Wednesday, February 28

Tweed flower tutorial

Material: Fabric, templates in cardboard or some thick paper, buttons, yarns in different
colours, needle and thread and wadding.

1. Cut out the shape of a flower in the paper and cut a matching piece of the fabric. The fabric has to reach/ over lap the backside of the paper template.
2. Now you have to sew around the fabric and the template.
3. Put the wadding and the template inside the "pocket" and gather the fabric on the backside. The template is placed inside the flower as a "stabiliser".
4. Here's a picture of how I mean by gathering the fabric on the backside.
5. Sew the entire thing together and try to make it as flat as possible.
6. Now it's time to put the yarn in place by winding it around the flower. This is a picture of it from the backside.
7. This is how it looks from the front.
8. To finish the flower, place a matching button in the middle of the flower.
9. Now you can put a ribbon, hairpin, elastic ribbon or a safety pin to make a brooch. So that you can wear the flower in your hair, on your clothes or as an fun accessories on your bag.
Again, let me know if this tutorial doesn't work!
Have fun, and please send me a picture of your flower!

My new favorite magazine!

Pretty tweed flowers..but mines are in cotton and linen. I have just started to subscribe to a new Swedish/Danish crafting magazine called Kreative. It's full of creative ideas and patterns for clothes and other nifty ideas! I love it!
As I have said before, I'm a beginner at sewing but would like to know more and this magazine is a good start for me since it has patterns for all levels of knowledge. The first thing I saw that I could easily make was this tweed flower. See my tweed flower tutorial to make your own!



This is the Nov- Dec 2006 issue if you want to look in it yourself.

Tuesday, February 27

I'm back!

I've been gone for a long time now...We have been house sitting for my mother for a week.
While we where stuck here in a icy cold, windy and snowy Sweden they went to the Azores, the lucky bastards! Well the good thing about house sitting is that I got to have her sewing machine all to myself and unlimited access to her fabric stash!!!:-)
This week there has been so much snow in these parts of Sweden that all transportations stopped! Which meant that I got several days where I could do nothing but stay inside and craft! So, this week I have lots to show you all!


This Monday I bought a laminating machine!! I have wanted one for ages but never had the money and the opportunity at the same time. I bought this for 149 SEK at Netto!!(I do make a lot of crafting bargains at this place!) Do I have to say that I love it??!! The same night I made millions of bookmarks to everyone. This is also really good for when I start working as a teacher, because now I can create school materials that the children can play with and do what ever they want and it will last long!
So far, non of the bookmarks where nice enough to show you but who knows in the future.
I'll continue to work on them!

I'll post more tomorrow, good night!

Monday, February 19

painting in oil again

I have always painted ever since I was a little girl, my biggest dream then was to become a famous painter. But the last couple of years I have not had any inspiration, until this weekend!
I started to mix colours and found that I gravitated towards the pastels and out of that pastel palette I made some icy landscapes. Because I liked the colours so much I felt so inspired and made three small paintings in one weekend!





Sunday, February 18

A quick little project!

I have been crocheting circles just to practise now for a while and yesterday I found a use for some of those circles. As flower brooches! This is the first one and it needs some more work to make it even more cute!
But I took two circles and they are held together by a big button on one side and smaller ones on steel wire sticking out of the flower. Oo, I have to practise to make sense when describing my work...Hope the pictures makes more sense!




The nifty thing about this brooch is that it's fits perfectly into a buttonhole and therefore is perfect in your winter coat.
Here it is!

Saturday, February 17

paper bag tutorial

For these bags I used a thin hand made paper with roses on. But you can use any paper that you have at hand and you can alter the template to make it bigger, smaller, thinner or longer! You can even make it wider! Your imagination is the limit!

Material: Paper, pen, scissors, glue and what ever you want to decorate the bag with.
I also used a ruler to help me fold straight after the lines.

First of all you have to draw a template. With the lines on the inside. The dotted lines are where you should fold the opposite way on the sides of the bag.
There are a picture of the bag when it's been folded and ready to glue together.
Start with gluing the bottom of the bag together, with one slip on top of the other. So, you just have to put glue on one of the slips.
Here a picture of when I'm gluing the sides together. Do this last and make sure that the bottom is dry before gluing.
Now the bag is finished!
For a closing, I sewed a button on and used a ribbon to tie around the button. But you can also punch two holes and pull a ribbon through. As I said, your imagination is your limit!


Hope this made sense and if not, please let me know!
Happy bag making!






Instant crafting gradification

I bloged about the paper bags a couple of days ago and since then I have made more! I love a easy and quick project that gives immediate gratification and looks good. Yesterday I made three more bags but this time I made a them a little different. I also tried to do a tutorial on how to make them...see f you can made some sense out of it!

Thursday, February 15

New necklace

I made a new necklace the other day but have not been able to show it here because it's a gift for a friend. Now it's safe to show it!
I wrapped the necklace in one of my little paper bags and put a ribbon with matching beads and it looked really professional...:-)


Tomorrow I'll post pictures on how I make this bags!

Wednesday, February 14

The hearts that are in my home

Suitable for a valentine's day post I'll show some hearts that I have been making the last couple of weeks. Hanging hearts decorated with beads and ribbons. You can use them for almost everything decorating a gift, hanging in the window or as a decoration on your candlestick. They are easy to make, just bend a steel wire to the shape of a heart and with the use of a thin steel wire you attach the beads. In the end put a matching ribbon and it's finished!

