Monday, March 1, 2010

Butterfly and Glass Gem Mobile - I'm in love with it!

I've been busy since a few days, making....THIS! Click on the picture to get a better view, as these pics do not do justify the beauty of this mobile. But then I think any project involving butterflies is a beauty! 

Butterflies fascinate me..I'm obsessed with them. Makes me wonder why I never posted any projects related to butterflies, but here I am anyways with an alluring mobile with butterfly and glass gems. One can find butterfly mobiles all over the blogland, but I wanted to make a difference by adding some glass gems or pebbles which shine and shimmer prettily, thus creating a nice ambience.

Here is how its done! You will need:

You can do it with just one hoop if all you desire is a single tier mobile, or two hoops for making it double- tiered. I intended to make a two- tiered mobile, but was too lazy ran out of time so made a single tier. That looks good too!
 I cut all the butterflies in 4 different wall papers all by myself (took me 2 days to cut over a 100 flutters!). You can choose coordinated colors, but I went totally berserk and chose a wild combination of red, white, pink and blue, and colorful glass pebbles. I found a fabulous butterflies template HERE! Thanks Lolly!
Lets get started! Place your hoop on a flat surface and mark the distance at which you would like the strands of the mobile to be. Should not be too far or near ideally. Mine had around 25 strands.
Do not worry about the visibility of the marks, we shall cover them later.
Now take your yarn ball and cut the individual strands. Decide the length of the mobile according to where it will be hanged. Leave an extra allowance of 5 inches on each strand length. My mobile was 25 inches long, so I cut 25 30 inch strands (Huge, yes!).

Now start working on individual strands. Note that glass gems are heavy, and should be ideally glued onto something wider, as we don't want a pebble falling suddenly onto a child, do we? So for a long-lasting glue bond for the glass pebble, follow these steps to make a 'seat' for the pebble where you could glue it:
Make a simple knot onto the yarn strand at the distance of 4 inches from one of the ends.

Make these knots all over the strand at a regular interval of say, 5 inches. The more the use of pebbles, the prettier you mobile will turn!
Now put a dab of tacky glue or hot glue over the 'seat' and press the pebble onto it. There, let dry and it is permanently stuck. Here's how the strand looks like after this step:

Do this to all the 25 strands. Now for the butterflies! Glue the flutters in between the pebbles. See to it that the distances are more or less equal.

Needs some patience, I know, but the result is worth it! Repeat the above for all the strands. Here were some of the finished strands. Let dry.

Now temporarily hang your embroidery hoop from a hanger or suspend it from wires like me. Take the strands and tie them one after the other onto the marked place on the hoop.

Nearly there! Use a coordinated satin ribbon to cover the ugly hoop and the knots. I used pieces of red and pink ribbons. Simply glue one end of the ribbon onto the frame and keep on rolling and wrapping around. Keep gluing at regular intervals. 

Now the final act! Insert 4 equally wide and long ribbons and tie them together to form a hoop to hang. Now hang it from your chosen spot with a hook or chandelier. Our dining room looked like it needed some dash of color so I hung it from our pretty chandelier.


I love to gaze at it while the lights are on!


LOVE this!!





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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Glass Gems Earrings- Modpodge Does it Again!


Here's my second attempt at jewelery making, since they said the first wasn't bad at all..Some dear blogger friends liked my crystal chain necklace enough to feature it. Thank you so much dear readers for the encouragement! That got me started on another jewelery venture..Glass Gem Earrings!

The simple yet elegant beauty of glass gems is felt by all. I had seen several projects with glass gems and they all rocked. I've used these glass gems in some projects myself, so I thought, why not make jewellery with it, too? So I made up these pretty earrings! Won't they just jazz up a simple skirt or a plain dress?

