Tuesday, October 26, 2010

My First Foray into Jewelry-Making

Hallo! I've been getting some serious nerves lately, so I figured the perfect way to loosen up would be to do a little late-night/early morning crafting. I recently really wanted to try at least a little jewelry-making, especially after seeing wonderful things on blogs like Flamingo Toes and Tea Rose Home. I had virtually no tools, save for a pair of basic pliers (read: big and bulky), and a mishmosh of old chains, beads, and jewelry to mess with.

So first off, I wanted to try making a bracelet, especially after seeing this tutorial. It's so simple and so cute! I wanted to do something similar, but I like a little more homogeneity in my things. Matchy-matchy was bred into me, unfortunately. ;)

Looking into my stash of random stuff, I saw three of those elastic power bead bracelets. You know, the ones with wooden beads with Chinese characters on them and that little "gourd" bead?

Like these, found at RavenHaven.com?

One was pale green, one pale pink/salmon, and one a deep red. I put them together and actually loved those colors together, especially because the pink and the paleness of the green kept it from being too Christmas-y.

Unfortunately, I took no pictures, but the process was simple. I liked the fit of the green one (which had no "gourd"), so I untied the elastic of the other two, removed the "gourd," and re-tied them so they were the same tension as the green bracelet. I glued my big, ugly knots inside a bead (with simple Elmer's Glue, heaven knows how long that'll hold). Then, I simply took a coordinating ribbon, tied them all together, made a pretty bow, and stitched it in place. Voila! Done!


Sorry, the colors are a tad off. They're more accurate in the second picture. But is it not cute?

I was still too twitchy to go to bed, so the supplies came back out and I set out to make a necklace.

Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing. As I've said before, I really had no tools and only a hodgepodge of supplies. But I decided to be creative, and you know what? I think I like it.



 What do you think? The small pearl beads were originally from an old barrette that just...died. I strung them onto two threads held together (is that a good idea even???). The two pearl "dangles" came from a brooch that had about 10 of the same thing, except one was missing so no one ever used it. And the heart pendant in the middle was a sort of hybrid between two old earrings.

Not bad for my first try, no? Especially with a bulky set of pliers as my only wire-working tool (yes, I was opening and closing those tiny chain links with it...). I don't know if I have the patience to do this often though. It was so fiddly! Do you guys feel the same way about jewelry-making, or is it just because I'm inexperienced and don't have the best tools?

Thanks for reading! See you next time!

-Annie

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http://thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com

Monday, October 18, 2010

Gauntlets and bows

Hey there all! Well, it's been a while since my last post, no? Sorry, applications decided to devour my life again. @_@

I'm here with my most recent creation. I was itching to crochet between applications, and I'd recently been wanting to crochet myself some uber-stylish fingerless gloves. So, I went to this pattern provided by the talented WolfDreamer. I got out my Cotton-Ease yarn (from my awesome new stash that my awesome roommate got for my birthday) and size G hook, and set to work!

You rock, Bing!

I immediately encountered issues. The 28 rows she has for the cuff were waaay too big for me. I don't know if my teeny wrist is even teenier than her small hands, or if she crochets really tightly/I crochet loosely. Who knows? Anyways, I modified the pattern so I started with 22 rows in the cuff.

However, it was a little too short for me when it was time to create thumb hole (odd, no?). After pondering for a bit, this is what I did for each hand for the 12th row. Keep in mind that I was working off of a row of 26 stitches. If you go my route but are using a different number of stitches per row, I just made sure that the eight stitches formed by "2 sc in next st, sc 4, 2 sc in next st" are the eight that are skipped in the next row.

R hand: sc 18, 2 sc in next st, sc 4, 2 sc in next st, sc 2. (28 sc)
L hand: sc 2, 2 sc in next st, sc 4, 2 sc in next st, sc 18. (28 sc)

Then, I proceeded with Row 12 of WolfDreamer's pattern. And here is the result!


Cute, yes? I like these much better than my last attempt because the last time I made gloves, the yarn was too thick, so I decreased the stitches per row but forgot to decrease the number of rows, so they went halfway up my forearms. >_> Not good, especially for a girl who constantly checks her watch. These are much better.

