Blast from the past: No Knit Kitty Hat

I often really like looking at fancy knit stitches but I am so not good at making them. What I am good at though is thrifting! And you too can make a knit hat with absolutely no knitting skills! (Although I do still want to get better at knitting ...)

I made my hat a kitty cat hat, because why not? Mine is a black cat, but yours could be any colour ^___^

 

First step: go to the op-shop and buy yourself a sweater! It doesn't matter if it's an ugly or ill-fitting shape, but choose one that has ribbing around the edges and a nice looking stitch pattern. I used a cardigan, but a sweater is preferable because you get more fabric to work with!
 

If you're using a cardigan, fold it so that the ribbing around the neckline and the hem is matched up. If you're using a sweater, just lay it flat and ensure the ribbing around the front and back of the hem is matched up. Use a hat that you like as a template for your shape; add pins around it, plus a little extra for seam allowance.

Cut out your new hat shape!

Cut out four cat ear shapes.

Match up your cat ear shapes, making sure they are right sides together. Sew around the sides, leaving the bottom open, using blanket stitch or a sewing machine. Turn your cat ears the right way out.
 

Turn the fabric of your hat shape so that the right sides are together. Put the cat ears in the position you want them, making sure they are between the two hat pieces and pointing inwards. Add pins around the edge, leaving the bottom open, and sew together by hand (with a blanket stitch) or using a sewing machine (using a zig-zag stitch) or by using an overlocker.

Use a scrap of felt to make a heart shaped nose and add some whiskers with embroidery floss. Purrrfect!

- Lisa x

How to make succulent planters from ceramic moneyboxes

Hello! My experiments in growing succulents from cuttings and leaves have reached the stage where I have a *lot* of new plants, and no where near enough pots. To remedy this, I headed off to the discount store (because I am nothing if not cheap) but they only had plain plastic pots in their gardening section, which didn't rouse much excitement. However, as I was heading back out via the homewares section, I spotted an amazing unicorn money box and a really sweet little bunny dish. You know what they say, "when life gives you moneyboxes, make planters!" ~___^

 

I'm really pleased with how well they turned out, so read on if you'd like to make your own versions! ^___^

I started off with the unicorn moneybox by using a permanent marker to measure out a rectangle shape. I made mine 5.5cm x 3 cm, but the size is really dependent on the shape of your object and the size you want the plant hole to be.

 

 

I attached the ceramic cutting wheel to my Dremel (#EZ545, with the EZ Lock Mandrel, for those playing along at home) and started cutting along the marked lines.

 

It cut through the ceramic like butter! Only with, like, a hecka ton of dust. I was wearing safety glasses, ear muffs, and a dust mask during this project which kinda seemed like overkill when I began but, hey, at least I didn't get any ceramic dust in my lungs.

 

To tidy it up a bit, I went around the edges with a long rounded pink grinding stone attachment (no idea what number is this, sorry!) which really helped make everything look neater and also feel less sharp.

 

Since the moneybox came with a hole in the bottom, I decided just to take out the rubber plug and use that for drainage. If you don't think that is sufficient for your project though, you can drill some extra holes!

 

I'm not actually sure what this bunny thing is; I guess maybe it's a decorate trinket dish? It's cute and already had a hole in the top for plants, so the only thing it needed is some drainage holes.

 

 I used  a permanent marker to put dots where I wanted my drainage holes to be. I didn't manage to drill exactly on top of the dots, but they worked as a guideline anyway.

I got a 6mm P&N diamond core drill bit for this part of the project, which is designed to cut through ceramics and glass. It is meant to be used only for wet drilling, so I also grabbed my trusty spray bottle.

 As you can see, my holes are not the neatest, but probably no one will be looking at them from this angle anyway! To drill them, I started with the drill on an angle to make a notch in the ceramic and then I slowly straightened the drill. I sprayed the bit with water once every ten seconds and didn't get any cracks - yay!

I placed a large flat rock over the hole in the base of the unicorn, and then added a layer of small pebbles on the bottom of both planters. Then all that was left to do was add some cacti and succulent soil, and the plants!

