Craft Archives - Page 9 of 77 - Violet LeBeaux

How To Make A Puppy Mattress – Lottie’s Home Sweet Home

by VioletLeBeaux | Nov 17, 2014 | Craft, Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Miss Lottie Pomeranian, Storage/Utility-Tutorials, Tutorial

Miss Lottie’s new-ish house isn’t nearly as soft and comfy as her old strawberry was 🙁 So I set about making it a bit more awesome by making a little mattress she could sleep on in the bottom. I’ve tried putting blankets and regular pillows in but she just shoves them to the back >_<

Anyway the end result was really cute!

For this tutorial you will need:

Fabric
Lace
Stuffing
Needle and thread or a sewing machine

Measure out enough fabric for the pillow and cut two pieces.

Now put the fabric with the good sides together and then place a piece of lace between them along where the seam will be

Stitch along that line making sure you’re going through the edge of the lace as well.

When you open it back out the lace should poke out like this:

Continue all the way around the edge leaving a little gap at the end.

Poke your fingers inside the gap…

And turn the whole thing inside out.

Fill the pillow with stuffing.

And then close up the hole.

Now stitch diagonally through the pillow:

And then diagonally the other way so it forms diamonds.

And that’s it, all done!

So cute! And a perfect fit for her new house.

Of course, that doesn’t stop her from sleeping everywhere else… like on my plate -_-‘

Oh Lottie.

Maxi Dress Walk Through Tutorial

by VioletLeBeaux | Oct 31, 2014 | Clothing-Tutorials, Craft, Tutorial

Kind of a dress walkthrough rather than a full tutorial today. I made a really basic maxi dress with some of the fabric I bought from Brunswick and thought you guys might like to see the process!

This fabric is so pretty. I love that it looks like rainbow paint spots! It reminds me of watercolours.

To begin with I cut two rectangles for the skirt and a smaller rectangle for the bodice. Helper dog kept all of my fabric straight for me.

I cut the back part of the skirt in half so I could eventually install a zip there and overlocked all of the seams. I stitched the 3 skirt pieces together into a long rectangle with the back seams free to put the zip into later.

I then gathered the top of the skirt section into a ruffle using the function on my sewing machine.

Skirt ruffle!

Huzzah, basic skirt!

Next I made the top. It was a very large rectangle folded in half and overlocked around the sides so it could be turned inside out.

The skirt was lined up with the bottom of the bodice and sewn on.

Getting there but the bodice section needs to be gathered to make it fit correctly.

I ruffled the back of the bodice where the zip would eventually go and secured it with several lines of stitching.

Then I gathered a line on each side of the bodice and one in the very middle. This allowed it to become more form fitting and interesting. I also installed the zip into the back at this point and added a bottom hem to the skirt.

Lastly I sewed a couple of rectangles into tubes and made straps out of them. Considering I always wear cardigans with dresses like this the top really wasn’t a huge concern as long as it was reasonably fitted.

All done!

Floaty and fun!

This dress is so comfortable and nice to wear, the fabric is silky and beautiful. Next time I go I hope they have some more so I can make a shorter bias cut flippy dress out of it too!

Hope you enjoyed the “sew-through” an I’ll see you guys next time! What have you all been sewing lately? I need some inspiration!

Crochet Needle Case Tutorial

by VioletLeBeaux | Oct 29, 2014 | Craft, Other-Tutorials, Tutorial

For today’s tutorial let’s make a knitting/crochet needle case! I say this like it’s for your benefit… but really it’s something that I have desperately needed for like 10 years and been too lazy to do.

But look, now my needles are so neat and I won’t lose them anymore!

Unlike before where it was like this:

Not even exaggerating there which is sad.

Ok let’s do it, I’m using a 3.5mm needle and 8ply yarn. Make a foundation chain which is 5cm longer than your longest needle. Chain 2 more and then do a row of single crochet. Chain 2 and do another row of single crochet.

Now we make the netting. Chain 4 and double crochet into the second stitch. Chain 1 then double crochet into the second stitch. Continue this pattern the entire row.

When you reach the end, chain 4 and repeat the pattern again. It will form a nice grid.

Continue until you have a piece which is big enough to hold all of your needles, hooks, etc. To finish it off, do 2 rows of single crochet at the end.

Once you get in the rhythm it’s actually really easy to do.

Just make sure you are matching up the double crochet stitches or else the grid will be lopsided.

Now you just need to fit all of your needles into it!

Just weave them through the holes.

For storage, roll the fabric up until a tube and use a needle to hold it closed.

Much more organised!

Well that’s one of my long term projects finally crossed off my list! I don’t know why I even waited so long, it looks so much better! What are some projects you’ve been putting off?

Removable Crochet Collar Tutorial

by VioletLeBeaux | Oct 27, 2014 | Craft, Other-Accessory-Tutorials, Tutorial

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!

Does Drawing On Mugs With Sharpies Work?

by VioletLeBeaux | Oct 24, 2014 | Craft, Other-Tutorials, Tutorial

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

Lottie approves and that’s all that matters >_>

How To Make A Center Pull Yarn Ball

by VioletLeBeaux | Oct 22, 2014 | Craft, Other-Tutorials, Tutorial

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!