10 things i love: DIYs to try before christmas

November 21, 2012.Reading time 1 minute.

#1 Hot Chocolate paper cups

Hot Chocolate paper cups – Adorable!

#2 Felt pine cones

Just follow the link for pattern and instructions!

#3 DIY Button Christmas card

So simple and adorable!

#4 year-round ornaments

Why not try making these posh-looking ornaments?

#5 Easy made advent calendar

Very minimalistic yet beautiful. I love the idea! Made by A Few Things From My Life.

#6 Oranges and cloves

Classic orange and cloves Christmas decor!

#7 Hand-made Christmas tree

Found this here.

#8 Hot chocolate dippers

thinkgarnish has a short decription of how to make those! Yummy!

#9 Paper snow flakes!

I found a cute little and fairly simple tutorial.
And here are patterns for more advanced snow flake cutting.

If you’re really enthusiastic and patient it could end up like this:

#10 Cute knitted/crocheted mug cozies

I couldn’t find the original link, just a link to etsy, but lizspinspiration blogged about this and tried making some herself. I think I have to go find some wool…

the brightest star in the sky [3D paper star tutorial]

November 18, 2012.Reading time 3 minutes.

I promised to post some low budget christmas decor tutorials. Here’s the first:

How to make a 3D paper star:

But one of my ‘by the way’s first. If you’re looking for a book to read or christmas gift, Marian Keyes novel “The Brightest Star in the Sky” might be worth checking out. I ‘accidentally’ bought it at the airport and read it. Normally it’s not a book I’d grab, but I rather liked it. The characters are pretty awesome and so is the story for the most part. But I hated the end. It ruined the whole thing. So if you’re someone who never finishes the book they started reading, it’s perfect.

Back to the paper star.
First, you need 30 sheets cut into squares. I used pages from an old book (side length 4,5”/ 12cm).The whole star is about 8”/20cm in diameter. So if you want your star to be bigger or smaller, adjust the size of your paper squares. But don’t make them too tiny, it might get to hard to fold the paper.

Now start folding your 30 sheets of paper like shown in the pictures. It’s important that you always fold the lower right corner in the second step.

Now comes the fun part. After following the instructions you should have a pyramid put together from 3 pieces of paper. Starting from one of the pyramid’s corners you now build a second one.

Open one of the folds as done before. With two new pieces you build the second pyramid.

Go on like that until you’ve got five pyramids/spikes. Make sure that it looks like it does in the picture. If you only have four spikes, something went wrong. In that case it’s way faster to start again from the first pyramid than trying to figure out what went wrong.

From whatever angle you look at the star, there should always be 5 spikes that go together. Each folded paper square is part of two spikes if that helps figuring it out.

Once you finish your first star, it gets way easier and the second star won’t even take half as long. They look best in a group of different sizes or hanging from ceiling lights. You could also use a single one as topper for your christmas tree. Have fun!!

come dance with me

November 12, 2012.Reading time 1 minute.

I did it.

After a weekend of listening to Sinatra and being covered over and over in tulle I managed to make my own Petticoat. Here it is:

I wanted to do that for years and had the fabric and tulle lying around since last year. It took quite a lot of time (all that fabric gathering is very tiring and costs a lot of time and nerves…) but good ol’ Frank (and some glasses of red wine) helped me not to lose it.

This one turned out like I wanted – not too puffy (I made it for my christmas dress I’m working on at the moment). But I’m planning on doing a second one that’s fuller and has more layers (for my upcoming 50’s dresses – yay!). I’ll probably do a tutorial on Petticoat sewing as well, but don’t be disappointed if that doesn’t happen in the next few weeks. I’ll probably have to buy a few more Sinatra records before…

Refashion It! The Old Mirror [sort of tutorial]

November 10, 2012.Reading time 3 minutes.

I’m a girl. And I adore jewelry. Of course.

I love buying it, wearing it and making it myself. The only thing that annoyed me for years was not knowing how to store it.

