Christmas Cheer and all that...

Well, our Christmas present plans had a last minute upheavel. It was decided (after I'd finished my Christmas shopping/making of course *face palm*) that we'd only give presents to immediate family from now on, not all of the uncles, aunts, cousins, random people off the street, etc ;) So I had the fun job of unwrapping some of my own pressies :P Oh well! It will make life much easier for future years.

I think the pressies I made this year went down quite nicely. My lovely step sister sent me a message especially to say nice things about her fabric necklace (yay!), my great aunt refused to open her present in front of me but told me later that she really liked it (yay again!) and my nan clearly loved her family tree bracelet and showed it to anyone who'd stand still for a second on Christmas day (triple yay!). My appologies to the rest of the family who had to admire the bracelet for Nan and make appreciative noises. I think the other pressies went down pretty well too. Mum loved Nan's bracelet, so now I'm in the process of making one for her, which I think will turn out great and I'll post some piccies here when it's done.

I think I need to open a madeit.com.au store as an outlet for my sewing and beading. I seem to make a lot of stuff for fun and just have it sitting around the house, unused. Much better that it go to an appreciative home!

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and have a safe and happy New Year!

A Few Of My Favourite Things - Cross My ART

I just want to give a quick shout out to a lovely artist who I was lucky enough to come across at the Adelaide Gift and Craft Christmas fair this year. Her work is quirky and fun, I was instantly in love! Then when it came to purchase time, I just couldn't make up my mind! Her generosity was amazing <3 

Here's one of my favourites, I bought an apron with this on - so true!

Image (c) Kayt Kennon

Check out her stuff on Facebook! Cross My ART (Facebook Group)

Failed Birthday Present - Cute Idea Though!

One of my friends is having her 21st very soon, so I decided I'd make something a little special for her. I thought about making a fabric necklace, because they're almost fool proof so I couldn't stuff it up! But I decided no, I'd better make something a bit more dressy since it's an important occasion.

So I made this:

Front view

Back view

And didn't like it. I still like the idea, but the implementation wasn't great. Basically, I cut little pretty bits from some of my favourite fabrics and glued them into some of those lovely Tibetan silver frames, a little varnish, then added some pretty Swarovski crystal dangles. I think it just looks too casual when worn, which is great and all but not what I was going for.

So, modification time. I altered it to this instead:

Front view

Back view

Much happier with this. Simple, elegant, pretty! Yum! So, I wrapped it all up with her other bits of presents and had it sitting there happily waiting for the party.

Unfortunately, I'd forgotten that this friend is allergic to silver...

*face palm* 

Luckily, we just happened to be talking about jewellery before her party and she reminded me of this, which of course sent me in to panic mode! Luckily I managed to make a fabric necklace (oh, back to Plan A now are we?) in time and with sufficient sparkle to keep everyone happy :)

Recognise this from an earlier post, anyone?

Tutorial - Fabric and Wooden Bead Necklace

Wow! It's been a very busy few weeks and I just haven't had time until now to get this tutorial together. Finally, it is done! It's easy and I've taken lots of photos so that you can (hopefully!) understand what's going on.

Materials:

• Fabric - you could use just one fabric for the tube and the ties, or use two coordinating fabrics like I have here. It needs to be thin enough to tie knots in easily - cotton is good.
• Wooden beads - size depends on how chunky you want the necklace to be :)
• Coordinating cotton thread
• Sewing machine!
• Optional - fusible interfacing (if your fabric of choice is stretchy or thin it can be make life easier)

What to do:

I'll warn you here and now that I'm not a precise person when it comes to craft. I do this just for fun and I usually enjoy doing lots of small projects quite quickly rather than having big long term projects. Measuring is boring :) (Okay, okay.. it's sometimes important!) Thus, my cutting isn't always straight and I tend not to hem or do any fancy stuff on edges - you can of course suit yourself and do this if you want ;)

First - gather materials! I like to wash and iron all of my fabric before I start.

Work out how much material you need for your tube and your two ties. Typically, I use a 100cm long strip for the tube and two 50cm ones for the ties - this makes it easy to make out of a fat quarter, as you basically cut four strips (2 for the ties, 2 for the tube) and sew the two tube ones together. In this case I used a fat quarter for the ties but not the tube, so I skipped that step.

To work out how wide the fabric needs to be, get your bead and fold the fabric over it, leaving a decent amount for the seam. Be generous - if there's too much room in the tube after sewing you can always sew a little closer, but you can't exactly make a too-small tube bigger! Cut your tube and your tie pieces to the same width. 

If you're using interfacing, cut it now and fuse it to the fabric.

Fold all of pieces in half (with the printed sides in) and pin them. 

Sew all of these into tubes. 

Now is a good time to eyeball your seams and make sure your sewing isn't tooo close at any part of the edge. If it is, sew it up a bit better ;) Otherwise your seam could come apart when you're tying your beads in and that is definitely not fun! Trust me, I managed to do this the first time I made one of these! If you do make a mistake usually some sneaky knotting can hide any problems if you're like me and too slack to go back and fix it properly... 

