Ages ago the lovely Miss Chrissy hand made me a detachable crochet collar and it was just about the cutest thing ever. I liked it so much that I thought I should make some different versions in different lengths to wear with different outfits.
This is the first one I made:
Here is the one that Chrissy made for me. It’s completely amazing and there are little pearls in every scallop!
Ok so let’s get started on ours! To begin with chain a foundation row which is as long as you want the inside of the collar to be. I made mine quite long because it was to fit a deep neckline.
Next do a row of single crochet.
Then a row of double crochet.
The increasing size of the stitches should allow you to shape it into a circle. Later on you can also thread ribbon through the double crochet row for a really cute look.
Next we start the lace section. Chain 9 and single crochet into every 5th stitch, repeat until the end. You will need to estimate how many stitches to leave between the single crochet depending on the length you made the collar so it works out evenly.
You should have something like this:
Now chain 11 and single crochet into the middle stitch of the scallop below. It will from a sort of lace mesh like this:
Now do one more row of the scallops with 11 chain between each single crochet as well.
There you have it! 3 layers of scalloping with a thicker base.
If you want to, you could even do a row of single crochet around the edge to make it thicker and cute. You can add a button to hold the sides together but I’m really partial to using the ribbon woven through to close it!
And there you go! This is a fairly quick project you can do while watching movies.
I hope you guys enjoyed the tutorial, let me know if you give it a try too, they are so perfect for almost any outfit!
So this whole Sharpie mug decorating craft has been everywhere. Like EVERYWHERE. And I figured it was time that I gave it a try finally. I wanted it to work so badly because it’s so cute but I only managed to get *kind of* results. Quite pretty and worth a try anyway so let’s get going!
I used a mug from Daiso and a mixture of Artline permanent markers and Sharpies.
There were so many different methods that I thought I would test them all and see what came out well. I drew each colour on to the bottom of the mug.
Plain drawing on the mug managed to stay through hand washing but not when I added detergent. Boo.
Then I thought that maybe using hand sanitiser would get cool effects like it does with Sharpies on silk painting. Yep it did! Cool watercolour effect!
I drew on a bunch of colour splotches.
Then used some sanitizer on my finger to spread it around.
Super cool look, very watercolourish! But even after being dry, it just came off on my hands because the sanitiser had degraded it. I then tried heat sealing it using a hairdryer on high until it was burning hot. Nope, it still all washed off with water.
So in a last ditch attempt I decided to try the oven version. I drew on my design again:
And tried slow baking it but still no dice. So what I’ve concluded from this is that it really does depend a lot on the glaze of the mug you’re using. There are so many kinds of glazes and so many kinds of mugs that this was never going to be able to work on all of them. Of course I could just continue buying mugs and trying until I find the perfect brand… but who has time for that? There is also the option of buying the specialty porcelain pens but until I have a whole crockery set to do I think they are a bit pricy for just 1 project.
Instead I have decided to embrace the non-permanence of it and am going to use the cup as my personal white board XD
Now I can write my order on the mug every morning for James XD
I’m in the middle of cleaning out my craft supplies, it seems to be a never ending process. Bleh. I got up to my yarn box today… this is my least favorite craft thing to organise because yarn never stays organised no matter how hard you try.
Monster yarn boooox!
To begin with I ignored the fact that the yarn was all tangled and wasted a bunch of time painting the basket instead. Because shut up. >_>
Rustic? Let’s go with that.
At that point I decided that it was probably time to do something about the yarn. So here’s how to make a center pull ball. Center pull balls are easier to work with because the yarn comes from the inside. So the ball can stay in the same place while you knit rather than rolling around on the floor.
So wrap the yarn around your 4 fingers several times leaving the tail long and hanging to the side.
Pull the bunch off your fingers and keep wrapping around the bunch.
Keep wrapping around the middle until it turns more into a fat sausage.
Eventually wrap it around into a ball shape. Keep the tail clear from the wrapping so it you were to pull it, it would easily unwind from the inside.
Wrap and wrap and wrap until you run out of yarn. Again, make sure that you can easily pull the tail. I like to hold the ball with my thumb on the tail while I’m wrapping so it’s easier to make sure it’s going to pull easier later.
And that’s done!
Repeat it with all of your other yarn and you might one day have a neat yarn box… maybe… until the next project anyway.
It’s marginally better at least and no more re-rolling next project!
Now I just need to decide how much of that yarn should even be in my collection because I have no idea what to do with half of it. -_-‘
Today’s hair tutorial is something a little more classically styled than usual!
Begin by separating your hair into two.
Add a cute alice band and make sure there is hair hanging in front of it/your ears.
Take the hair in front of the band and pull it out, twist it in a circle to form a loop against the side of the head.
Pin the loop to the scalp with a bobby pin. I’m using dark ones so you can see them but you should use pins which are the same shade as your hair. You want the loop to sit quite far out from the head to get the cool twisty effect.
Grab another section of hair behind the first and include the tail of the first loop.
Twist it into a loop lower down and further back than the first and pin in place. You can see the full loop pattern below.
Repeat the two loops on the other side of your head too.
You should have something like this! Now to create the final loop, put all of the loose hair into a low ponytail at the nape of your neck.
Use your fingers to poke a hole through the middle of the hair.
Pull the tail of the ponytail through the loop so it makes a nice twist. You can keep this tight or pull the band down further to loosen it up more.
I think this style looks really romantic with some long wispy strands curled down at the front too.
Such a romantic style, I feel like I should be on the cover of a novel when I wear my hair like this.
… less so when I’m holding my phone >_>
I hope you like the style, I’ve been feeling a lot more classic lately so let me know if there are any other styles like this you’d like to see tutorials for!