I have a really nice jewelry stand for necklaces, but nothing for earrings – one of the reasons why I often wear the same earrings for weeks, because I don’t think of all the others stored in little boxes somewhere.

I found some really nice earing holders in a cute shop in Covent Garden, but too expensive for my taste. Nevertheless, they did inspire me to make my own.

Since I love how everything’s reflecting in the mirrors in jewelry shops and therefore looks so much nicer, I came up with the idea of upcycling an old mirror that has been waiting in a corner for months. (So old that it has an “made in GDR” stamp on the back cover).

It was rather easy to do, but it took some time and creativity to decorate it.

If you got an unneeded mirror and an old wooden frame, some wire and some bells and whistles for decorating, it’s easy to copy.

Here are some pictures of the crafting process:

The mirror’s original colour was red. Before painting it and adding wire and decoration, I removed the back cover and the glass panel.

First I sandpapered then painted the frame. (I did not only use plain white paint, but also light browns, ivory and grey to make it look more vintage). I used some old florist’s wire and shaped it with help of a pencil. I attached it to the frame by wrapping the ends around small nails (1”) .

Decorating is definitely the best part, but it takes a lot of time to find things that go well together and I tried a lot of different ideas until I came up with this:

I printed pictures on book pages and cloth, wrapped satin ribbon around the wire and found some pretty postcards to glue on the mirror.

Finally, all my little treasures have their own display.

We haven’t found a way to nail stuff onto the wall yet, since we don’t have wallpaper in our new flat (the plastering starts crumbling immediately 🙁 ). But it doesn’t look too bad sitting on the dresser.

diamonds are a girls best friend [Bracelet Tutorial]

September 22, 2012.Reading time 4 minutes.

…but not many of us can actually afford those pretty little friends. Me neither and that’s why I make a lot of my jewelry myself and try to do that as inexpensive as possible. I use all kinds of materials, just recently I tried making jewelry from old pieces of fabric and cheap plastic beads. It turned out really nice, I think.

Here is how to make one of those: (It takes about an hour, so take your time.)

#1 – What you need

Basically, you don’t need any fancy materials and tools to make this. Make sure you have:

– large plastic beads (they don’t have to be the same size) or an old necklace/ bracelet

– a piece of fabric/ scraps (it should be at least 30cm x 5cm, depending on the size of your beads)

– matching thread, a needle, scissors

– a matching, rather narrow piece of gift ribbon, if you want to give your bracelet a final touch up. Be creative with your choice of fabric and ribbon. I used a cream-coloured ribbon (6mm) for both bracelets.

You won’t need a sewing machine, but it’s useful and goes faster if you have one.

#2 Pick out the beads you want to use or cut an old necklace of yours. You can use plastic or wooden beads with different sizes and probably different shapes, as well, but make sure the size difference is not too big.

#3 Pick out the fabric and a matching ribbon (optional). If you want your bracelet to be more modest, leave off the ribbon. If you pick a fabric with a bigger pattern, try to imagine how it looks on your beads (Just wrap it around one of your beads and see what it looks like). You might be better off with a smaller pattern.

For the length of the fabric, measure the circumference of your wrist + some extra cm (30 cm should work for most of you). For the width, cover the largest bead that you are going to use + 1cm for the seam allowance.

#4 Fold the right sides together, sew the fabric end to end using 0,5cm seam allowance. Turn inside out. You can do that with the help of a pen or brush.

#5 Slide a bead into the tube (but leave at least 5cm of the tube open), then stick a needle through the tube above the bead and wrap it around the tube several times then tie it off. Try to hide the knot. Repeat until all the beads are in the tube (I used 10 beads (1,5cm) for each bracelet).

#6 After you finished putting the beads in, close both ends.

#7. Cut the ribbon (twice the length of your fabric). Sew it to one end of your bracelet, tie it off. Wrap it around the beads (see picture below) and sew it to the other end of your bracelet. I wrapped it around the ends several times before sewing it.

Use the loose ends of the ribbon to make a knot and a bow. And you’re done!