Next, grab your biggest bead (or any bead if you're using all the same size like I am here) and push it through your tube from one end to the other (don't worry about the ties). This should let you judge if the tube is the right diameter. Too small and unfortunately you're either going to have to unpick it and try again, or - again, if you're lazy like me - find some smaller beads :) Too big and you'll want to sew in a little closer - I wouldn't bother to unpick the first one, it'll help hold it in place anyway. When the tube is the right diameter, you can trim off any excess if you want.

At one end of each tie, sew diagonally so that you have a nice triangular end to your tie. 

Chop off the excess.

Turn your tubes inside out. Easy peasy, right? OK, not always. What I do is use a rod of some kind to help turn it inside out, just make sure the rod doesn't have a sharp end that will damage your fabric. My beader tool here is pretty good. Tuck a bit of the fabric over the top, hold it in place while you get started, then roll the rest of the tube over it. Pull it off the rod and pull it out straight - viola!

Now the fun part - adding the beads! I usually like to tie a knot in the very middle of the tube. If you're using two 50cm lengths sewed together, this will hide the seam. If you're not, then you can start with a bead in the middle if you prefer. Just alternate beads and knots until you've filled most of the tube.

You should leave enough room at each end of the tube so you can slide another bead in, but not knot it. If you have a lot of spare fabric on the ends, trim some off.

Roll the ends of the tie into itself so no rough edges are showing and slip the end of the tube inside the tie end. 

Sew across the join - I like to sew back and forth a few times for strength and end on the same side I started. This makes it easier to hide the loose ends. Trim off the excess cotton. Repeat with the other tie and the other end of the tube.

Tie one last knot on each side - fiddle around with it a bit so that you hide the seam inside the knot. I've made about 10 of these necklaces now and managed to hide the seam in every single one, so persevere!

You're done! Tie the ties in a pretty bow and there you are :) 

You can wear it long or short, both look fab!

Variation ideas:

• Make it shorter or don't add the ties and turn it into a bracelet instead
• Make it extra long or make two or three in coordinating colours to have multiple stranded necklaces
• Use smaller or larger beads, or even different sizes in the same necklace
• Use paper, glass or some other type of bead for a different weight
• Experiment with different shaped beads - oval or cube might look cool!
• Tie ribbon between the beads or sew thread between them instead of knotting - this would work well for daintier wooden beads where the big knots would look clunky.
• Use ribbon instead of two fabric strips for the ties
• Instead of using a single sheet of fabric, sew coordinating fabrics together in strips or patchwork and use that to make the fabric tube and ties
• Attach a charm or pendant of some sort - one made out of co-ordinating fabric or felt with some beaded embellishments would look pretty awesome!

... I'd love to see what ideas other people come up with!

Some Love for the Ratbags

Today was pretty stressful. We took the boys (4 month old ratties <3) in for neutering today. Of course, being small animals it's reasonably risky, and being in a relatively small city, experienced vets are not plentiful! I did my best at finding a vet I trusted, but I was still anxious for them *all day*. We dropped them off at 8.30am and picked them up at 3pm, that's a solid 6.5 hours of butterflies-in-the-belly and shaking hands for me. Thank goodness they're home safe now, still a tiny bit groggy and feeling sorry for themselves, but otherwise well. They'll thank me for this when they realize it means they get to live in the whole cage instead of just half *and* they'll get to share it with the three girls ;)

Huckleberry and Hamilton being cute

This blog is of course named after my beautiful eldest sister rats, Hazel and Honeysuckle. Such cheeky girls!

From top - Hazel, Honeysuckle and Hannelore (upside down, whoops!)

Tutorial - Cameo Brooch

For Christmas I decided to make my Great Aunty a brooch. I'm decent at making stuff for people my own age and mum's age, but not so confident when it comes to making things for people of the grandparental variety. I think this time I've got it right - see what you think!

I was on a bit of a tight schedule and no local craft stores had cameos or appropriately lacey settings for such things, so I improvised and bought two sets of earrings from one of the jewellery stores nearby. I already had a bunch of Swarovski and other crystals in the soft, peachy pinks I wanted to use and my trusty bottle of gemstone glue. So first, assemble materials!

Next I cut the earring bars from the back of the two earrings using wire cutters and filed the stumps down so they were smooth and wouldn't scratch or catch on anything. I also undid the jump ring holding the little bow to the cameo setting, so I could place the bow differently in the finished piece.

After that, all there is to do is lay it all out how you want and glue it together! The gemstone glue dries clear so you can't see it at all when it's completely dry. Still, it's a good idea to wipe away excess glue with a damp cloth.

One thing I did find helpful was to place a small rectangle of medium weight interfacing between the two earring pieces and glue each earring piece to that. It gave it a better surface to hold to and is nice and sturdy. I did the same when adding the brooch pin to the back, you can see it here:

The finished brooch is quite large, but I think my aunt will like it! You don't have to massacre earrings to make these, you can order unset cameos and lace backings online (I love some of the ones on Etsy!) or you might be lucky enough to have a craft or beading store nearby that stocks the materials!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Pressies - Fabric & Wooden Bead Necklaces

So for Christmas I usually do handmade stuff as much as possible. I've got tonnes of family to buy for and it's really the only way I can afford to give pressies that I'm actually happy with. Lucky female family members this year are getting fabric necklaces, like this one:

Nom nom nom! So far I've made 5 of 7 that I will make. They're really easy so I'll stick a quick little tutorial and some pretty piccies up as soon as I've made the last couple!