Make pie chart paper pendants. If charts, graphs and metrics are your thing, you might enjoy crafting some pie chart pendants.
They're made entirely of paper. Oh, and a little glue, thread and a jump ring if you want to get technical. Which you probably do, if you're the kind of person who likes pie charts. With a punch (I used a 1" circle), cut out about 12 circles of cardstock. You can add as many circles to the pendant as needed to get the thickness you want, of course. How About Orange. DIY macaron coin purse. Sew a wallet that turns into a tote. How to transfer an image to fabric with gel medium. I experimented with transferring an image onto fabric the other day.
For my test, I used this completely adorable dachshund drawing by Kayanna Nelson of June Craft. The little fellow is downloadable for personal use at Bloesem Kids. To try an image transfer, you'll need: Acrylic gel medium, available at art storesFabricA laser printed image (not inkjet!) With your finger—or a brush, but I prefer to feel what I'm doing—spread gel medium onto your fabric in the area where you want your image.
Not too thin, not too thick; just a nice even layer. Place your image printed side down onto the sticky fabric and press firmly. Dampen the paper with water, then gently rub the paper away from the image with your finger. The resulting fabric will be a bit stiffer where the gel medium was applied, and you'll be able to see it faintly. Bow tie paper clips from fabric scraps. I had a couple little scraps left over from stiffened fabric projects, and after fiddling with them, I noticed they'd easily make tiny bows.
Which I attached to paper clips because... I don't know why. These could work as bookmarks, on wedding invitations, Valentines, etc. Or attach the bows to hair clips for little girls or pencils for bridal shower games. How to stencil with freezer paper. One of the projects at this Friday's Chicago Craft Social will be freezer paper stenciling.
I'm helping lead this table, so I needed to give it a test drive and make up some samples. You know how a project usually has four tedious steps you tolerate and one step that's super fun? I think this is one of the few where all of the steps are fun. How to make gift bags from newspaper.
When I bought something at a store recently, the clerk handed me my purchase in a bag made from a newspaper.
I liked it very much and had to make some more—thus today's DIY recycled newspaper project: gift bags made from the Wall Street Journal. You can vary the dimensions, of course, but here's what I used to create a bag that's 5" tall, 4.5" wide, and 3" deep. Stack two sheets of newspaper on top of each other. Make your own fabric prints using the sun. The folks who make Inkodye sent over a sample the other day.
Inkodye is light-sensitive dye for textiles or any natural fibers, including wood and raw leather. It acts like the Sunprint paper you might have used as a kid, only you can brush this dye on anything you want and it comes in lots of colors. Like orange, of course. Picture frame project with Inkodye. Inkodye testing continues in the Jones lab, this time on wood.
I bought an unfinished frame at Michaels for one whole dollar and doctored it up with the dye. This is the result. Who are those youngsters in the frame? A DIY fabric project using light-sensitive dye. Another project in the Inkodye series.
This time I tried to get fancy with the light-sensitive dye and see if a drawing could be transferred onto fabric. (Click the image above to view a little larger.) Print your own fabric with Inkodye. I played with Inkodye again—a photo-sensitive dye that uses the sun to develop prints on natural materials like wood and fabric.
One nice thing about using this dye instead of fabric paint is that fabric stays soft and flexible, instead of stiffening like it does with paint. Plus watching prints develop is always fun! I made a simple cloud design this time, since I knew that achieving perfectly crisp edges is tricky due to shadows that might occur. And clouds can have soft edges, so if that's what happened, all the better. To make your own cloud print, you'll need Inkodye, fabric, a foam brush, a large piece of cardboard wrapped in plastic for your work surface, masking tape, cardboard for cutting out shapes, a pencil and scissors.
Sketch clouds onto cardboard. Cut out the clouds. Tape the edges of the fabric to your work surface to keep it in place while you brush on dye. Little origami elephant. You know how sometimes you need to take a break from work and fold an elephant?
Here's my attempt, following this YouTube video in which Jo Nakashima shows how to make an origami elephant designed by Li Jun. Free sewing tutorial: Geek Chic iPad Case. Hello, everybody!