You’re probably all sick of pompom related tutorials by now… but I can’t seem to stop making stuff with them so you’ll have to suffer through it 😛
This is another version of the pompom hair ties that have been around, I think Daiso sells these particular ones too but this time rather than buying one I went straight to making it!
What you need:
Elastic
Needle and thread
Mini pompom yarn or pompom edging
Cut a piece of elastic, the actual length will depend on how much hair you are planning to hold with this. Thread your needle at this point too. In this tutorial I’m using black thread so you can see what I’m doing but you should pick a colour that matches the yarn you have.
Grab the end of your yarn lay it out on a table in a repeated “S” shape like this:
The width of this shape should be 2.5 times the length that you want the loops of the pompoms to be on the finished hair tie. Keep going forwards and backwards until you’ve accumulated a decent amount…
You want there to be enough to cover the piece of elastic when it’s completely stretched out like below. The blue line is how long the elastic is stretched.
Take the needle and thread it through each piece of yarn along the line indicated in blue below. It should be around 1cm from the middle.
Once you reach the other side turn around and leaving a 2cm gap go back up the other side then tie it off.
So after that you should have something like this:
Next take the piece of elastic and thread it through the track that you just made
This is the result you want…
Tie or stitch the ends of the elastic together 😀
Done!!
Now that I know how easy these things are to make I want to make a whole lot of them in different ways!!
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These little ribbon roses are very cheap to buy in bulk but there are times when the colour you need isn’t available or you can’t find the right size, so i’ll show you how to make them yourself. It’s insanely easy to do as well!
Update! I’ve made a video of the process for those of you who need some help:
What you need:
Ribbon
Needle and thread
… that’s it!
Now starting from the outside, roll it in towards the rest of the ribbon…And stitch it in place:
Now fold the ribbon backwards on a 45degree angle…
Roll that around the stem like this…
And stitch in place. From the top it looks like this:
Fold the ribbon backwards again and keep rolling as you stitch it. This is pretty much how you make the whole thing, keep folding backwards, rolling and stitching.
This is a view of how I stitch the bottom as I go…
After a while you’ll see the rose starting to form. It can take a little bit of practice to be able to get the petals to sit correctly, the key is to make sure that you don’t wrap it too tightly, you want the petals to fan out not stick around the stem.
Once you are happy with the size of the flower then cut off any extra and fold it down toward the stem.
And tie it all off…
It should look something like this from the side, if you wrap it too tightly it won’t fan out this nicely.
All done! Then just attach it to a hair tie and you’ve got a very cute accessory 😀
Once you get the hang of it, you can pretty much make them without paying too much attention. This is a great craft project for watching a movie with 😀
I’m using silver ribbon and black thread so you can easily see where I’m stitching. These flowers work best with ribbon where both sides are nice but if use ribbon with different textures on each side it can be quite an interesting effect.
First thing, fold down one end at a 45 degree angle and stitch it in place. You should leave a couple of cm at the bottom to form a stem.
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I love 3D beading, like all of those adorable cell phone charms and things but they look so hard to make! I made a milkshake one but that was with instructions so when I sat down with my beads the other day I was really worried that I would bugger it up!
But I am actually quite proud of the little bunny I ended up with! Apologies in advance for grainy photos, I started this on a whim in the middle of the night so I didn’t think to set everything up!
What you need:
Seed beads in various colours
Needle/thread
Medium bead (for the inside of the head)
Large bead (for the inside of the body)
A couple of crystal beads for the ruffle on the dress
First I made the head. I used 2 black beads for the eyes and a pink one for the nose.
I threaded the needle then tied it to the large bead.
Then I threaded 6 clear beads and ran the needle through the large bead again so it was secure:
I continued doing this around the whole head and strategically placed the face beads amongst the clear:
Once the whole thing was covered I pulled my thread to the top. I added around 14 beads and doubled the strand back down and through the middle hole again to for an ear.
Adorable ear:
Add a second one and you’ve got a head!
I added a small ring of 4 more seed beads to the bottom of the head to form a neck. Then I threaded the large bead on to form the body. I only had a red one this size but I would suggest using something of a similar colour to your beads haha!
Using the same technique as the head I put row upon row of purple beads from top to bottom until it was all covered.
Using a string of purple with one clear at the end I added the arms:
The I added a skirt to the bottom by threading a triangle of 3 more beads between each of the strands…
Then I joined those triangles of beads into a frill by adding a crystal bead between each. So running the needle around the edge went: bead bead crystal bead bead crystal bead bead crystal etc
Lastly I added the legs using clear beads and one purple one on the end to be shoes.