The unicorn planter has a Jellybean plant (Sedum pachyphyllum, I think, but I'm not sure) and a mystery succulent. It kinda looks like Sedum praealtum, but it doesn't have the red edge. Whatever it is, it grows from leaves really well! The host leaf doesn't die though, so it does end up a bit funny looking; a tiny new plant with one huge leaf!

The bunny planter was intended as a birthday present for my friend Catherine, so I decided to try and fit a few different plants in there. Catherine may have to transplant them out if they all live! 

 

The large plant on the top is Hoya, next to that with the pink tipped leaves is Mother of Thousands (Kalanchoe daigremontiana), on the bottom is another pup of the mystery plant, and left of that is a tiny Jellybean plant, and another mystery plant; I think it's a type of Sedum but I haven't been able to make a positive ID. I brought the Hoya as is, but all the other plants are pups from other plants that I own; I thought it was pretty cool that I had enough little graduates from the plant nursery to fill this planter!

 

I'm excited to go looking for more unsuspecting victims ceramic vessels at the op shop now that I know I can turn them into planters! In fact, I have a ceramic owl figurine on my bookcase which I'm thinking might need to have a plant or two in it ...

- Lisa xx

Baking, succulents, and parties

Hello! I realised recently that I have an awful lot of photos of little things I have made/ baked, but I haven't shared them with you! You may have seen some of these on Instagram, but here we can talk about them a little more without having to make those huuugggeeee comments that end up looking like a really dense wall of text ~___^

First up: ugly cake! Scott and I recently celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary for which the traditional gift is salt. I thought that sounded a little boring so instead I decided to make a salted caramel cake. I wanted to make a layered cake, but I also didn't want it to be huge so I made a rectangle shaped upside down cake, and cut it into smaller circles. The caramel part of the upside down cake means that I didn't have to put anything between the layers.

However, cutting nice looking circles from cake is actually a lot harder than I expected it to be! When I layered them up, I realised how wonky my cake was! >___<

I thought about covering the entire thing in buttercream icing to try and make it look nicer, but ultimately decided that salted caramel layers and a salted caramel sauce poured over the entire thing was probably enough forms of sugar for one small cake so I left it naked and ugly ~___^ We ate it anyway, and it tasted pretty good!

I also made a simple card for Scott. I used a black and white chevron paper to cover a blank card, glued on a square of gold heart patterned paper, and stuck a black and gold embellishment in the middle. I messily scribbled a border around the heart paper with my silver metallic pen and it was done!

Bunnings had a heap of tiny succulents for sale recently, so I brought, ummm, way too many of them. I put one in a tiny teacup to give to a friend for her housewarming, and put two more in two empty tins I kept because they're cute. I added dinosaurs because dinosaurs are awesome.

I put the rest in a bigger pot, and added more dinosaurs and some pretty little rocks. I'm not sure how well that one in the middle is going; I brought it because I thought it was a cool colour, but I'm now thinking that perhaps I brought a dying succulent. Hmm.

I designed a badge to give to some of my derby pals, and recently two of my buddies from skating star classes had their birthday so I used two of the leftover pins to decorate some hair bows. The fabric I used is the same design as the badges, which I got printed from my Spoonflower store.

For my birthday I had an Adventure Time themed party - I didn't take many photos but I did remember to photograph some of the food (the most important part, right! ~___^)

I made Lumpy Space Crackles with using this recipe ... except I didn't put in any cocoa and I used honey instead of maple syrup. I also added some blue and red food colouring which didn't mix in that well. I was hoping for it to make purple, but it mostly didn't. I also put on some star shaped sprinkles to make them more space like ^___^

I brought some Adventure Time cookies, but they didn't taste that great so I made them into chocolate bark, with the addition of salted pretzels and pop rocks. They were a big hit!

I also made a Tree Trunks apple pie; the fancy lattice top was trickier to make then I expected it to be! It tasted really great and even though it was huge, it got demolished really quickly.

