Needle felted Piranha Plant and other gifts

Hello! It's time to show you some more of the Christmas gifts I made! I have a couple more to go, but they haven't been gifted yet (I believe in a very extended holiday period) so I'll show you those next time ^___^

For Scott I made this needle-felted Piranha Plant, of Super Mario fame. To make this, I used a very similar technique from when I made Oscar the Grouch. I used my scalpel to cut out a wedge from a large styrofoam ball which was to become the ... head (???) of the plant and then covered the ball in sheets of red felt. I needed felted the felt together where it overlapped to create a tight casing of felt around the ball. 

 

I cut out small triangles of white felt and used my needle tool to attach them to the mouth area. I also used my needle tool to ensure the bottom of the mouth was more sharply defined.

 

I rolled wool fibre into loose sausage shapes and felted them onto the ball to become the lips. I didn't felt the tops of the lips much, but was sure to felt the edges to create a more rounded shape.

 

To create the spots, I rolled fibre into loose balls and then felted them on. The balls are slightly 3D because I really wanted them to have solid colour so they are made up of a few layers of fibre each.

 

For the stem I used regular sheets of felt. I cut out a long strip and wound it around a wooden chopstick, needle felting where the sheet overlapped itself. I used a scalpel to cut a hole in the bottom of the head of the plant and inserted the stem. I needle felted where the stem met the head so that the felt wouldn't come loose and expose the chopstick.

The leaves were cut from the same sheet of green felt and needle felted only at the bases onto the stem. This gives them a nice curved shape, which I think helps make them look more leafy.

Once the plant was done, I hot glued the bottom of the stem into a paper mache flower pot that I had painted green. Then I stuffed the pot with variegated green chunky wool; this stabilised the plant so it doesn't wobble around but it's also very light. Scott really liked it and my parents thought that I had brought it. Two lovely compliments for any crafter! ^___^

My dad, Kevin, is pretty difficult to craft for since he mostly likes trees (I really should just stick to buying him a new tree every year). However, he does also like camping and happened to mention that soap on a rope would be useful for washing in the desert.

I used the instructions in "A Little Bit Crafty" by Frankie Magazine for these but they didn't turn out as well as I had hoped; they are a little bit bumpy and a little bit cracked.

 

If I were to make them again, I would ensure that my soap was in much smaller pieces before attempting to shape them into balls. I think the chunky flakes that I started off with didn't assist with the making of smooth soaps.

 

I braided cotton string to use as the ropes, which worked out well because all other actual ropes that I had turned out to be way too big. So, another suggestion: either make bigger soaps, or buy smaller ropes! 

 

For my Nana Alma and my mum, Anne, I made some lavender sachets using vintage look (but not actual vintage) handkerchiefs, ribbon, and lavender (bet you guessed that last bit, huh).

 

To make these, I cut the handkerchiefs in half, folded them in half again, and then sewed around three of the edges. You could hand sew these, but I used a sewing machine because it is so much faster (and I'm pretty lazy!).

 

Then I filled them with lavender and tied them closed with a length of ribbon. Easy peasy!

I also made these ink smudging tools for Anne; they are apparently used in scrap booking. I started off with two lengths of pine, one wide and flat and the other not so wide and not so flat, which I glued together.

I used Kevin's bench press to cut them into smaller segments and then stained them with wood varnish. I originally tried to use a saw and failed miserably. Power tools, people! They rock. I used stick on velcro dots cut in half to attach lengths of felt on and around each segment. They were a little time consuming, but once I had a little production line going it wasn't too bad.

My next post won't be until next year ... which starts in one day! OMG! It's time to start thinking about a whole 'nother years worth of crafts to create ... but, until then, Happy New Year and thanks for sticking with this little blog of mine for another 12 months. I hope we can do it all again next year!

Catch you on the flip side!

- Lisa xx

A refurbished school desk for vintage rustic wedding

Hello! So, I have working on this project for a month but now I can finally show you! I had this old school desk in storage with the plan of fixing it up someday and then my brother Brett requested it as the signing table at his wedding so someday finally happened!

Here is what it looked like to start off with; I had started trying to take some of the paint off on the corner and discovered that there were at least four layers of paint on it. With further work, Scott and I counted seven different colours of paint! I feel like these pictures don't really give justice to how ugly this desk was. The paint was obviously never sanded back before any of the previous layers so it looked crusty, the inside was a delightful combination of paint and rust, and the whole thing was dirty. Gross.

Scott and I started off by coating everything in paint stripper and then stepped back to watch the magic happen! Spoiler: nothing happened. All the paint stripping videos I'd watched on youtube had shown a wonderful bubbling potion like effect, and all we got was a sticky desk. Disappointing. Nonetheless, we started trying to manually scrape off the paint. I was still finishing uni at this stage, so we were mostly doing this on the weekends and worrying that it wouldn't be finished in time. The weekend before the wedding, we realised that there was no way we were going to get all the paint off, plus we still had to paint and seal it. At this stage, we had most of the paint off the wooden top, but the legs were a streaky mess. Luckily, my dad, Kevin, had just recently found a second hand wire brush attachment for his angle grinder so we made plans to head down to the country a couple of days early and get this desk cleaned up properly!

