It's a Creative World

12 days of Christmas - Santaleles

Hello, Eleanor back again, with another creative day of Christmas..

The post title refers to the order of plants to which Mistletoe belongs, funnily enough. The origin of the name mistletoe is uncertain, but may come from German, Mist for dung, and Tang for branch, as this parasitic plant's seeds can be spread in birds' droppings, and the plant itself attaches to tree branches and absorbs water and food from them. 

My mistletoe today is on a card, using a delicate little die cut wreath, with tiny little flatback pearls, and a brick wall embossing folder:

I secured the wreath just at the top, as I liked it hanging lightly:

No sentiment, is it needed? What do you think?

See you again soon.

x

Paper Beads Tutorial

I wanted to show you a quick and easy tutorial that can use up loads of scraps to make these paper beads, I'm not sure where the idea originated but I first saw Suze Wineberg making them and dunking them in UTEE to give a hard glaze to them.  As well as being easy to make you can use them on cards and scrapbook pages, necklaces and broaches and all sorts of items. 

The things you need to make your beads are :

A pencil, ruler, piece of paper, glue and a guillotene

This piece of paper is 6" by 4" (though you can use 12" paper to make a thicker bead too - they also look great out of old magazines so you would just use the lenght of the page for that).  I divided up the top of the paper into 1" sections, because you are making a triangular shape on the bottom of your paper the 1st measurement needs to be 1/2" in from the side and then 1" marks from that.  To show the triangular shapes I have drawn them onto the paper, you don't need to draw the triangles on as you can just line up the marks on your guillotene to cut them.

Once cut out this is how the triangles look.

 Next is the rolling part, at the point of the triangle add some glue, then take a pencil (or skewer - any cylindrical shape) and roll from the base of the triangle to the point, try and keep your roll straight to keep the bead even.

Once you are up to the top of the triangle, hold the tip down so the glue can set a bit and then slide the bead off the pencil.

 

 This is what the beads will look like, I made one with a Kebab skewer and the other one is from a pencil.

Alongside making necklaces you can use the beads in lots of different ways, here are some ideas

 On this card I made a flower shape with the beads and stuck a button in the centre.

 On this page I used the beads as a border to my photo and threaded them with string, and also as a button on my journal envelope at the bottom of the page.

 

I hope that has inspired you to have a go.

 

Katherine

Beaded Decoration

I have a collection of beaded decorations I've made over the years and they really make the Christmas tree sparkle.  This year I had an email from one of my favourite bead shops with  free instructions to make a decoration using Tila beads. (They are square and have 2 holes in them)

 

This is what mine looks like

 

I used silver lined crystal seed beads and Tila light gunmetal.

The instructions are HERE

 

Several years ago I was given a kit from Spellbound Beads as a present and make some each year to give as presents.

 

 

Do have a go at making some decorations using your beads, rather than just looking at them (like I do)

 

I'd also like to share a new tradition in our family.  My close friends daughter came to me to make a Christmas cake for the first time last year and said she'd like to come again this year.  She makes it from scratch and really enjoys beating the butter and sugar and the mixing. Like me she likes glitter and now we've discovered edible glitter, have lots of fun decorating.  

Here's this years offering:

 

(This was made and decorated by a 6 year old)

 

 Have a magical Christmas.

 

Lynne x

Using Novelty Yarns At Christmas

Hi there Kerry here

How many of us knitters have some novelty yarn in our stash that we will probably never use?

I know I certainly have.

I turned mine into some reasonably easy Christmas tree decorations.

It doesn't matter what size yarn you use. You might want to go down a size needle from the one recommended for the yarn so the knitted piece is denser and you are less likely to see the stuffing. So you will need a little bit of stuffing or tights or old bits of fabric to stuff your decoration.

The pattern is as follows working from the tip downwards:

You have a choice of leaving a long enough loop to hang it with or crocheting a chain. If you are crocheting a chain then chain 30 and slip stitich back into the first chain to make the loop. Transfer the loop onto your knitting needle and then knit as follows:

Row 1 - knit into the front and back of the stitch (abbreviated to kfb)

R2 and all even rows up to and including row 26 - purl

R3 - kfb on each stitch

R5 - knit

R7 - kfb each stitch

R9 - knit

R11 - (kfb k1) to end

R13 - knit

R15 - as row 11 (18sts)

R17 - knit

R19 - as row 11 (27sts)

R21 - knit

R23 - (kfb k1) to last stitch k1 (40 sts)

R25 - knit

R27, 28 and 29 - knit - this provides a garter ridge for the base of the tree

R30 - (p2tog p3) x 8 (32sts)

R31, 33 and 35 - knit

R32 - (p2tog p2) x8 (24 sts)

R34 - (p2tog p1) x 8 (16sts)

R36 - p2tog x 8

Cast off

You have the option of sewing on beads or buttons at this point or leaving it plain.  On the yellow ones I added buttons to the top to make a star.  I just added a few beads on the pastel eyelash ones and on the dark green ones I added lots of gold seed beads.

Turn it inside out making sure your loop is on the inside and start sewing the seam until you reach the garter ridge you made at row 28. At this point turn it the right way round and stuff it. Then stitch the bottom seam adding more stuffing, if it needs it, as you go.

 

 

 

 

 

Crocheted Brooch

Hello everybody - Kerry here with my very first post on here so please be gentle with me.

My project is an easy crocheted brooch. 

Terms are the US version of crochet because despite being English I learnt using the US terms.

You will need a few scraps of leftover yarn. The thickness is totally up to you.  I used chunky which I believe is called bulky in other countries. It gave me a brooch of approximately 3 inches in diameter. You could use thinner yarns doubled.

I used a 6mm crochet hook.

Directions:

Using the magic circle method (explained here) chain 3 and then do 10 double crochet (explained here) into the circle. Join with a slip stitch into the top of the chain 3.

It should look like this:

Chain 3 and then do 4 lots of double crochet into each double crochet from the previous round. Slip into the top of the chain 3. Weave in your ends and your crochet part of this is done. The 4 lots of double crochet makes it slightly ruffled. If you prefer it to be flatter then simply substitute the 4 double crochet for 3 double crochet.

It now looks like this (yes I was naughty and took the picture before I got rid of the ends):

Now comes the fun part. Grab some buttons and beads and let your creativity loose.  I used just ordinary sewing thread doubled for attaching the embellishments as some of the items I used were too small to fit yarn through. Invisible thread would be great for this part.

Sew a pin to the back and you are done.

There are numerous other ways of using this project. It would be great to dress up a bag, for fastening a scarf, as a hair accessory or on your papercrafting projects.

Thanks for taking the time to read my first ever post.

Kerry x

 

 

 

OUR NEW DT PART 1

Hiya IACW

 I am proud to announce we have finally picked our new DT. They are creating as we speak so they can Inspire you all. We at IACW look forward to seeing what they all come up with & Welcome you all.

Keep a look out we will be up and running very soon.

Katherine - Fruit of my Scraps  

KATIE- Glittery Katies blog

Tracey - Running with Scissors

Gabrielle - Crafty thoughts

Leanne - Craftaholic

Caroline - La pause en Scrap de Caroline

Stitch Marker and Round Counter for Crochet Amigurumi style...

Hi, Mandy here again...

I love making toys and decorative items in a continuous crochet spiral,  BUT it's beyond important to use a stitch marker with this Amigurumi style crochet.  Recently I have been working on a pattern for a crochet egg (which is turning out to be harder than I first thought).  It's very easy to lose your place in a pattern and if you haven't marked the rounds then it's hard to go back and find where you were.  Really hard (I've learnt this the hard way with much gnashing of teeth).  So, up until recently I always tied a piece of contrasting cotton thread into the crochet as a stitch marker.  This worked OK but it takes time to tie it in and untie it every round.  I decided to make myself a  crochet stitch marker with a built-in round counter.  My dd had made the beadling bee for me a few years ago and decided to use it.  Next, I threaded some pretty glass beads and a round counter onto the bee's wire and connected a teeny silver lobster clasp which I got here at Yadanabeads on Etsy. 

However,  I got carried away making it cute and personal and lost sight of it's function as a stitch marker and that it would be attatched to the crochet while I worked.  The teeny lobster clasp held it's place wonderfully in the crochet and was quite quick to use BUT this cute new tool was so annoying to work with.  Back to the bead box I went and came across an old amber drop earing which I used to wear and love until I lost one.  The amber bead was lightweight, smooth and dangled freely.  I just added a small jump-ring and connected it straight to a lobster clasp.  A 30 second job and it works wonderfully!

 

 

I still use the round counter and the bee stops it rolling off the arm of the settee, so all's well.

 

I haven't given up on 'the ultimate crochet egg' and will share the pattern once I've worked out the kinks.

From Mandy.

 

Simple snowflakes

Hi there, for my Christmas themed post today I have been playing with bits and pieces I have had lying around in my stash (and my children's) for a while. Both projects could be made by children, with varying degrees of help depending on their ages.

The strung garland used three sheets of A4 glitter card, some cheap silver cord and lots of little crystals (which I think were from sort of kiddies crafting kit).

I die cut lots of the snowflakes, using an older Sizzix die and stuck three together to make each complete 3d snowflake. I dug out my old (and very rarely used) Xyron 510 machine to apply adhesive to the back of all the snowflakes. A spray glue would work well too. I found it best to fold two snowflakes in half, glue them together, hold them flat against my desk to drape the cord across and then stick a third (unfolded) snowflake onto the top, aligning the snowflakes, adding in the fold to the final one after they were glued together. Spacing isn't critical as the snowflakes will move along the cord, with a little pressure, once they are all strung together. I find that stick on gems don't tend to stick on to glitter card very well, so I used a fine tipped glue bottle to add dots of glue to stick the gems on with.

 

I think it looks great hanging over the mirror - getting double the effect!

 

The larger snowflake is made up of three large foam snowflakes which were bought from Hobbycraft. They come with a plain finish so I sprayed some Crafter's Companion Spray and Sparkle to glitz them up a bit. I used the liquid adhesive to glue the three snowflakes together into the 3d shape and let it dry before decorating it. I punched holes through the top and bottom of the snowflake and threaded beading wire through, adding beads both above and below the snowflake, looping the wire back through and securing with a crimp bead. I made a small tassle with some silver metallic thread and attached it to the bottom using a jump ring. The smaller gems were attached using the fine tipped glue bottle and the larger gems in the centre of each side using dimensional glue dots, as these go over the folded portion of the snowflakes and don't lie flat.

 
 

I like this larger snowflake as an ornament in it's own right, but it could also be added to the centre of the strung snowflake garland if you want to.

xxx's

Suzanne

SIMPLE THINGS OCTOBER - MEMORY

 
Welcome to Simple Things this month, where we have been looking at our memories and ways of recording them.

It's Eleanor here, and I must confess, I have been having serious second thoughts about the format I chose for this project. I have never made a full size quilt before, and whilst I am loving the process of creating the eight inch squares, I am beginning to wonder how I will ever make them into a quilt. It would be awful if I couldn't manage it and the squares languished in a drawer forever more.

I don't always get things right first time, and often redesign a project halfway through the process, SO - 

I have made a big decision, to abandon the quilt and make all of my squares into wall hangings, or framed pictures, canvases, or even bags. Being made of fabric, they will adapt easily to any of these.

I am a new grandmother, and every moment I spend with my grandson is making precious memories for me, and for him, so this month I tried out my revised idea, and made this:

I turned the photo to sepia, printed it onto cotton (which in its former life was a cot sheet belonging to my firstborn son, the father of this sweet baby) raided my boxes for lace, ribbon, velvet ricrac, beads, fibres, and buttons, and this is the result.

Being creative can be all about choices, and changing direction when something isn't working as originally planned, and here's to that!

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 Hi Debbie here with my take on memory.

I have found a quote for memory I really liked. "Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are and the things you never want to lose.

I have really got into Art Journalling so decided to use some of the techniques I have learnt on this page.

I painted the background with yellow water colour smooshed around with a baby wipe, and stamped the background with pale blue text and a crackle background stamp. The birdcage is cut from cardstock and the photo inside is a downloaded image from the internet of Marilyn Monroe.

 

I stamped bird cages over the background and then gessoed over them as they were too dark.

I then added a checkered stamp in blue over the top of the gesso.

I stamped around the edges of the page with versamark and then used a posca poster pen to draw around the border and add detail to it.

I added my quote with the posca marker and added a few more tiny flower stamps as I felt the background was a little. dull. I highlighted the image using a gold marker on the hair and a red one on the lips.

I thought the page looked a bit gloomy so I added pink glitter glue to the cage.

Debbie x

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 Dolly here with another word page for my album.

Memory (bearing in mind my album focuses on flower photos) made me think of Autumn and the passing of the summer and the beauty of the autumn colours all around.

So I went with an autumnal theme this week.

 
The photo was of some fallen leaves that just looked pretty.

 

I included a definition ,as I have done with every page for this project. This one was quite hard as there were so many sections in the dictionary. I went for a shortened simplified version.

 

I also used a word art which I will put on my blog for download as well

 

I love autumn and I am so glad I have a page that refelects that in the album.

 

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Hiya Claireliz here with my take on Memory

Now I admit I haven't done the journaling on this yet... why? I hear you ask, well I'll be honest,I thought of something really cool that I wanted to say on the journaling & found a great quote too, but, I didn't write it down & now I can't for the life of me remember what it was I was going to say. Really, I think that says a lot about the state of my memory, but this is why I scrapbook. I may inadvertently put the salt & pepper in the fridge & occasionally leave the house in my slippers (seriously, its happened more than once) but at least I can look back & remember the stories behind photos & events.

So here is my memory page...

 

My little pizza box book is looking very chunky right now. I have stuck with making pockets to hold journaling throughout the project. To decorate this page I used a bit of left over Grungepaper film strip, sprayed with Dylusions ink (granite) Then used a variety of ScrapaGoGo & Banana Frog stamps to decorate, the title is made using Jenni Bowlin bingo card alphas. I found a 7gypies fabric tab that says remember this & some acrylic & kraft Maya Road journaling cards that relate to memories. I also used a dictionary definition of memory which reads.... Memory: Process of retaining & reproducing past thoughts & sensations, sum of things remebered.

Well thats all from me, I'm going to try & remember what my journaling was & write it up... this is the reason I have countless lists & notebooks.

Thanks for stopping by & see you soon

Claireliz

xx

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Hi all, Michelle here with my offering for the Simple Things project this month. While thinking about the word Memory, I went through a whole range of thoughts and ideas and to be honest my little offering mutated quite a lot on its journey. It has ended up, however, being my favourite addition to my simple things treasure chest.

I made one of these

 
I cannot remember what we used to call them so I have called this my memory snapper! I started working on the word with a heritage feel, making a memory book but none of that felt right and when I thought about my memories I was transported to the late seventies/eighties where a lot of my memories are rooted ... an all together more colourful time than vintage/heritage. I then remembered these origami games we used to make and thought what a great way to hide memories to pluck out of the air when I need a smile!

For those of you that can’t remember how to make them and for those of you wondering what on earth I am whittering about here’s a quick folding step by step

 

The piece of paper for folding has to be square. I’ve used a 12 x 12. Fold the diagonals of the square corner to corner and lay out flat again.

 
Fold in all 4 corners to the centre point you have now created with the initial folds.

 
Flip the now smaller square over and fold in all the corners to the centre again.

 
Fold the piece in half both ways.

 
Slip your thumb and forefinger under the outside flaps and now you can make it move .... ah the memories heh!

I then marked each piece I would see with what I wanted on it, and the right way, so that when I unfolded the piece I could see what would go in each section. Originally the outside would be coloured sections and you would spell out the colour revealing the inner sections that would hold numbers which were counted out to then lift the inner flap where it stopped to reveal a message like ‘I love you’ or ‘you smell’ LOL. This time I made my outside spell Memories, the inner to read Remember and under the flaps I have recorded a main word with all the memories that conjures up.

 

I decided to doodle all my sections, in itself a memory, reminding me of my school books and pencil case!

 
And then I went to town colouring it in, a favourite childhood past time with memories of me and mum sat colouring in together! I used pro markers however, slightly better pens than my old favourite felt tips (of which I used to have hundreds as a kid!)

 
And that’s it, I have to say it’s the most fun I’ve had creating for a long time, back to basics and re living some wonderful memories along the way! Why not re live some memories yourself and maybe pass on our silly little origami game to some little ones....after all that’s how memories live on! See you next month when I’ll be full of GRATITUDE!

Love MJM x

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Next month we are thinking about GRATITUDE; we would love you to join us.

 

Jar of Nothing

Do you ever get frustrated when you ask someone what they would like for a present?

This year I have the perfect solution for you this Christmas, a jar, tin or box of NOTHING. 

While surfing I came across the idea HERE.  The poem can be adapted to suit your needs.

You can use all your oddments to decorate it, you know those odd letters that are left over, flowers, fibres, beads, bling. You could even stamp or alcohol ink the container. Just have fun but remember to leave room for the poem.

If you're anything like me you will have empty embellishment tins or candle jars, here is the perfect thing to make with them.

Once they've received a jar, tin or box of nothing I'm sure you will get an answer other than nothing when they're asked what they would like.

They would make a great fundraiser at a school fair.

Lynne x