These three hanging hearts I gave to my mother for her to hang in her windows.

These two hearts are smaller and I have hung them over our bed.
These two hearts move around a bit, here they are decorating my candlesticks but they can also be given away as a decorating element on a gift wrapper!
Happy Valentine's day again everybody!

Receiving cards!

So far, only two valentine's card has made their way to Sweden. But you never know what the mail man brings with him today...
These two cards are from Tyn (top one), go and visit her blog Pookieville! Or her flickr.
The other one is from Deborah with the glass action studio, she has some amazing glass works!

I'm looking forward to receiving some cards in the near future!!


Happy Valentine's day everybody!

I have a lot to show you today. Here are some of the cards that I sent in to the Valentine's postcard swap. Go to my flickr to see more of them.

These are made with a "paper quilting technique". Which means that I sewed the papers on to each other. The button is also sewed on to the paper but the heart I used a glue gun to attach.
Here I mostly used glue to attach the ornaments and the ribbons.

Tuesday, February 13

Crafting for real

Even though I have been sick, had a birthday party and got a new love in my life I have had some time to craft some small things!
In between my migraine attacks I found a description on how to make your own little paper bags. It was so easy that I made four in less than 20 minutes and they turned out to look really cute. I think I'll use them for gift bags, I know someone whose birthday is coming up in a couple of days..
I also made two new bracelets just a couple of hours before my guests arrived for the party.
I had to have a bracelet that matched my necklace and since I liked how the first one turned out, I quickly made a second one just a bit different.

This one is made with nylon thread and the leafs are the lock.
This one is made with rubber band, so it fits everyone!
This bag is made out of old wall paper, it's a bit thicker than normal paper and more stable.
These are made out of ordinary paper, with holes for the ribbon and I cut the edges a bit different on them all.

My birthday!

This weekend is was also my birthday! I got a whole bunch of crafting materials buttons, materials so that I can make hand made soap, scrap booking paper, beads, money to buy more crafting materials and new tea cups and some other things for myself and my home!
I have been wanting to make my own soap for a long time and a beginners kit like this is a good start to see if I'm good at it...
It's fun how I got buttons as a gift, I have talked about it here but didn't tell anyone that I wanted it for my birthday!Maybe my little brother is reading this...;-)

My stash of buttons!

A new love in my life!

A lot has been happening this weekend. This little thing came into our life's on Saturday, his name is going to be Emil from the famous Astrid Lindgren books. (A Swedish children's book writer) The name is suiting for him because he makes a lot of mischief! Biting in my ribbons and books and loves to play with my new buttons!!! (See next post) But he is soo cute when he sleeps! And he is not going to live with us for ever, just for a period when he is not allowed to go out side...

So cute!

Friday, February 9

My inspiration journal

I read a lot of Danish and Swedish internal decorating magazines, the two best being Bolig liv and Lantliv.
Boligliv is full of great ideas for home projects like sewing a cover for your sewing machine, decorating for Easter or new pillows for the sofa. All in a price that is suitable for a student!

Lantliv on the other hand is a bit more expensive but they have beautiful pictures and make me dream about one day living in a bigger place and being able to have a whole room for my crafting!
I cut out the ideas or the pictures that I like the best and put them in my inspiration journal. so, that a day when I have time I can go back to the journal and just look at the lovely pictures or I can make something!

How about this, make decorations out of your favourite pattern fabric and hang them in some branches for Easter? How about a cover for the teapot or a vase made out of little scraps of fabric glued to a glass jar? Getting some ideas?
Just beautiful pictures can get my inspiration going!
Of course I have to decorate the pictures a little myself, can't just cut and paste all the time:-)
This was one of my ways to keep the creativity under control, what do you do?

Thursday, February 8

What to do with glass jars?

With the valentine's card finished I had some time over, and I had these glass jars that I was about to throw out. They are beautiful as they are but with the help of some paper they would be even better!


With the help of scissors, paper and some glue...
...the result was this!

They now hold my Indian ink pens and pencils!
Have a nice day!

Wednesday, February 7

Valentine's day is coming up soon

Today I finally sent out all my valentine's card! I have been working on finishing them all yesterday but I can't show you them yet, I'll post them on my flickr on Valentines day.
I have already got two in the mail and they are now up on my fridge, I'll have a big post the 14th of February. But I can show you the mess I made when making the cards;-) I love crafting mess!

I used a lot of pinks and red tones, in that way my cards are kind of traditional. I'm really looking forward to see all the cards that people have made! Next week!

Inspiration from old magazines

I found some old crafting magazines at my mothers when I was there, they are about 20-25 years old and in many ways modern again. I took the pictures from the magazines, so I'm sorry for the bad quality. I would love to make something like the bears wall hanging, it looks like a good beginners project. Now I just have to know someone who I can give it too!

In the next one was it the socks that draw my attention. I would love to learn how to knit socks, my mother knows how except how to knit the heel. If anyone knows a good tutorial on how to knit a sock heel. Please send me a link!



Can you knit socks without a heel...?
This one reminded me of the cover that a made for my note book. What is the difference between quilting and patchwork, does anybody know?

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