Plus, I LOVE the finger loop. It takes me back to high school when I was obsessed with a manga (Japanese comic) called Inuyasha. My favorite character, Sango, had these kickbutt gauntlets that I wanted SO BAD. This is decently close. ^_^

Awesome, right?
Here's another shot of the palms. Forgive the dorky pose...I blame my photographer.



I was still a bit unsatisfied after the gloves...I craved MORE. So I sat down and came up with a little bow!


I don't know about a pattern for this one...I just single crocheted rows of 4 sts until it was long enough to loop around and make the bow. I slipstitched the ends together and somehow managed to turn it 90 degrees and crochet a couple rows of 2 scs to make the center part. Then, I just slipstitched it in place in the back. If I try to explain better, it'll just be more confusing. >_<

The cool part is, I just bought a bunch of those really thin headbands, so I can just slip it on whichever color headband I feel like wearing and feel instantly cuter!


I also want to try slipping a chain through it to make a necklace, like the Anthropologie Feeling-Dapper necklace.

So there you have it! I hope you enjoyed!

-Annie

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Friday, October 8, 2010

On a roll!

Haha, so somehow in the past week I have managed so many posts! I have no idea why or how, it just happened! So today's is really short and sweet, just two small things with simple instructions if you're interested.

First up is my new camera case in a REALLY bright purple (Simply Soft Collections Grape, I believe). I messed around with it for a couple hours before I settled on a stitch and design I liked.

Ta-dah!


Also, remember that star I just posted about? Well I took this boring old clock we had and changed the face to a little patchwork of my scrap paper! Wouldn't it have been a shame to toss out all those huge pieces of lovely paper? Here comes Stingy Stitcher to the rescue!

From blah...

...to cute!
 All I have to do is figure out a pretty way to indicate where the numbers are. I'm thinking dots, or maybe number stickers. Any suggestions?

Click if you want to see the camera case pattern!

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Crazy cool paper star

So ever since I saw this beautiful sunburst on Craftster, I have wanted to make one myself.

*droooooool*
For lack of a tutorial from its creator, I set out to make one for myself. It's not the neatest up close and it may not have been the most efficient way to do it, but I think it came out looking AWESOME.



For size reference, there's a sheet of standard notebook paper peeking out behind it on the bottom left. Yeah, it's huge. This baby is about 33 inches in diameter. That's almost a yard, people! @_@

I'm going to share with you how I made this. However, I made a STUPID mistake when making the actual star because it had been so long since I made my mock-up. When we come to that step, I will also tell you how to do it the way I had originally intended, which would have been easier than what I ended up doing. *sigh*

Click to see the tutorial!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Infinity scarf, plus a pattern!

Hello again! I'm taking a quick break from applications and posting a little something I pounded out last month.

The first time I heard the words "infinity scarf," I was thinking something super-cool, like the infinity dress (btw, if you don't know what that is, Google it, it's pretty much the coolest thing I've ever seen and a project I want to tackle in the future). But no. Google "infinity scarf," and you get...


A circle.

Really?!

I was a bit disappointed. The cool name totally let me down. But at the same time, it inspired me. What crafter doesn't look at that and think, "I could make that."

So I did! At the same time, I wanted to try a technique I had seen in a crocheting magazine this summer. It had this really cool "poofy" effect, so I went with the super-generalized notes I had written in my little inspiration notebook.

One weekend later, here's the finished product!


(Ignore the flower that appears to be sprouting out of my head >.>)

Cute, no? And do you see the ruffly, poofiness I was talking about?


And as a bonus, you get an easy-peasy pattern for a really cute scarf. This can easily be modified in many, many ways, which I will discuss below. :)

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

A fun quiz

So my life is absolutely crazy right now. I'm so preoccupied with my med school applications that I haven't done any crafting (SO SAD). So instead, I'm sharing a little quiz I found on your color personality. I think it's actually pretty accurate, at least for me. My color is green: modern, not trendy, social, yet introverted. I like it. :)