These are quite easy to make, and if you make jewelery regularly, almost cakewalk. Here is what you will need to make them

Now get started. Take a piece of fabric of your choice with a design that you would like to show in the glass gem. I chose a dark blue cloth with golden swirly designs (I love them swirls!). Now take two glass gems of roughly equal size and cover the flat area with some generous dose of Mod Podge. Now place these Modpodged glass gems on the fabric pattern that you want to show on your earrings, like this:

Remember to protect your carpet by covering it with newspapers first. Do not worry about the initial opaque appearance of the ModPodged glass gems as they will return to their transparent self once the ModPodge is dry. Here's what they look like, once dry:

One dry, cut the fabric to free the new 'patterned' glass gems, which will look like this:

Pretty already! Now for the little more trying part: the earrings! Okay, jewelery experts, do not cringe at my method of making them, as I hardly know or follow any hardbound rules! You need two small chains with small loops for this part. If you don't have one, join a few jumprings together. Now assemble some oval beads of your choice (mine were again transparent), and insert eyepins through them. Twist the free end with a jewelery plier and lock. Snip the additional part. The beads I bought already came with eyepin hoops and saved me a lot of effort. 

Insert the free end of the hooped oval beads into the rings of the chains (Have I lost you completely??), and twist. It is actually very easy to make, just follow the design you want to make. Link the beaded chain into the earring hooks. They will look like this, at this stage:

Now lay the glass gems flat side up. Snip two equal pieces of the metal wire (around 2 inch long each). Insert one end into the last ring of the chain to form a small loop and twist. Apply some tacky glue onto the back of the glass gems and place the twisted loop onto them. Cut two small round pieces of fabric to cover the loop. Place onto the back of glass gems, and press firmly. Now apply a thin coat of ModPodge for good appearance.

Let it dry amply, and wear these glitzy beauties proudly! Here they are:

Aren't these pretty? You can also opt the easier way out by wearing them simply as pendants in a chain. Apt for glam-ing up another plain look!
I'm going to make several more projects with these wonderful glass gems- be back soon!
I'm linking this to these fun parties..be sure to join me there:
Market Yourself Monday on Sumo's Sweet Stuff
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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Crystal Chain Necklace

I have a habit of venturing into things unknown and I constantly have newer whims..this time it was hand-made jewelery! I had never tried to make any jewelery earlier, though I bought a mountain load of them...so when I did try, I came up with this charming necklace:

Made totally from frugal items that you can lay your hands on at any craft store, this pretty necklace is going to be one of my favorite accessories to jazz up a plain shirt! The crystals sparkle and the pictures do not do any justice to the real way they glow, but I think you get the idea!

Making this was super duper easy, and all those jewelery making pros out there could do this in like 15- 20 minutes! You will need:
 Simple silver chain strands (mine were around 20 inches long)..I bought mine at the local store some time ago, just as a whim, as they were quite cheap!

A  crystal strand...if you don't get this straightaway, you can easily make it on your own by linking crystals of the color of your liking with hoop rings. I salvaged mine from another old jewelery piece!
A metal clasp or hook (optional if you don't want one!)
Jewelery pliers

Now for the fun! Decide how many chain strands you want to include in the necklace. I chose 5 silver strands and a crystal strand, making a total of 6 strands. Take the silver chain strands, cut the lengths of each one from longer to shorter and spread them neatly. I wanted my necklace to be on the longer side (the longest strand being around 32 inches long, that is, 16 inches when worn). Decide the length you want for the necklace, and keep in mind that it will be halved when you wear it. Next, I cut 12 silver strands, 7 inches each. Take your crystal strand in the desired length and link it with 6 of these short silver strands on both sides with the help of metal hoop rings. Confused? It is very easy , actually:

There, your crystal strand is now ready to be joined with the 5 long silver strands. Secure with metal hoop ring on both ends. Now link a metal clasp or hook on one of the ends. If you do not want a metal clasp, simply join both metal rings and press firmly with your plier.

 There you go, your necklace is now ready!
This beauty will glam-up any plain tank tops or shirts of yours! Go for it, ladies!
This was featured at
Blue Cricket Design
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I linked this to these fab link parties..Join the fun!
http://itssoverycheri.com/2010/02/14/its-so-very-creative-party/
Whatever Goes Wednesday @Someday Crafts
Market Yourself Monday on Sumo's Sweet Stuff






Get your craft on Thurs.

DIY Day @ ASPTL

The Girl Creative
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Make it Yours @ My Backyard Eden
YOU'RE Into It! Linky Party! @ Hope Studios
giveaways
make it wear it