Saturday 21 December 2013

Bead bracelet tutorial

A while back I posted up a tutorial on how to make a ring out of beads; this tutorial is a bracelet version of that tutorial. It’s a very easy to make bracelet, great for beginners! I made this bracelet as a small gift for my friends little daughter.





To make this bracelet you will need:
Metal clasp
2 X metal loops
 120 X 2mm white beads
25 X 2mm blue beads
16 X 4mm blue beads
Fishing wire (roughly 1m)
Pliers


  1. Start by threading one 2mm blue bead onto the fishing wire, let the bead drop down to the middle of the wire. Then thread five 2mm white beads on either side of the blue bead. Complete the loop by threading both ends of the wire through a 2mm blue bead.
  2. Continue threading beads in this pattern until you have made 6 ‘loops’ in total.
  3. Then thread one 4mm blue bead on each length of fishing wire followed by a 2mm blue bead then another 4mm blue bead. Complete the ‘loop’ by threading both ends through a 2mm blue bead. (The diagram probably explains this better).
  4. Repeat the first step to complete the band of the bracelet.
  5. Finish by using pliers to add the metal loops to the ends of the bracelet, attach the metal clasp to the ends.



Monday 16 December 2013

Rosette headband

My old art teacher taught me how to make this rosette. She used this project to teach me how to sew. However my sewing skills are still really poor, I keep losing patience with it! If you are not keen on sewing like me, use glue instead. It’s so much easier! 




If I made the rosette again I think I will make it a little smaller next time!

 I got bored while I was waiting for Affie to wake up from her nap so I decided to doodle on one of her old baby grows. It turned out better than what I expected it to! I added some old buttons I had lying around to jazz it up a bit, not practical for a baby who loves tummy time. Affie isn’t keen on tummy time and prefers to sit up. Baby clothing can be quite pricey but you can buy plain white clothing at much cheaper prices and decorate to how you like! I sewed buttons on but I know these can be a choking hazard if they came loose. The onesie was only used once for the photos. The onesie is a little small for her (I couldn't button it at the crotch!)



To make this you will need:
Scraps of material (in two colours)
Felt
Lace
Ribbon
One decorative button
Scissors
Thread
Glue
Needle
Hair clip
Pair of tights

Materials 

Pair of tights

  • Cut 6 circles from your material in three sets. I cut 6 large circles from the black material, 6 medium sized circles from the white material and 6 small circles from the white material. These circles do not need to be cut neat (as you can tell from my photo!) 
6 x three different sizes of material cut into circles

  • Taking one of your circles, fold it in half (as pictured), then fold it again (but this time fold it past the half way mark), and fold it back on itself. You should aim to make a ‘z’ shape. I then stitched the triangular shaped material down but its much easier to glue (much quicker too!) Repeat for all the bits of material.
1


2 Fold in half
3 Fold again
4 Fold back on itself
5 Stitch (glue) in place
  • Start arranging the pieces on top of each other and glue down. If the edges don’t fit to your liking then you can always trim the edges a little. 
Arrange and stick in place

Trim edges (if you want)
  • To create the ribbon cut a strip of the ribbon material and make two loops and glue in the middle. Cut another three smaller strips, cut a ‘v’ out in the ends of two of the strips. With the longer strip, wrap around the middle of the ribbon with two loops and glue in place. Glue the two shorter ribbon strips to the middle of the ribbon as pictured.

1

2

3

4

5
  • Glue the piece of lace along the edge of the rosette and the ribbon into the centre of the rosette, glue the button on the middle of the ribbon. Using the felt cut out a circle big enough to cover the messy edges of the lace on the back of the rosette and glue in place.

  • Glue a hair clip to the back of the rosette and cover any messy bits by gluing another piece of felt over the metal.


To make the headband:

  • Taking the pair of tights cut the toes off one end of the tights and cut just below the crotch (measure to make sure it fits the childs head).

  • Stitch together the two ends, this does not need to be neat as it will be hidden.



  • Wrap a bit of ribbon around the area you just stitched together and glue in place.

  • Then just clip the rosette into place and you have finished!

Wednesday 11 December 2013

Toblerone Cheesecake

I had a go at making a Toblerone cheesecake! It was surprisingly easy to make (and if I am able to make it then it must be easy!) The recipe can be found at http://www.littlecakehouseblog.co.uk/2013/03/toblerone-cheesecake.html.There are also a few other recipes on the site that I want to try out in the future.