We had managed to loosen up the paint well enough that we could detach the top from the base; the screws had been painted over so much that they were originally completely invisible under all the layers! With some help from the angle grinder, orbital sander, and belt sander, we finally removed all the paint. I swear I heard some of kind of angelic chorus at this stage! 

We painted over the metal again (it was almost physically painful) because otherwise it would have rusted and all that work would have been for nothing! The paint we chose included a primer, is made to prevent rust, and was a very close match for the colour of the bare steel. You can see the hinges and some of the screws in this picture; they were so coated in layers of paint that we had to use the wire brush attachment to grind it all off and, for the screws, file deeper notches in the heads so a screwdriver could actually be properly used on them! Shoutout to Kevin for working that one out! ~___^

 

We used a sanding sealer on the wooden top of the desk which deepened the colour of the wooden into this lovely golden shade. Since Brett and Lavinya's wedding aesthetic was vintage rustic, we didn't putty up the scrapes in the desk. This desk has gone through a couple of generations of school kids and we wanted that to be evident! ^___^

There is still some work to be done on it though; we painted the desk Thursday afternoon and figured with a 4 hour suggested drying time it would be fine for Friday afternoon. But, it was very cloudy and humid and when it was moved to the ceremony location some of the paint got scuffed up >____< Also, one of the inner corners of the lid is badly damaged and the hinge couldn't be properly attached. So, after the ceremony (which was beautiful!) the desk went back to live in Kevin's shed for a while; I'm hoping to visit again before Christmas and finish up these last remaining touches.

It does look so much better though, Mum and Scott are both wanting to take it home now! I guess we'll have to wait and see who wins this bit of furniture tug-of-war ~___^ Also, can we just stop for a minute to admire Anne and Kevin's garden? The grass was legitimately that green! Brett and Lavinya's reception was held in mum and dad's garden so they did heaps of work on it and it looks gorgeous!

I did make one other small thing for the wedding; Anne had this vintage suitcase for guests to leave their cards in, but it needed a little something-something. I used baker's twine, chipboard letters and hearts, gold paint, and a scrap of hessian to make this little banner. I felt very lucky to be able to sit down and mess about with craft supplies while everyone else was working so hard! But don't worry, I chipped in more afterwards ~___^

 

As per usual, I completely forgot to take any photos on the actual day! One of Anne's friends, Michele, took this photo of the back veranda where we all had dinner. Almost 70 people were seated here; good thing my parents are fans of a big veranda area!

Anne snapped this photo of Scott and I just after the ceremony; I'm not sure what we're giggling about. Perhaps what a high refraction index my pale, pale skin has?

And, of course, I remembered to take a selfie ~___^ My curls lasted for so long, all I did for the next four days was gently brush them back into place and they looked so great! For my hair this is seriously low maintenance, I want to get my hair set every week now! ~___^
 

I love weddings; it was so nice to see all my family fancied up and having fun together! I am hoping that the professional photos turn out well so I can have photographic evidence of how well we all scrub up ~___^

I'm quite sure my brother doesn't read my blog, but nonetheless; another big congratulations to Brett and Lavinya!

- Lisa xx

Recovered recipe box

Hello! Scott is currently taking some off work and he's been cleaning up a storm. I don't think our house has ever looked this neat, plus we've donated a heap of stuff to the op shop so our karma levels are at a peak ~___^ I've been feeling a bit bad for not contributing since I mostly sit at my computer all day. I mean, I'm doing homework, but it doesn't really feel very productive when you're reading articles all day and then all you have to show for it is a couple of pages of notes! So over the weekend I thought I'd go through our recipe collection and make it so it didn't consist of post-it notes and ripped out magazine pages shoved in an old plastic sleeve.

I've had this paper mache box in the craft room for quite a while, and it's a good size for fitting postcards inside it so I decided to transfer the recipes onto my postcard collection and use the box to store them. However, it was pretty boring looking, so I first needed to make it look pretty! ^___^

I used mod podge to stick scrapbooking paper on to every side of the box and lid but the edges didn't look very neat, even after I had trimmed them down.

So I used washi tape to edge all of the ... edges ... (mmmm, word difficulties!) and trimmed the excess with a scalpel so the ends were nice and flush.

I didn't want to make this box too "this is a box for recipes!!!" in case I decide to use it for something else one day but I did use some tea pot and saucer patterned paper for two sides of the box, and added a "slice of the good life" sticker to the lid which I thought was a subtle reference to what is currently inside.

The "so very lovely" piece of paper on the lid is from another sheet of scrapbooking paper; the kind where the whole page is covered in these little quote like designs and you can just cut out the one you want to use. My kitchen has kind of a retro vibe, mostly because I insist on buying homewares from opshops, so I think the font will help the box fit in with the rest of the decor.