After knotting all of the loose threads and hiding them inside the beads I was finished!
Pretty damn cute for a first try if I do say so myself ^_^
I want to try making lots more of these little things but I’m not sure what to make! What do you guys think, any suggestions?
After discovering how easy it was to make heart pompoms James suggested the most awesome idea: strawberry pompoms!!
This is what I ended up with on my first try, with a little tweaking it could be perfect 😀
What you need:
Red yarn
White yarn
Green yarn
Something to make it on, I’m using an eyeshadow palette
Small sharp scissors
Wrap the green yarn around one end of the palette. This is going to form the leaves at the top of the strawberry so only use a bit of yarn and keep it down one end like this:
Using the white yarn wrap it around the other end of the palette a couple of times:
Then wrap around a layer of the red until it’s all covered…
Then wrap the white around a couple more times…
and more red…
Basically you want to keep alternating and layering the white/red until you have a decent amount.
Pull it off the palette and hold around the middle.
Tie some yarn around the middle and leave a tail if you want to hang it somewhere.
Cut all of the loops and you should have something like this:
Start trimming! Cut the bottom into a point and then cut the rest of the yarn to be uniform.
BPAYis having a competition and you could win $3000 😀 I sure could use $3000 so I’ll show you my entry in a little bit!
What is BPAY?
BPAY is a payment method that banks use to allow you to pay bills quickly and easily without having to deal with many separate companies. For example I can now pay my water, electricity, rent, phone etc bill from internet banking through BPAY in about 10 minutes rather than the long boring task this used to be 15 years ago when you actually had to go to each place to pay. Therefore I can now spend more time filming nail art tutorials, yay!
About the competition!
Everyone loves things short and sweet. They put smiles on faces and give us a warm glow inside. So we at BPAY figured if we could take a long arduous task like queuing at the post office to pay a bill and make it a short and sweet process online, the world would be a better place. And so we did.
To enter, you need to write either:
1. A recipe
2. Give a film synopsis
3. Pen a love poem
4. Write a short fiction
BUT the catch is you need to do that all in 120 characters or less.I decided that I would write one of my favorite quick, easy, lazy fudge recipes. It takes about 5 minutes to make and is pretty much impossible to screw up! This is what I came up with…
Put butter, 1pack marshmallows+block choc in container. Nuke 30sec, cool in fridge, cut, STUFF FACE WITH FUDGE!
111 characters, oh yeah 9 characters to spare=champion!
So want to see the long version of it?
What you need:
1 packet of marshmallows
1 block of chocolate
Some butter, around a tablespoon
Microwave proof container
You can use margarine or real butter, I didn’t want to waste the expensive margarine so I used cheap block butter.
So cut off a slice of butter.
And stick it into the microwave safe container.
Add the marshmallows…
Break the chocolate into pieces…
Add that too!
So this is what you should have…
Pop it in the microwave for 30 seconds. Mine is 1100w so if yours is different please adjust the time.
Use a spoon to mix it all up, the marshmallow should be liquid and sticky. Don’t worry if the rest of the ingredients are still solid because the marshmallow will melt them nice and slowly.
Mix until it looks like this:
If it gets hard before it’s combined just put back in the microwave for another 10 seconds and remix.
You want to end up with something like this…
Cool the whole thing in the fridge until it’s hard again.
Cut into squares…
And enjoy!
Deeeeeelicious!
So if you think you can do something awesome in under 120 words here’s how to enter…
You can enter via the BPAY competition website, SMS or by Twitter, with the best entry from each category winning $3,000. Not bad for 2 minutes worth of effort, just like paying your bills via BPAY.
2) Via SMS, text your name, category and your 120 character entry to 0427 777 743
3) Via Twitter, tweet the category and your 120 character entry to @BPAYSS
Category names:
Love Poem = POEM, Recipe = RECIPE, Short story = STORY, Film and Book synopsis = SYNOPSIS.Hope you enjoyed my superfast marshmallow fudge and give it a try! I only got that one piece because when I went to get some later it was all eaten *_*
This tutorial has been waiting for a very long time XD I first did this design when we moved here to Melbourne to celebrate going to a chocolate party and it was a big hit then so I’ve done it several times since! As you can see I went a little crazy with the nail art tutorials while I had long natural nails hahaha.
Hope that was helpful and let me know if any of you try it 😀
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.