I know how many of you guys have been waiting for this one haha! Look at me doing this in a timely way for a change! Today let’s make a Puppycat coffee cup cozy ^_^
I love Bee and Puppycat so much, if you’ve not watched the first 10 minute episode you should definitely check it out here. I can’t wait for the whole series!
Ok enough gushing, let’s get started ^_^ You are going to end up with a cozy that looks something like this:
You will need:
4mm crochet hook.
White, pink, yellow, brown and black yarn. I’m using an 8ply DK weight and holding it doubled for extra thickness. My yarns were from different brands and slightly different thicknesses.
Scissors
Yarn needle
We will make the pink bottom collar section first and will only be working with just 1 strand of yarn for this section which will help give it the right shape for the coffee cup later.
For this part we will work from the top down.
Chain as many as you need to wrap around your mug. I was using a large mug so I chained 54 total.
Join the chain into a circle and make sure it’s not twisted around.
Chain 2 and then sc (single crochet) around the entire ring.
Once you reach the end of the round, join with a slip stitch and slip stitch 3 more. SC into the next stitch. DC (double crochet) around the row until you have 4 stitches left. SC into the next stitch and then slip stitch to the end of the row and tie off.
This will form Puppycat’s rounded Peter Pan-ish style collar.
Next let’s make the yellow bell. For the bell, use two pieces of yarn at the same time.
2 SC into each stitch for 1 round. 2 SC into the next stitch.
Chain 1 and turn work.
Alternate SC and 2SC until you reach the other side. Stop when it looks like this:
Slip stitch across the top of the bell, tie off and stitch it to the front of the collar.
I suggest weaving the ends in as you go using a yarn needle because it’s super tedious to do later!
Next we’ll make the main part of the coffee cozy.
Beginning at the back of the piece of work and working with 2 strands of yarn at once, tie on.
SC around the entire circle.
When you get to the back again, continue up and up until it’s as tall as you want the cozy to be. I needed 11 rows for a large cup. When you get it as tall as you need, continue to the back above where you joined on, slip stitch into the next stitch and tie off.
Next the ears, use pink and just 1 strand of yarn. In terms of placement, I did mine 4 stitches away from the edge of the bell.
Tie the pink yarn on and SC 3 stitches. Turn work, chain 1 and SC the next row.
Turn work, chain 1, SC into first stitch, skip the next one and SC into the last one.
Turn work, chain 1, skip the first stitch and SC into the next. Tie off yarn.
Repeat for the other ear!
Now we need to go around the edges of the ears in the brown. Again using 1 piece of yarn.
Tie on and slip stitch 1 stitch away from the edge of the pink ear. SC into the same stitch. SC up the side of the pink ear, when you reach the top do 3 SC into the same stitch to turn the corner.
SC down the other side and into the first white stitch. Slip stitch into that same white stitch, tie off.
Repeat with the other ear.
Next we need to make 2 grumpy eyebrows out of the brown.
Again these are with 1 piece of yarn. They are basically just little oval shapes.
Chain 6, SC down one side of the chain. When you get to the end, SC 3 times in the same stitch to turn the corner. SC down the other side. When you reach the end of the row, slip stitch into the previous round and tie off.
Repeat for a second eyebrow.
Now stitch the eyebrows onto the face and use some black yarn to embroider the eyes, nose, mouth and bell.
I used 2 strands of black yarn held together. The eyes are just 2 stitches into the same hole so they form a rounder shape.
The nose and mouth were each 1 stitch. The bell was a basic “Y” shape.
Once you weave all of the ends in you’ve officially got yourself a new friend to adventure with!
Now fill up on coffee and report to Fishbowl space for temp work!
I hope you enjoyed the tutorial, let me know if you have any questions and have fun 😀
Time for another beginners watercolour tutorial! Today we’re going to tackle something really important: shading!
So before we work on techniques, let’s learn about the basic timeline of a painting. Every artist has a different way of doing things but this is mine.
1. Sketch out a picture.
2. Ink the picture using a fine black pen.
3. Do a basic wash with light colours. A wash is what it’s called when you do one very thin coat with a base colour to work on.
4. Add shadows using a darker tone.
5. Once it’s dry, add highlights using a white gel pen.
Done!
So really what I’m saying is that basic shading consists of a base colour, shadow and highlight. Blend those colours together and you’re set. Just make sure that you keep in mind where the light source in your drawing is and shade according to that.
There are different ways to achieve shading as well. Below you can see a rose which has been shaded using different techniques.
Block shading is a technique where there is no blending of the shading at all, the colours are just painted on and left. This gives a cartoonish effect.
Blended shading is what the name suggests, where the shading is blended together.
It’s much easier to blend colours together smoothly when they are wet on wet paper. Have a look at at the picture below, there is a splotch of blue and of red and then water between them.
Using a clean brush with a little water on it brush the two colours together and swirl them to mix.
It is much easier to blend seamlessly on wet paper than it is with dry.
A combination of block and blended shading works really well on areas such as hair.
To achieve that, use a blended shading technique while it’s wet and then add block shading when it’s dry.
You can really play with things like colour once you get comfortable with shading.
For example here is a regular line drawing…
And here is a shaded version…
Practice is the most important part of this. It takes a while but when you’ve done enough drawings you can get a feel for things. It sounds really cliche but it’s very true! The more you practice drawing things the more it becomes muscle memory. Look at the world around you and look at where the light hits things, shading and colouring is a skill which is completely separate from drawing to learn so don’t be discouraged and practice both of them separately and together!
I hope you found this helpful and I can’t wait to see what you guys paint!
Illustrator. Strong tea, knitting, watercolours, and making a video game called Moonlight in Garland. Living with her adorable husband Jimmy, fluffy puppy Miss Lottie and Bergamot Bunny in Melbourne, Australia.