 

As you can see, I've still got a while to go before I get anywhere near filling up this box with recipes! And I must give a shout out to Rebecca for inspiring me to do this project by actually sending me postcards with recipes written on them; I've gotta admit, it's pretty fun to find a risotto recipe in your letterbox ^___^

My final assignment for my degree is due this Friday (gah!!) so after that I'll be trying to finish off this big (well, bigger) project that I've been doing for my brother's wedding. I hope I finish it on time! ^___^

- Lisa xx

Beaded cherry necklace

Hello! I went to the craft store to buy some new sheets the other day and totally broke my promise to myself of not buying more craft supplies. I'm sure it's not just me that looks through their stash and simply can not think of anything to make (please, tell me other people do that too ...); it's really silly because I have so much stuff and yet ... nothing inspires me. But, I found these totally adorable tiny green leaf beads at the shop and suddenly, I knew what I had to make.

 

Cherry necklace! Yes! ^___^ Other people have made cherry necklaces, but since mine is a little different, I thought I'd do a small tutorial for you anyway ^___^

 

To make this necklace, you'll first need to decide how many cherries you'd like as this determines how many beads you'll need. I think odd numbers look best, so I choose to do five pairs of cherries. I used 12mm red glass pearls for the actual cherries; really any largish red bead will work and you will need two for each cherry pair. You will also need two glass leaf beads, one large jump ring, one smaller jump ring, and two head pins for each pair of cherries.

 

You'll also need some chain (I used about half a metre), a clasp, another jump ring (this is optional really, but I find it makes doing up the necklace easier), and some pliers.

 

The first thing you need to do is thread your red beads onto the head pins and use your pliers to bend the open end of the pin into a loop.

Then use your pliers to open up the smaller jump ring and thread on the leaf beads and the two cherries.

 

Close up the small jump ring, and then open the larger one. Thread the large jump ring through the small jump ring ...

 

... and through the necklace chain where you'd like your cherries to sit, and then close it up again using the pliers.

 

Make the rest of your cherries exactly the same, and finish off your necklace by adding the clasp and the extra jump ring to the ends of the chain.

 

And that's it! This was such an easy necklace to make, but it's so cute and such fun to wear! I felt extra jangly and special wearing this around campus today, and even got landed on by a ladybug. I feel like this is the best seal of approval I could have possibly gotten ~___^

But now I'm back to not knowing what to make. Hmmm. I think it's time to go and spend some quality time with my stash. Something in there has got to inspire me, right? ^___^

- Lisa xx

Easy loom daisy flower crown

Hello! Today I had my first day back at uni - I can't believe this is my last semester ever!! I only had one class today, but it did go for three hours (gah!). It was totally fun though; I'm doing a cultural studies unit as my elective and for this class we get to spend the entire semester analysing fantasy and sci-fi texts! I'm so, so keen to get properly into it. I decided today to try and blend in with the cool kids on campus who are all wearing '90s fashion (it's everywhere now!) so I made this quick and easy daisy flower crown to wear ^___^

To make it, I wove five daisies using my largest round loom and some white and yellow wool. I have a Hana-Ami loom, which is really easy to use; making this headband took me one viewing of Coraline ~___^ If you click on "Hana-Ami", I've linked to a short video showing what it looks like and how it is used. However, I did my centres a little differently to the all videos I could find; the loom comes with an instruction sheet that shows you different ways to finish off the flowers. It's in Japanese, but there are pictures so you can get the general gist of things. Instead of using the darning needle to sew from the centre of the flower, I used it to tie knots in a circle around the centre. I knotted together four strands of wool with each knot and each knot contains one strand of wool from the previous knot. Hmm. I hope that makes sense. Perhaps I should make a video to show you what I mean, what do you think?

 

I wanted the centres of the daisies to be a solid colour, so after knotting the circle I used my darning needle to criss-cross the yarn through the centre of the flower. The darning needle I got with my loom has a huge eye on it, which makes threading it super easy, but it's not great for filling in the centres. I recommend changing to a smaller darning needle, if you have one handy.

The actual headband is just a length of crocheted chain stitch; I used a 4mm hook and green yarn. The chain stitched wool is about 70cm long, and I left the 15cm tails on each end to ensure I'd have enough yarn to tie my crown around my apparently massive head ~___^ To attach the flowers, I threaded the chain stitch through the massive darning needle and simply stitched through the back of each flower. You can move the daisies around on the chain to ensure they are positioned well, but they don't move about on their own.

This would also make a really cute daisy bunting, and using the smaller looms produces flowers small enough to be worn as jewellery. Daisy chain necklace, anyone?

Since I'm back at uni now, I'll have less time to craft and blog (boo!); but you can always find me on Instagram and Twitter if you want to catch up! ^___^

- Lisa xx