To keep myself motivated I’m breaking my long craft lists into smaller more manageable ones! I’m only going to put 5 projects at a time on each list and then I think I’ll be able to get through stuff faster without being overwhelmed. Once stuff gets crossed off this list I’ll update it with more stuff from the big lists!
Reader requests:
Nail art using fimo slices
Purikura iphone app reviews
New Blythe outfit for Miss Rosebudd
Pencil wrapping/embroidery
How to apply false lashes
Long term (stuff to do while watching movies at night):
Knitted scarf- 60% done
Embroidered purse 25% done
Reupholster the couch 0% done
Quilted handbag remake 50% done
Short projects (stuff I can do a couple of a day):
Suspenders out of house hold junk
Using pocky mold for chocolate
Rice crispy square recipe
Black wedges remake
Butterfly hair clips
Sewing machine required:
Recycle tartan skirt
Pink nightie to skirt
Basic hime dress
Pinstripe skirt and jacket
New slippers
Hair/Make up stuff:
Bun with side twisty things
Hurry up and edit morning make up videos
Looped braid hair
Making 1 curl last a week on holidays
What to do with short nails
So this isn’t a completely boring post, here are some random purikura photos I made XD
Well enough talking, it’s time to get to it! I’m going to put my new exploring Melbourne thing into practise tomorrow and head out to some local markets 😀
So to go with the new Food Friday thing I’m going to do I decided I need a spiffy new hat 😀 But I really didn’t want to spend a lot of time or effort on it. Scraps pile to rescue!
I used the top of a skirt which had stretchy smocking sewn into the waist band (the cut of which made it HIDEOUS when worn) and some lining out of another dress I’m planning to cut up. You could easily do the same with some white fabric and something stiffer for the band around your head.
My result:
So what you need:
White fabric for the poufy bit
Shirred/smocked fabric for the stretchy thing or stiff fabric to use as the band
Needle, thread scissors
Ability to not spend a long time looking at your awesome new hat in the mirror
So what did I do? Measured around my head and cut that much of the smocking.
Needle and thread at the ready, I stitched up the sides to make it into a band. I also trimmed the top a bit so it looked more like a frill not a skirt.
To make the top poufy bit I cut out a big square piece of white fabric, the bigger the square the bigger the pouf. If you wanted to be correct it’s probably better to use a circle but I’m not going to lie: laziness was prevailing on my couch at the time.
Use the needle and thread to gather all around the edges of the white.
Pull it tight so it’s fits the stretchy band.
Turn the band inside out and stitch the pouf to the inside. You could finish everything off with machine stitching, overlocking etc but again… laziness because this is just a prop and I’m not a real chef XD
So you should have something along these lines. Haha I forgot to remove the tag from the inside >_<
Flip it the right way around and you’ve got yourself quite the spiffy hat there! Super girly and it matches my awesome apron too 😀
With a cute outfit now I have more motivation to bake!
Stay tuned tomorrow for the super cute cafe I visited!
This post is devoted entirely to Sirena Sparklestar, without whom I wouldn’t have rediscovered my love of my old toys or combined it with my love of sparkles. Do check out her blog, it’s full of very pretty crafts and beauty things!
The story behind this tutorial is that I was desperately searching through my box of old toys for something and I came across my old Polly Pockets, I used to have a massive collection of them as a kid but over the years they all gradually disappeared other than the first one I ever got: a little star locket and a rose locket. I still love it after all of these years and as a fitting way to make it a little more my current style I decided to deco it.
I’ve done a fair few deco tutorials on the blog and to be honest they are all the same: glue big pieces/edges, fill the rest. So this time I thought I would let the photos speak for themselves ^_^Taadaaa, now I just need to put it on a necklace ^_^
I completely forgot I made this top… fail! I went through a period of making lots of matching pajamas and things around a year ago and while I was digging around trying to clean up my craft shelves I found it! I’m thinking I might unpick it and use the fabric for something else now but in the mean time this is how I made a really simple comfy top XD
What you need:
Fabric
Stretchy elastic lace trim
Sewing machine/overlocker or a lot of patience to hand stitch it all
Scissors
This is the easiest possible way to make a singlet style top like this because it takes very little measuring etc.
Firstly cut 2 pieces of the trim which are long enough to go around your chest, measure around your rib cage. Then cut a rectangle of fabric which is around twice as long as that and as tall as from your underarms to how long you want the shirt.
These are my pieces with the fabric folded in half:
Overlock all the edges to seal them and stitch the trim to one of the long ends.
You should stretch it as you sew so that when you let go it ruffles up like this.
Stitch the other trim piece in the middle also stretching it.You will need to decide how high up you want the waist part of the shirt so you know were to stitch it. Having this band gives the shirt more shape. If you want to get fancy you can sew it in a kind of curved line so it leaves more space for your chest in the middle.
