Thursday 20 December 2012

Happy Holidays


I don't know if I'll update here again before the start of 2013, so here's wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Thank you to all of those that follow and/or have stopped by, pinned, commented, and shared links to my posts. You've given me the motivation to keep this blog going! 

Saturday 15 December 2012

Friendship Bracelets


A while ago I got hooked on making friendship bracelets. Though they were time-consuming, I liked the result. Since I have a ton of embroidery floss (perfect for these bracelets!) I ended up making a number of them!


I won’t go into detail about the process, because there are tonnes of friendship bracelet tutorials out there.

However, here’s a quick rundown of how I embellished the ones above.

Left to Right:

Blue Tones: Added studs (taken from a broken watch strap)

Pink/Purple/Yellow: Sewed on colour-coordinating skull beads using matching embroidery thread (I finished this bracelet with a snap closure, as I made it a bit too big!) 

(These last two bracelets were made for a friend. As she very much an outdoorsy, nature-loving person, I picked natural colours!):

Green/Brown/Beige: (No extra details)

Green/Brown: Added small beads in the process of weaving the bracelet. I threaded a bead onto the centre two strands and then continued weaving around it, leaving the centre strands out of the design until I reached the bottom of the bead, where I tied it on. This gave the bracelet a ‘wobbly’ shape.

Saturday 8 December 2012

Advent Calendar and Christmas Window!




Whilst browsing Pinterest, I found a great idea to use toilet paper tubes as an advent calendar.
Mind still on the Christmas window planned for the charity shop (more on that later in this post!) I decided to make one!


I painted up a bunch of toilet paper tubes, bent them to shape, and used scraps of ribbon to decorate. The numbers were written on the back of cracker playing cards, cut in half.


In order to hang these up, I used loops of clear elastic (the same stuff as I used for the recycled magazine garland)



 We’re lucky to have this gorgeous lace curtain as a background for the window, so I pinned the advent calendar to it, in a heart shape.


Using a paper decoration kit, I made some woven hearts and stars, along with some interconnected heart and star decorations, some of which I pinned on the curtain around the advent calendar….


Isn’t the straw star cute? A fellow volunteer brought it in for the display. 



Yet again my attempts at photographing from the outside were scuppered by the reflection on the window!


Here’s part of the display. Recognise the printable over the back there? ;)
I utterly love that old lamp. I hope it finds a good home.


Using off-cuts from the woven hearts and stars, I made these paper heart chains as well.  I also sewed the two hanging hearts (they aren’t for sale though!)
Of course, the angel specimen art I created is there, too…

One of these has already sold! Hurrah!

 And here are the woven stars, which turned out to be one of my favourite parts of the display. They are simply strung onto cotton and pinned into the ceiling tiles:


This year, there was a ‘Best Dressed Window’ competition in the town where the charity shop is.  
We won third place!

Wednesday 5 December 2012

Angel Specimen Art


angel specimen art with sequins

The other day I posted about the recycled magazine garland that I made for a Christmas display window at the place where I volunteer.

Today I want to share another Christmas project: Angel specimen art! 

specimen art for christmas

I started off with some really worn out old frames from the charity shop; I actually borrowed these from the shop where I volunteer, in order to give them a ‘makeover’ so they could be re-sold! Originally they were a grubby pink, filthy, and with sticky gunk all over the glass. Yuck!

Specimen art was one of the suggestions I had when I posted pictures of my crafting stash a few months ago.

Here’s a quick how-to, though it’s really pretty simple!

Saturday 1 December 2012

Recycled Magazine Garland

recycled magazine garland

At the charity shop where I volunteer, we were recently discussing a Christmas-themed window display. The manager, Ann, wanted a red and white Scandinavian-inspired theme! I decided to make this red and white garland from old magazines to put in the display.
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