Window Star tutorial Duo Fiberworks I made some Waldorf-style window stars to decorate our big living room windows. I like to put them up in the winter, to liven up the wintry view. They are a bit fiddly, but satisfying to crank out, not unlike cut paper snowflakes. The best paper to use is square kite paper (ETA- it's 6 1/4" square.) I bought mine at a Waldorf school store, but you could get some from Nova Natural. Actually, my son Julian, who is 7, made the green one, I was pleasently suprised he stuck with all the steps! Use the white paper as a work surface, it's easier to see what you are doing. Then fold it in half and crease well. Then fold the pieces each in half crosswise and cut. Next, open them out so you have a rectangle with a crease running down the center. See my not-quite tidy edge? Now on one end only, fold in the sides to meet at the middle. So after you've done that with all eight pieces, you will have this: Now put a small glob of glue on the corner of your white paper. That's it!
Super Easy Baby Blanket Every day at Purl at least one customer comes in looking for a really easy baby blanket pattern. It's such a basic request, and, yet, my co-workers and I have a hard time offering a basic solution. The reason is that not many knit designers bother to make patterns for simple rectangles or squares, assuming that, because it would be so easy for them to figure out, it must be easy for everyone else to figure out too! The Materials 7 skeins of Alchemy Yarns' Temple, 100% superfine superwash merino wool. The Pattern Gauge 20 stitches and 20 ridges = 4 inches in garter stitch Finished Size Approximately 26 inches x 28 inches Begin With a US #7 needle (or size required by you to acheive the correct gauge) and the first color, loosely cast on 130 stitches.
Wax color explosion & The Shattered Lance 2 Sep The other day my girlfriend found this interesting blog showing what someone did with melting wax crayons. That blog was in turn inspired by this seller on Etsy. We decided to give it our own spin. We thought a color wheel would look neat, but that we’d rotate the canvas as we went to create a starburst-like explosion. The center was left with a big void that we eventually decided to fill with a mirror. Like this: Like Loading... Tags: color, crayons, melted, mirror, wax
Handmade geometric stamps for Handmade Living By Kate on January 11, 2012 I‘ve tried to make my own rubber stamps on many occasions but never really got the hang of it. I think half the reason is that it’s impossible to buy the proper carving blocks here in the UK. So…I put an article together for this months issue of Handmade Living on easy rubber stamps. (I actually wrote this article about three months ago….it’s taking me a while to get used to the print ‘time-lag’ thing). These stamps are made from erasers, using a craft knife and ruler. If you want to see how hand carved stamps are done the proper way then check out this ace tutorial at Geninne’s Art Blog. Hama bead weaving tutorial on its way early next week! You can pick up a copy of Handmade Living from Morrisons, Asda, Sainsburys, Martins, WH Smiths, Hobbycraft plus a number of independent shops and newsagents.
Marbleizing Paper « Skip To My Lou To make this fun and easy marbleized paper you will need: 1/2 tsp alum (helps paint adhere to the paper), 2 cups liquid starch, liquid acrylic paints, a long wooden skewer , a 9 X 13 pan and white copy paper cut to fit the inside your pan. You can change up the size of the pan, just keep the proportions of starch and alum the same. The starch should be 1 to 2 inches deep in your pan. Pour 2 cups of liquid starch in the pan then add 1/2 tsp alum stirring until mixed. Gently drop acrylic paint on the surface of the starch. Take the wooden skewer and drag the paint through the starch. Lay your piece of paper on top of the starch. Lift the paper out of the pan and allow the starch to drip off the paper Rinse the paper under running water removing any extra starch. After the paper has been rinsed, lay it out to dry. You may find that you can print two sheets of paper before adding more paint to the starch. Have fun! Like this: Like Loading...
Pleated tote (beach bag) tutorial Before we went away, I decided that a new bag for the beach was a must – something big and roomy to hold books, magazines, sunscreen, hats, and all that other good stuff. So I made this big pleated tote, and it worked perfectly. This is a picture of it in action: And here’s a little tutorial in case you want to make one for yourself – doesn’t have to be for the beach either, it could come in handy for schlepping all kinds of things around town. Here’s what you need: two pieces of your main fabric cut in shape A four pieces of the top shape (B) in a contrasting fabric two pieces of a lining fabric in shape C one piece of the long rectangle for the strap in the contrasting fabric two pieces of the top shapes (B) and one of the strap in a medium weight interfacing 1) Along the longest (22″) edge of the main fabric pieces, mark along the top at the following intervals: 3″ – 4″ – 6″ – 7″ – 9″ – 10″ – 12″ – 13″ – 15″ – 16″ – 18″ – 19″ 13) And voila, this is what it should look like.