Toblerone cheesecake! 

The appearance of my cake isn’t brilliant (check out the website to see how good it can look!) Still, it was a very tasty treat, but perhaps not great when you are supposed to be on a diet...

Yum!
We recently moved house so it was a bit of a mission looking for all the kitchen stuff I needed. I opened the hand mixer box only to find that I had left the metal mix stick thingys at the old flat. So I had to whisk using a fork, hard work!


Sunday 8 December 2013

Tutorial: Beaded bracelet with flower detail


Beaded bracelet

You will need:
Scissors (not pictured)
Pliers
Beads    157 x 2mm white beads
                31 x 2mm blue beads
                14x  4mm purple bicone beads
Fishing wire (roughly 1m)
Metal clasp
2 x metal loops

Things you will need...
Step 1.



Cut a piece of fishing wire (roughly 1 metre-this is probably being a little generous but I prefer having a long piece of wire to work with.) Start by threading 7 2mm white beads onto the fishing wire, move the beads to the middle of the wire so you have equal lengths on either side of the beads. Thread both ends of the fishing wire into another white 2mm bead to create a loop.

Step 2.


 Next thread ten 2mm beads onto both ends of fishing wire (five beads on each thread). Then thread both ends into a blue 2mm bead to create another loop. Repeat this pattern until you have used six 2mm blue beads for the bracelet band (or until you have reached the desired length for half the bracelet).

Step 3.



Thread both ends of the fishing wire through a 4mm purple bicone bead to complete the loop. Then thread one purple bead on each of the threads, complete the loop by threading both ends through a blue 2mm bead. Add a purple bead on each end of the fishing wire and then thread both ends through 3 blue beads.

Step 4.


On each end of wire thread one purple bead and complete the loop by threading both ends through a blue bead.

Next add a blue bead to each end of the wire and complete the loop by threading both ends through another blue bead.  On one end of the wire thread a white 2mm bead then loop the wire through the blue bead (in the completed loop) and back through the end blue bead. The ends of wire should poke out on either side of the blue bead at the end. (Hopefully the diagram explains this clearer!)

Step 5.


On one piece of the wire thread a purple bicone bead followed by three blue beads, then thread through the previous purple bicone bead and two blue beads, and then through the purple bicone bead you just threaded on. Repeat on the other end of wire. (Again the diagram will hopefully explain this better!)

Then thread both ends through three blue beads.

Then add a purple bead to each piece of wire and complete the loop by threading both ends through a blue bead.

Thread a purple bead to each piece of wire again and then both ends through another purple bead.
Next thread five white beads to each piece of wire and thread both ends through a blue bead. Repeat the process for the bracelet band until you have used up the rest of the 2mm blue and white beads (or to the desired length). Once completed tie a knot and cut the lengths.

Step 6.

 

Using the pliers gently pull the metal loop until the gap is big enough to thread it onto the end of the bracelet. Do the same to the other end and add the metal clasp, now you have finished!






Thursday 5 December 2013

Christmas Presents

Hello!

Christmas is fast approaching! Normally I don’t get that excited about Christmas. But this year I started getting excited in October. If the previous version of myself could visit me now I think the previous version would slap me several times across the face.

With the arrival of Affie our purse strings have been stretched a little, so I have been scouring the internet for different gift ideas without having to spend lots of cash. The most obvious thing to do was to use Affie to make some presents. For Grandparents we have made some footprint cups. (It is safe to post this information as both sets of grandparents do not know how to use the internet!) I have taught my mum several times on how to switch on the computer and to use hotmail along with searching for different websites but she has remembered nothing. She can switch on the computer but that’s about it.


The cups!

Butterfly feet for the Grandmas and messy footprints for the Grandads

It took several attempts but we finally got there. Affie was happy to play along to begin with but 5 minutes in she decided that she was fed up. I don’t blame her as I can imagine she felt a bit cold stepping onto a paint covered sponge and then having a cold cup pressed against her foot. I haven’t worked out how to do hand prints yet. She keeps clenching her fist; the result was a paint smudge across the cup.


In hindsight I would’ve like to put more different coloured footprints across the granddad cups, but I was pretty sure that Affie had had enough at that point. Maybe we can try handprints for birthdays in the future! When we painted the cups the colours were quite muted and looked more pastel-ly. But once the cups were fired the colours have turned out really bold....and the butterfly bodies look a little bit like Mr Hankey.

Mr Hankey