emerald glitter heels!

i've been eyeing up youtube videos on how to glitter your shoes at home and now i've finally done it!

i love them so much! and they're so easy to do - i just sanded all the gumpf off a pair of old shoes (for 'gumpf' see 'glue gun glue and bubble wrap'....these shoes have had many fancy dress reincarnations), then i applied pva with a brush and sprinkled on glitter with a spoon. i mixed the standard green with a little black so they're not too bright, and finished with another layer of glue so i'll not shed glitter with every step.

oooooooooo! i want to wear these all the time!

shoes- £3 in the primark sale, a year and a half ago, glitter- about £4 (though i didn't need the medium, had loads left over), glue £1.50.

yay!


getting lovely things in the post : )

today i received a very pretty letter from my mother, in it were these wonderful crochet flowers of her own making:

i didn't want to just have them somewhere in my room.....so i turned them into jewellery! i hope mummy doesn't mind:

: )

macrame charm bracelet

just a little post. i used cord as opposed to leather thong this time- making it much easier to tuck things in and have a neater finish. then i added feather charms to every third bottom loop:

tits!

hehehehe, not that kind, this kind:

the one on the left is a blue tit, and the one on the right is a coal tit. i made them out of felt and glue - so easy! there was a robin too but i sewed that one in a patchworky manner, and it just didn't look like what i had had in mind, so it got binned- hence the glue. the only thing is that now i have many sheets of felt left over (these fellows are quite small....they're NOT christmas decorations, honest, the fact that they're winter birds signifies nothing!!) so yes, anyway, lots of felt, may have to make finger puppets. 

button, button, who's got the button...me!

so i've been wearing the same £5-from-a-charity-shop blue velvet jacket for 3 years worth of springs and autumns...it needed a little bit of TLC. so i replaced the buttons with missmaching gold and pearly ones:

there's a combination of beads, earrings (the bars of which i attacked with pliers to make them button-like), metal card toppers and 1 actual button. it's all rather neat though with pearls and cameos, fleur de lis ans what not : )

christmas docraft demo-day prep.

: D

i get to have a go at being the awesome demo lady at work on saturday!!!! i'm so excited, i mean originally i was like 'it's way to early to be making christmas cards', but now i'm totally planning christmas 6 months early.... anyways, here are some examples i put together to get me started and make my demo table look nice on saturday:

 the docraft stuff i was given to play with is quite traditional - gold, cream, green, red, santa etc. so i tried a few things, there's a couple of mini ones (right), a little gift box, the on on its back is a bit distressed and has a rosette, and for the one at the back i tried to bring in some blues and silver for those who might not fancy the more traditional stuff.

oh i really am quite psyched about this!

morning earrings

oh god! i've become that person! yesterday i woke up, rolled over, picked some beads off the floor and made some earrings. at no point did i get out of bed, sit up properly or even think about getting a cup of coffee:

experimenting with a victorian style

i've gone card crazy of late!

with these ones i was having a go at distressing the edges and playing with some new stamps.  despite what i said in my last post - i started with a busy creation (far left) and quickly went in a more minimalist direction.....but now i'm drowning in home made cards! so i shall inflict them on friends and family at once : )

having another go at card making

i keep picking up paper craft freebies at work for playing with, here are some practice ones:

so far i've figured out that the more layers the better, and that squirly, floral patterns make for a better filler than spots or stripes. also that patterns need to be broken up by plain colours....i know all this is obvious but even after working it out, some of them still came out a bit naff:

but i'm getting there : )

decoupage zombie hand

hehehehehe! floral zombie hand! i was given a paper mached hand from work to have a play with and this is what i made - i gave it a frilly cuff to make it look like it had been dead since the 70's, and added the dead leaves (from my own plant...poor plant) to make it look like it's digging it's way out of the ground.

just get some cool decoupage tissue, white paint, glossy glue and have fun!