Money Money Money Ready to see my mystery office desktop? The one John and I have been working so hard on for the past few weeks? And learn how we did it? I mean, I know *I'm* excited. Here, I'll ease you in slowly. It all started.... And it became... Ta-DA! Ok, that's not the best shot. Oooh. Now, on to the photo-intensive tutorial/progress shots! First, if you want your top to have any shine to it, you're going to need to polish up some of the pennies you're using. Fill your bowl about a quarter of the way with pennies, pour in a little Tarn-X, and then swish and shake the bowl around over the sink (in case of splashes) to evenly expose the coins to the liquid. From there, dump the batch onto an old towel to dry them: I polished roughly half of the pennies I planned to use, so there would still be plenty of color variation. Next you're going to need a surface to adhere the pennies to. This fits in a cubby between two bookshelves, so only the front edge is rounded prettily. Well, we used these: Almost done!
Do-It-Yourself Pinhole Camera (Part 1) What is a pinhole camera? It's a camera with no lens. Pinhole cameras are usually homemade and can be made of almost any box that is dark and hallow. Photos are taken through a tiny (pin) hole on one side of the box and are manually exposed by uncovering the hole for a moment. You can read more technical info here. The thing I love about pinhole cameras is that it creates photos similar to a holga (or many other plastic toy cameras). This first section in our D.I.Y. is dedicated to introducing you to pinhole photography and getting inspired for the upcoming project! Here are some inspiring pinhole camera photos: here are two pretty pinhole photos by infaready. [source] [source] [source] [source] [source] Here are some neat handmade cameras: [made from Coke cans! [made from Legos! [made from a mr. potato head! [pretty box camera with woodgrain laminate. source] and here's a photo taken with the above camera! are you excited? more parts to this D.I.Y. coming soon!
magic wallet You will need: Card in three different colours Ruler Pencil Scissors Glue What to do 1. For the main body of the wallet, cut two rectangles 18cm x 9cm (7 x 3½ in) from one piece of coloured card. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Back to the Science Projects menu... Back to the Other Stuff projects menu... Sewn Stash Baskets Materials To make one basket: Cutting The bottom of this bag is a 12-inch circle. Using a pencil draw a center dot where the circle's center will be. You will have a dotted 12-inch circle! Cut out the circle. In this manner cut out a 12-inch circle of the Amny Butler Quilting Solid, The Blockprinted Linen, and the interfacing. In addition to the circles, cut a 12-inch by 36-inch strip from the solid, linen, and interfacing. Sewing the Panels Pin the three circles all together in the following order: interfacing, linen with its right side facing up, solid with its right side facing down. Pin all three of the long strips together in the same order. With a 1/2-inch seam allowance sew the three circle pieces together, leaving a 4-inch gap unsewn. With a 1/2-inch seam allowance sew the three long pieces together along three sides, leaving one of the short sides totally open as shown above. Turn the panels right sides out through their openings. Finishing Pin these sides together as shown above.
Diy Ornate frame magnets Hey Luvs!I recently did a super easy diy and thought I would share it with you all. I wanted to think up a cute way to display Evie's art and a place to hang up the grocery list and chore chart. I immediately thought of fun frames but I had no place for them. Then it dawned on me, why not the fridge? DIY Fashion: How to draw fashion illustrations If you search for them on the web you'll find a lot of beautiful fashion illustrations. Often they are a piece of art on their own but they are not only drawings, they are the best way for a designer to keep track of their inspiration. A great collection of sketches can be found in the book 100 years of fashion illustrations. If you want to learn how to draw sketches learn humane figure proportions here and here then have a look at Marina you tube channel where she teaches how to color skin or how to draw fabric for example denim (it's in italian but you still can watch the technique). If you want to have fun dressing an icon Colour me good is the book for you. Take to life Kate Moss coloring her outfits. Cercando sul web si possono trovare illustrazioni di moda bellissime.
How About Orange My 2014 Oscar ballot and bingo game are done! Get set to enjoy Sunday's Academy Awards with friends. It doesn't matter if they watch movies or know who the actors are; anyone can play bingo and it's a good excuse for a party. Download the Oscar ballot PDFDownload the Oscar bingo PDF Save the PDFs to your computer, open them in Adobe Reader, and print. To use the ballot: print one for each guest and have them mark their predictions before the show starts. To use the bingo cards: 20 different game cards are included in the PDF. Movie theater gift cards, boxes of popcorn, candy, or little Oscar statuettes from a party store make good prizes. Has anybody tried to play with friends long distance? Like every year, a disclaimer: Maybe someone will get a bingo ten minutes into the telecast, or maybe your group won't have a winner at all because my psychic powers have failed this year. To join the bingo mailing list for future years, sign up here.
The Creative Place I've been trying to decide on what to make my hubby for a Valentine's gift and decided that I wanted to write more than a letter - so I decided to make him a mini journal / album / book of things I love about him, different memories I have of our life together, things like that (hopefully he won't read this before next weekend ;)). I found this fab tutorial awhile back about button and string closure and somehow wanted to incorporate it, thus I came up with this fun journal - it has a vintage feel - the button and string closure, and a bunch of found papers inside, including old school writing pages, graph paper and strategically cut magazine pages. The fun thing about these journals is you can use them for any occasion- to record a special event, to keep as a personal journal, to write a note to a friend, many possibilities! Take your cover sheet and score a line 1.5" in from the right side (see below). Then score a line 4.75" in from the left side (see below). Voila!