These sunglasses were made for my friend Clare for Christmas. Clare has an adorable style and is a big fan of daisies, so I wanted to make her something to suit her look.

All I did to make these was glue little daisy cabochons around the frame of some round sunglasses. It was really easy, but they turned out really cute!

I also made these Wookiee cookies after seeing these super cute biscuits by Sugared Nerd.

I used a mini gingerbread person cutter, and melted chocolate for the details. I adore how they turned out!

I made this chocolate bark for my dad for Christmas - I added almonds, pepitas, pistachios, dried cranberries, and white chocolate chips to melted dark chocolate. I also made Dad some coconut ice using this recipe (except I used Stevia instead of rice malt syrup), a trail mix, and more gingerbread. I added twice the amount of ginger into Dad's batch than I used for the Wookiee cookies because both of us like our gingerbread really spicy (not that he wanted to share! ~___^)

Inspired by Messy Nessy Chic, I made this cheese platter Christmas Tree for after our family lunch. Honestly, we were all a bit too full for this, but we did our best anyway! ^___^

Lastly, I've been working on the Death Star blanket. If you've been a long time reader of this blog, you may remember that I started this project in, oh, 2011. It's been in the WIP box for a long time, but the new movie inspired me to get it back out. I've started joining the squares, which makes the whole project a little more inspiring - I've almost finished the rows with the laser! (Baby steps!) ^___^

- Lisa xx

New paracord handles for my skating bag

Hello! One thing about roller derby and, I assume, all skating to some extent, is that you accumulate a lot of stuff. When I go to training I have my skates, knee pads, elbow pads, wrist guards, a helmet, mouthguard, tape, a skate tool, a couple of water bottles, a small towel, and an extra set of wheels. Plus usually a couple of pairs of socks which I've forgotten to take out and wash (yup, I'm gross!). Which means my bag is pretty heavy, which means this happens:

Ugh! Fake leather bag straps are the worst! I brought this bag from the opshop since it was a) pretty, b) cheap, and c) big, but it's handles have not coped with the amount of stuff I lug around in it.

So, I decided it was time to replace them. Luckily, although the handles are pretty ruined, the rings and other hardware attaching them to the bag were still in pretty good shape. So I brought two bundles of 5.4m long black paracord, cut off the old handles, and started tying some knots!

 

The knot that I did is called a Solomon Bar, and this video was a huge help in teaching me how to do it. I started off by folding my paracord in half and putting the folded end through one of my bag rings, then I pulled the loose ends through the folded end to knot the paracord onto the ring.

I used the old handles as a guide for how long I should leave the paracord hanging between the rings, and then threaded the loose ends through the other ring. Then it's just a case of doing the knots until you have reached the first ring again. To do one handle look me about 15 minutes, so this is a pretty quick and easy fix!

 

My Solomon's Bar is not as tight as it could be, but I quite like how it looks looser and anyway, that was all the paracord I had!  ~____^

To finish it off, I cut off the long loose ends of the paracord, and then used a tea light candle to melt the ends and help secure them.

 

A lighter probably would be better for this, but I don't have a lighter and I do have an overabundance of tea light candles. Seriously, I think they breed when I'm not looking. As long as you hold your tea light steady and move your cord around (instead of vice versa!) you will not drop hot wax on yourself. I got distracted and dripped some wax on my bag, but it wiped off easily so no harm done! ^___^ When you're doing this, the important thing to remember is that you are not touching the paracord with your flame; just use the heat generated by the candle to gently melt the paracord.

Melting the cord gives a neat finish, and should ensure that the knots don't come loose ^____^

 

Since the paracord is quite soft, these handles are still comfortable to use, and hopefully a lot stronger than the original ones!

I have given up on so many bags because of split and stretched handles (I obviously ask a lot from my baggage!), so I'm really happy to have found a solution! My craft store has a lovely range of colourful paracord which means that finding a matching cord to make handles shouldn't be too tricky! And, if in doubt, I can simply remember that black goes with everything ~____^

- Lisa xx