up with. Make sure it’s tall enough to cover the top of the shoe easily as well as hide your toes.

I made sure to leave plenty extra on the top and sides for seams.

Cut out a matching piece of polar fleece but make it around 5cm shorter in the height measurement. This is because we really don’t want it sticking out on the wrong side.

Place the polar fleece on the furry side of the faux fur and stitch down both long sides so it makes a tube.

You should have something like this, see that there’s more fur than polar fleece when it’s laid flat.

Turn it inside out and you can see how it’s supposed to sit better.

And wrapped around the shoe you can see it coming together.

Measure how big it needs to be to get around the shoe and then stitch the ends of the tube together. I started at the end of the polar fleece, went around to the fur then finished up at the bottom of the polar fleece again. You can’t do the whole thing on the machine because it needs to turn slightly inside out to finish up so you will need to leave a gap at the end, it’s easier to hand stitch polar fleece so leave it there.

Afterwards you should have this:

Hand stitch up the gap and make one  for the other shoe too.

Now to hold them onto the shoe you have a couple of options:

• Slide them on and hope they don’t fall down during the day. Not recommended.
• Add two ribbon loops that you can slide the ankle strap of the shoe through so it stays in place all day. Recommended.
• Rush out the door because you are running late for your own fashion show and cut a couple of holes in the polar fleece so you can slide the ankle strap of the shoe through it. It’ll hold for now until you can do something a bit better and more permanent like the ribbon option later.

Anyway, ribbon is obviously the best option, just stitch a couple of little pieces on the inside that line up with the ankle straps on the shoes and you’re good to go.

Pop the cuff on the shoe and you’re finished! Really much easier than it actually sounds XD

I added a pin bow off one of my dresses to each side and that’s how the crisis was averted :D

And for bonus points, here’s a photo of me wearing them during the practice run :D

I really like them and now I’m thinking of buying a couple of other colours of fur so I can have different cuffs for different shoes. What do you guys think?

Then twisted them leaving the end as a circle.

I made a bunch of them like this…

Done! Next the red section. I wrapped the red wire around my fingers…

Then used some pliers to twist the ends together.

It ended up like a tear drop shape.

I flared the end loops out to form petals.

After making a second one I placed them on top of each other with the twisted ends in the middle.

To make the flower a bit fuller I wrapped the wire around my fingers again and twisted in the middle.

I flared it out and then placed it on top of the first red parts. I tied them all together with more wire and then added the yellow part in the middle.

Everything was held together with wire and then I inserted the bobbypin and wrapped it in with more wire.

Done!

You could make so many variations on this style.

I could really picture a gigantic version of this perched on top of a big bun, pinup style!

Now to think of what to make with the rest of the wire!