docraft card making lesson

so yesterday i was up and out of the house at 7 to go to work to get a crash course in card making : D i'm still rather happy about this. here are my first two attempts:

the first is a late birthday card for my dad - i was given one of the left over sets from fathers day to practice on. the picture doesn't show it off but it's rather 3D with lots of layering (there were many foam sticky pads involved). the second is going to africa, it's super cheesey....that's kinda what i was going for. home made cards for your boyfriend are always going to be unavoidably cringe-worthy, may as well go whole hog.

i've been 'told' that i 'have' to practice, as such i've been 'sent home' with lots of card making goodies to play with. expect more of the same, maybe with some improvement.

tea infused vodka

i've got a birthday thing to go to on saturday - and all non-vodka drinks have been banned, so i thought i'd get creative and make something i may actually drink (vodka isn't usually my drink of choice, so i do try and make it more interesting if i can).  anyways, here it is! very simple, just add a teaspoon and a half of tea (this is for a 20cl bottle), three teaspoons of sugar, mix, taste every 10 minutes and strain when it gets to a flavour you like. if you have it with lemonade and ice it makes for a lovely iced tea : )  



jam jar tea light

the boyfriend's mum gave me a jar of her home made jam mmmmmmmmm! it seemed a shame to just chuck/recycle the jar, so i half filled it with silver sugared almonds, tied a bit of lace ribbon around the top and attached a folded ace of hearts playing card as a sort of label : )

picture frame earring holder

ahhh the things you can do with old frames and muslin...and an old book, some flowers, a couple of christmas-cracker playing cards, bits of chain, used stamps, glue and card.

yesterday an old friend came over for a crafty sesh - we'd both gotten to the stage where having you're earrings in a jug or box meant that you never find the ones you want (this picture was taken after only a few went on....it's totally full now!) so we got together, put some sherlock holmes in the background and got to work : ) i'm rather fond of how mine turned out.

now all i need is a super-massive wine glass to put all my necklaces and bracelets in...

fake army medals

now i had a thought... it started with a wonderment as to how one might go about cutting the pattern for a pair of spats, which lead to a similar musing about a corset, which continued on to my potentially hosting a steampunk dinner party - expect some steampunk attempts on this blog soooonish. this isn't steampunk, but i think i'll make some sepia version of them at a later date. and i haven't figured out what i could have done to merit some fake medals yet - hence why they're blank at present:

these were reeeeally quick to make, all you need is: ribbon, safety pins, gold and silver card, glue, and some tea : )

flower hair clips and things

hmmmmm....my hair is looking a bit 'emo' as the fringe is still growing out. so i decided that it's high time that i got some pretty hair accessories. sorry, did i say "got"? i meant "made". anyways, here's what i came up with while watching some trashy documentaries:

the photo isn't the best, but basically i got together a collection of hair clips and a hair band, fake paper flowers from the wedding section of hobbycraft, some green felt and my trusty glue gun. then i put it all together in a somewhat romanticised-baroque-damsel way. they're very simple and really quick to make so yay! plus they look lovely on : ) so win, win, win.

 

i love my work: felt badges

i've been working 5 days a week for the last couple of weeks in hobbycraft...and people may think me strange when i say that this makes me very, very happy - not just because of the much needed money, but because yesterday i was asked to sit and make badges. for 3 hours or so : D i've pinched a couple to take home:

i think my workmates were a little surprised at just how much i enjoyed my little project - how's a girl supposed to act when her superior hands her a glue gun, some badges and a pile of felt, then in a serious voice tells her she's to make flower badges? jump for joy, that's what! oooooh i so hope they have me doing this sort of thing more often! i got to sit down and everything!

dress 6 of 7: see-through bird panel

those who know me know that i have a bit of a soft spot for sheer cloths : ) so it's no surprise that at least one of the H&M dresses has gone a bit naughty! it's not a huge alteration - i simply removed the back panel, used it as a template for my see-through piece of fabric (actually a pretty scarf that i picked up for 75p), and then i sewed it all together again. here's a rather fuzzy photo of how it went, followed by a better one: