101 Crafts # 40 - Googly Eye Shoes!!!

Hello everyone! I am so sorry that I haven't posted on this blog in such a long time. I have been really busy with my new blog Style Independent and I haven't been doing as much crafting as I would have liked to.

Today I am going to share with you some lovely Googly Eye Shoes that I made.

If you would like to see more pictures of my outfit please go to Style Independent.

These started as a plain pair of gold shoes (scuffed). 

I painted them white using Acrylic and a Textile medium.

Next I bought lots of googly eyes!

I used hot glue to affix these to the front of the shoes.

And here you have the most beautiful Googly Eye Shoes in the world!

Naturally you need to leave the paint to dry thoroughly before you affix any of the eyes. Then it is best to let those sit for a while so that they stick really well to the shoes.

What do you think??

Ciao for now!

101 Crafts to Make #43 - Crochet Dish Cloth

Another easy craft on my list, but at least I am making progress!

My Dad's mother taught me how to crochet when I was young but I have never actually made a dishcloth before. I didn't use a pattern for this one but just made rows of random stitches. It turned out funky with the stripes running from the first row to the last row not quite of the same pattern. No matter, it is quite functional and that is really all that matters with a dishcloth. 

I think that if I make more in the future I will make knitted ones instead as my squares of knitting seem to turn out a lot more square than my crochet squares. I may simply need some more practice with crocheting squares. That or maybe I should follow a pattern!

Here we have my first few crocheted rows.

And here, the final product.

Hope you enjoyed! I am working on quite a few of the more challenging crafts on my list of 101 and I am really hoping I will be able to make all of them before my time is up... Only 6 months and 95 more crafts to go.

Wish me luck! 

Ciao, 

 

Crochet Tie Organizer

Hello all!

So today I am showing you how I took a horrible ugly wire hanger and turned it into a super functional tie organizer for the closet.

You see - I have a problem (as I am sure you can tell from the post about my closet) I love clothing. I also have a lot of it. So it stands to reason that I have many many things which need to fit into a small space (yes I have been reorganizing and trying to declutter my space). I decided that since Aren didn't really have a place to store his ties, and I didn't have a place either, why not store them together?

The result was this crocheted tie organizer.

Plain Ugly Wire Hanger

The Magic - Black wool and a crochet hook.

I began at the bottom and crocheted my way around the entire hanger.

Once I had finished crocheting all the way around the hanger I needed to make loops in which the ties could hang. I divided the hanger up very roughly in my mind and decided that 12 loops across would be perfect. Using a chain stitch I made the crocheted the loops, connecting them to the hanger once each was finished.

Voila! A finished organizer to help me utilize the space in my closet better.

If Aren or I ever get any more ties (which inevitably we will) I will need to make another organizer as this one is now full! Fun and easy to make and it sure freed up some space in my dresser drawer.

Hope you all enjoyed this project!

Ciao,

Hallowe'en 2010 - Starcraft Nova Costume

Hey everyone!

Last time out I was consumed with making my Hallowe'en costume from scratch. I hope you will enjoy these pictures! WARNING: This will be a long post as there are a lot of pictures. : )

I found out that I would be out for Hallowe'en only two weeks before the date, so I didn't have a lot of time to construct my costume. I decided that I wanted to go as Nova (Ghost) from Starcraft (a computer game).Tthe costume ended up being a lot more work than I thought it was going to be.

First I have a whole bunch of photos of the finished costume. I borrowed Brendon's Air Soft gun for the pictures but didn't take it out with us as it looks too much like a real gun.

In this one you can see a lot of the lights that we incorporated into it.

Aren told me I wasn't supposed to smile because people with guns don't smile. I'm not very good at looking serious for pictures.

Now on to the construction phase of the costume:

What a huge mess!!

This is my original sketch for the bodice armour. I decided afterwards that having the shoulder pads point downwards was going to be much too restrictive.

These are front and back flat sketches for the one piece. All of the style lines are included, although modifications were made in the final garment.

I drafted a pattern for the bodysuit and initially I was going to make it all out of PVC. Well that turned out to be a horrible idea as it pulled and bunched all over the place. Luckily I had some bamboo stretch fabric at home that I could use. I drafted the pattern and made two different prototypes before I finally made the suit itself. All of the piping is black PVC, tricky to sew!

I constructed the body armour with PVC, tape, glue, papermache and LOTS of time. It took me forever to get it properly formed.

Nova's suit lights up so of course I had to have LED's and EL wire in it. The store only had 6 blue LED's though so I am hoping to work on the costume more and add more lighting to it.

Yes folks, ALL of the piping was hand made by moi.

Piping and sewing part of the bodice.

Piped in the middle and piped around the outside. PVC is sticky when it sews so I had to buy a roller foot.

Inside of the outfit.

Outside of the outfit.

The foam served as pattern pieces for the PVC as well as gave the bodice extra shape. There were battery packs hidden inside here and the backpack as well.

While We Were Out:

Me with Master Chief. You can see the lights better in the dark.

Aren and I. He didn't have as much time as I did to make his costume but he was a Nintendo controller and SUPER proud of it. He made the whole thing on Saturday before we went out. He said he is going to do some more work on it and make sides and stuff too. It was super sweet either way!

Did I mention he was Super proud of being a Nintendo controller? This is us with two of our friends.

I hope you enjoyed these pictures of our costumes.

As I said earlier, I plan on putting more lights on mine and reworking some elements. I had no idea it would be quite as much work as it turned out to be and would have liked a bit more time on some parts.

Until next time,

Gingerbread House! (and Addicted To Plastic)

So I know that I promised I would tell you all about the movie I was watching (Addicted to Plastic) and I will in just a minute - I just got distracted by these pictures from my Gingerbread house! I love Christmas and I adore Christmas baking. I didn't actually get to bake the house myself since it was made while I was out at camp - I did get to decorate it though! Isn't it the cutest little cabin you ever did see? It is actually the Domco retreat office (I know the close up is blurry - I apologize... I didn't have the new camera yet). I had so much fun working on this and thanks a bunch to Trudy who took the pictures for me!

I made the windows out of melted candy and the trees are ice cream cones covered in icing. I plan on taking some new pictures when I get back out at work this month, then I will be taking the *NEW* camera with me! Hurray! The baker also told me that they will be creating a village with all of the houses that people made and that could be finished when I get back in. Exciting!

These last two pictures are a couple I took off the balcony tonight - the colour was just amazing! Nothing like a sunset to brighten (darken??) the evening.

Now then - about that movie. So I watched Addicted To Plastic (among other documentaries) the other night and I must say - very interesting. Okay that is an understatement.

For those of you who know me, I am already a bit of ... hmm.... how to put this kindly..... an earth loving nut? Okay maybe not quite that extreme, but I do care a lot about the Earth and the way people treat it. I guess you could say that I feel that we were given the Earth as a gift and should be good stewards of what God gave us.

Sooooo on to the movie: it talks about how plastic surrounds us in our daily lives and how we have basically  taken it for granted. Instead of treating it like a valuable commodity we treat it like garbage. The filmmaker brings up a very valid point however: plastic doesn't go away! There was a really crazy scene in the movie where they use this "manta ray" trolling system that skims the ocean for plastic pieces (small pieces). The water they bring up is a veritable soup of plastics in all forms. The craziest part is that they are miles and miles and miles away from shore.

The film also talks about the toxic effects of recycling, manufacturing and disposing of plastics and the effects it has on the developing world. While some of the information was stuff I already knew I found it quite interesting and also thought provoking.

The movie got me thinking about a project concerning garbage production that I had done for the Science Fair when I was a child. People produced a lot of garbage then and I bet it is even more now. I had to sit and think about how much garbage I produce in a year (it's a lot) and what I could do to reduce that amount.

I would recommend the film to others because it will get you thinking. The movie doesn't propose that we get rid of plastic completely but rather that we treat it with more respect. I hope you have a chance to see it! (Family - you can borrow it from me anytime!)

What are your garbage production reducing strategies?

Ciao!

New York City Grit - Two Tutorials

Hello Everyone!

So as you may or may not know, it is currently NYC Fashion Week. Well, this outfit embodies to me New York cities grittier side. The street mixed with the posh, leather, denim, cotton and studs. The perfect combination.

I was really inspired a lot to make some pants with leather inserts. In particular there was a spread in Nylon magazine recently that I found really interesting. Of course, being me I decided that I needed to try my hand at making some of these must have pants myself. This is the 2nd project that I have finished from my 101 Crafts to Make Challenge.

The following were my results.

This was my inspiration spread. Lots of leather, lots of denim.

So for starters, if you want to make a pair of these pants yourself, you are going to need some jeans and some leather. I had a pair of skinny jeans that I never wear anymore and a pair of leather pants that I had picked up at the thrift store. I decided to draw out my design before beginning. I really wanted to make sure that I liked the way my vision looked in "real life" before committing to it with fabric.

Old Jeans.

Old Leather Pants.

Next I tried on the jeans, and measured how high up I wanted the leather to come. I wanted to make a diagonal leather insert. I laid the jeans out on my cutting mat and measured the diagonal line on both sides making sure that it was even.

I used the portion that I had removed from the jeans to measure how much leather I would need length wise and width wise. If the jeans you are using are too long for your legs make sure you take a proper measure or the pants will end up too long. Also I made the leather part slightly wider than the jean pieces I had removed as leather that is too tight is really tough to get into.

As you can see the leather above is WAY wider than the jean. I did not make them exactly the same width but left the leather slightly larger to make it easier to get into.

Now came the sewing. It is important that you make sure you have the pieces aligned properly before you begin to sew. Double, even triple check them. You don't want to be resewing through leather as this will weaken it and cause it to rip at the seam over time. Sew through all of the layers and be sure it is secure.

Turn inside out and enjoy!!!

To go with my New York leather and denim I decided to make a tank top. Something simply but still a bit edgy. Since I had never tried it before I decided to use a technique called reverse applique. It looks really awesome and was really quite simple to do.

I started with an old white t-shirt but you could also use an existing tank top. I traced out the shape of one of my favourite tank tops being sure to leave a seam allowance.

Tracing the Tank Top.

All cut out. Make sure you have a seam allowance too!

Next I traced a pattern that I had made onto the front of the shirt. You will also need a piece of contrasting fabric. This should be a stretchy material (like another old t-shirt) as well.

The contrast needs to be as wide as the whole tank top and tall enough to cover your designs.

Position the contrasting fabric under the design that you have traced onto the front. Pin it securely in place. Now sew around the design you have traced. You should leave about 1/8th of an inch between the tracing and the sewing line.

Pin the fabric together securely.

Sewing.

Sew 1/8th of an inch away from design.

Once you have finished stitching around the design you will need to cut out the shape you have traced. Cut on the traced lines and keep it as neat as possible.

Now sew the tank top up at the sides, making sure you have the right sides together when you do this. Flip right side out and voila! A new custom tank top.

Brand new outfit!

I hope you enjoyed these two tutorials in one. The photos of the outfit also show my Leather Bag which was made from a Skirt. You can find the Tutorial on that HERE.

Shirt - Refashion, Pants - Refashion, Necklace - Gift, Rings - H&M/Vintage/Gifts, Bag - Refashion, Shoes - Sam Edelman.

Until next time.....