Fold the whole thing in half with the good side in and stitch the edges together down the side.
If you want you can edge the bottoms with a proper seam but seeing as this was not going to be seen by anyone other than James, I left them overlocked. I’m not convinced he could tell the difference anyway XD
Add a couple of straps from the same stretchy trim and that’s all done!
Once you get the basic shape understood you can made all kinds of variations. My favorite around the house dress was made using the same idea but with a much longer skirt, a little lace trim at the bottom and pinching the fabric at the bust to give a very flattering line.
I know some of you have been waiting for patterns for a lot of the older sewing tutorials I did, well I’ve just finished off the first batch ready to export and upload as well as some random wallpapers that I got carried away with making so next week I’ll put them all up for a downloading day haha!
Eyelashes, I love them. I love them in all shapes and forms, crazy or little I don’t care, I just love them 😀 and you all know I like making things… so of course it follows I wanted to make my own lashes!
For my first attempt I went for something crazy, long and spindly, now that I’ve got the hang of it I want to make so many other kinds too! The result…
What you need to make your own false lashes:
Fabric, something thin and easy to take apart, I’m using organza which is perfect
Small scissors
Hair Straightener
So first thing’s first you need to cut a rectangle of the organza, the easiest way to do these is to use the selvage (finished edge that comes off the machine when the fabric is made) as the base. To prevent the organza from fraying and coming apart the side edges are finished like this:
So cut most of the selvage off but leave around a 1-2mm edge on the bottom, this will form the band of the lashes which will eventually hold the glue! Make sure you leave enough there that it doesn’t completely unravel.
You will need the rectangle to be as wide as you want the lashes then as tall as you want the longest part of the lashes. Better to leave them a bit longer than you think because you can always trim down later.
This is where it gets a bit tedious! What you need to do is slowly pull out all of the horizontal bits of thread in the fabric. You can use a pin to pry them free a couple at a time, nice and easy but very boring.
What you’ll end up with is something along these lines and a bunch of little threads all over your work space:
Getting there but they don’t fit the shape of your eye yet so gently pull and coax the base into a semi circle. It should have a little bit of give to it so it will hold shape. You can see the before and after below.
I made mine very wide because I didn’t know how long I wanted them to be, here’s one of my other lashes beside it.
So trim them down to the correct width.
Use the little scissors to cut the lash threads into whatever shape/length you want. I wanted them to be small in the middle then wing out. I also wanted to make the lengths more natural so I make sure not to cut straight across but instead by pointing inwards and snipping in small strokes.
Snip snip…
Taadaaa. Awesome but they don’t curl like lashes should so if you were to wear them now they would look pretty silly!!
To curl them we need heat but not too much heat because it’s effectively made of plastic and we don’t want to melt them!
The first thing I tried was to smooth the lashes carefully (VERY CAREFUL SO YOU DON’T BURN YOURSELF) over the curved edge of my straightener.
While indeed that did work, it wasn’t the smooth curve that I was looking for.
What came to the rescue in the end was my laptop tray table’s metal legs! Perfectly curved and conducts heat well. You can use anything this shape which conducts heat without melting (so no plastic!).
I held the lash on.
Covered it with a piece of fabric to hold in place and avoid burning fingers…
And used the heat of the straightener!
Bam lashes!
Gigantic lashes 😀 Spindly, long and fun to wear!
These are the kind of lashes that make me want to make smouldering faces XD
SMOULDER!!
So there you have it! My first attempt at making lashes went pretty well, I’m happy with them and I want to make a heap more of them in different styles 😀 I kind of want to try it with patterned fabric too and make some multi coloured ones, so many possibilities!
Miss Samanteina Bloodmyer requested a tutorial on making those hair bows which are small opaque bows encased in bigger netting bows. I think maybe it was Chocomint that kicked off this trend but I can’t remember. So here we go 😀
My result for a bow inside a bow…
What you need:
Opaque fabric for inside
Netting/tulle for outside
Needle, thread scissors
These couldn’t be easier to do!
Cut out two rectangles of the opaque fabric for the inside bow…
Lay them together good sides facing, stitch around the outsides leaving a few cm gap.
Turn it inside out and stitch up the hole!
Next lay it on top of your netting and cut out two much larger rectangles…
Again stitch around the outsides as you did with the first bow and leave a bigger gap this time, around 10cm.
Turn it inside out but don’t stitch it up yet!
Now poke the entire first bow through the hole of the first and inside it.
You get something like this with the opaque bow in the middle:
Cut another smaller rectangle of the opaque fabric to wrap around the middle and hold it together. Pleat both bows together.
Stitch it together securely and you’ve got a pretty cute bow!
Taadaaaaa!
Of course you just need to add a bobby pin, pin or something to attach it to whatever you like! I’ll have to take you all through a tour of my accessories wall sometime, with all of this bow making it’s gotten a bit out of control haha!
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.
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