like fireflies in december [DIY advent calendars]

December 1, 2012.Reading time 3 minutes.

#1 overflowing waterfall Advent calendar

I got this one this year. I’m still overwhelmed. Can you believe what was in there this morning (1st Dec)? A second smaller Advent calendar with 24 different tea bags. Calender-ception!

#2 pillow case into Advent calender

This one I made for my parents last year. It was a last minute project (yeah, December comes after November, I should start to remember that…).
It took a few hours, since I sewed the whole thing myself. It’s basically made from two pillow cases, one brown, one red and small pieces of white cloth.

Unfortunately, I didn’t make many pictures during the process, but it’s fairly easy to explain:

1. Cut one of the pillow cases in half, so one part still has the zipper/fastening part on it. Take that part and close the now open end. (Open the zipper, turn the pillow case inside out, sew right sides together, turn again.)

This way you end up having a narrow pillow case/ bag I used as “door” for Dec 6, St. Nicholas’ Day and also attach the other bags. It was big enough to put a magazine in there and some bigger chocolates.

2. Cut out little fabric square and write the numbers on them (I used fabric paint – makes it more permanent).

3. Cut out rectangle pieces for the “doors”/ little bags. Sew the numbers on before you sew the bags. Makes it much easier.

4. Don’t forget to include the strings so you can close the little bags.

5. Sew some cute buttons on the pillow case / bag 6 to attach the other bags. Make two buttonholes for the calendar to be hung up.

6. Fill with whatever you want.

7. Put everything together.

#3 more cute Advent calendar DIY ideas

1. Advent calendar that’s been refilled every year – some bags lost on the way…

Why not use all kinds of different socks and bags? I love the “patchwork” idea!

2. burlap activity countdown calendar

Optimal for filling with time.

3. matchbox Advent found at Matha Stewart

4. envelope calendar – found at Design Sponge

5. paper bag Advent calendar by lovely things

Simple, yet beautiful.

6. Christmas ornament calendar by life as a thrifter

nice idea for everyone who has too many ornaments lying around in boxes…

sweet dreams are made of this [bedtime candy, chalkboard paint project #1]

November 30, 2012.Reading time 2 minutes.

“It is one of life’s bitterest truths that bedtime so often arrives just when things are really getting interesting.”

— Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #11)

After seeing some pretty awesome chalkboard paint projects we wanted to do some chalkboard painting ourselves. So we ordered the cheapest paint we could find on Amazon. It finally arrived today and we started right away! We have guests over the weekend and I love to prepare Betthupferl (German for bedtime candy), so I had the idea of upcycling some old jam jars. I keep loads and loads of jars, sometimes they come in pretty handy. Since I never used chalkboard paint before, it wouldn’t have been great damage if the paint wasn’t good at all.

Here’s how I did it:

I used this brand, mainly because it was quite inexpensive. It was really easy to use and worked out well. I wouldn’t use it indoors, since it’s a spray and as you can see on the picture below it scatters the paint on a large scale. It’s best to hold it about 30cm from the surface and whilst spraying keep the can in motion. After applying the first layer wait at least 3-5 minutes until the next. For the jars one layer was enough, I did two though just to be on the safe side.

For labelling I used a liquid chalk marker. Fill with candy, apply ribbon – and you’re done! A cute idea and pretty simple to copy – our guests loved it!

So here they are – stuffed with goodies, sweet dreams guaranteed!

I’m afraid I’m a chalkboard paint addict now… There will be more chalkboard paint projects coming up for sure!

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.