Millinery Operation

I do love fashion - so it makes sense that it's double the fun for me to combine fashion with crafting and create some fun stuff. I'm going to try and instill the fun-ness in you too if you're reading this so you can go on and make some fun fashion. Here's what I've been making today.........

If you want to make your own here's a quick how to......

You'll need some strips of leftover fabric, a plain hairband, some pretty Prima flowers or other embellies you like, some net and a needle and cotton.

First you need to make a 'tube' with your fabric so take one of your strips of fabric and folding it inside out stitch down one edge. When it's long enough to cover your hairband sew the edge across and trim the end. Leave the open end open.

Next you need to turn the fabric the right way around. The easiest way to do this is using a pencil to push the fabric the right way around. Thread the tube of fabric over the top of your hairband and stitch the open end closed.

Take another strip of fabric that co-ordinates with your other fabric and sew a running stitch down one edge. Pull the thread to gather your strip into a circle and then stitch the ends together keeping the fabric taught. Take the net and sew your rosette over the top using a few stitches in the centre. Trim the net around the rosette leaving a small edge.

Take some flowers and glue them in a cluster on top of your rosette. If you wanted to you can seal the flowers with clear varnish or glossy accents. Finally glue this to your hairband.

Pretty simple right? Really addictive too you can go really crazy making all different kinds of fun fashion accessories. :)

xx Leo

Week in the life 2010

This past week has gone by in a big whiz! I'm hoping I'll be able to keep up with this next week because I'm going to try and document it for a week in the life. I didn't need to buy anything extra and I wanted my book to be small so it can go inside my year long 2010 album so I had a snoop around to see what I could find. After a spring clean the other week I found an old postcard book, with the invention of email these things are hardly useful anymore but I'm kind of a stationary collector so I guess that's why I have blank postcards! Anyway the small size made them perfect for a book and it turned out {luckily} I had exactly 14 left, 2 for every day!

The book is bound with paper scraps and cover made with things I had on my desk, mostly October Afternoon 'Thrift Shop' papers and a little bit of kraft card. I've used a date stamp and some Banana Frog stamps to add the days on.

I'm thinking of adding journalling to the front of the postcard and then just covering the back and extra postcards with photos and mementos. Will have to see how it progresses, these things are usually pretty organic once they get going right?

xx Leo

Flair week challenge ~ wedding card

Been super busy this last couple of weeks but I've had to jam in a little bit of crafting time because I wanted to make a wedding card, wedding is tomorrow, (Friday) so I didn't have much time to think of something so looked online for a challenge or some ideas and found the American Crafts Flair challenge. I'm a bit of a Flair collector so it seemed perfect! I wanted to use some of my new American Crafts Dear Lizzy goodies too. I picked out the American Crafts Dear Lizzy Spring 'Lazy Ladybug' patterned paper and because it was a wedding card I went for the 'Romance' Flair and picked out two from the 'love' pack. I also used some 'Salutations' fabric Thickers, they go with the romance theme I think?

The card I made out of white cardstock first and I added a little depth to it to take the chunky embellishments.

The flowers were made with more of the same paper, (used the reverse side) with pearls in the centers and then some added tissue paper flowers and pearl buttons.

Then because it does have depth I had to make a box for it. It'll make it more of a prezzie too as it's going to have some pennies inside.

I wasn't sure about leaving the front so plain but I think it works because there's lots of detail inside?

xx Leo