Love Sign Tutorial

I thought I'd share the tutorial for the love sign I made for Valentines day, it can be changed for any other four letter word as well...

You'll need:

• 2 contrasting colours of paint
• 4 papier mache letters
• superstrength glue
• lollysticks
• paintbrush

1. Take the second and third letters of your word and paint them the same colour.
2. Take the first and last letters and paint them the other colour you chose.

3. Leave them to dry.

4.Once the letters are dry flip them over.

5.Cut small pieces of the lollysticks, paste one side with glue and stick them over the joints of the L and V. (You can also add a little glue to the top flats of the V for extra security)

6. Repeat the lollystick glueing process with the other letters and join the L+V to the O+E.

7. Now the boring bit, let the glue fully set.

8. Paint the backs of the letters to cover the lollysticks and any excess glue.

9. Leave to dry once more.

And that's it all done and ready to decorate with!

Thanks for having me Amie and I hope you're feeling better soon!

Featured Over At Aunt Pegs

Wow I never thought 6 months after I posted anything on this blog that people would still be talking about it... but I'm wrong (for a change lol)! This morning I woke up to an email from Amber over at Aunt Peg's Handmade Jewelry and Treasures saying that today they were featuring me and one of my tutorials... can anyone guess which it is?

Yes it's the infamous Anthro Power of 3 knockoff I did back in January, if anybody missed it the tutorial is here.

Never though I'd see my work kicking around people's interest this long, to be honest I'm quite proud of myself for this tutorial it's been featured across quite a few blogs now and is on quite a few people's pinterest boards too.
So thanks to Aunt Peg's for featuring me!

Blog Swap with Kassi From Truly Lovely

Well today is the start of something new for me.. I'm having my first ever blog swap.. with none other than the lovely Kassi From Truly Lovely.. enough of me nattering I'll hand you over to Kassi....

I am SO excited to be blog swapping with the lovely Steph here today!!
If you're having Steph withdrawals (as I'm sure you are...)
You can visit her over on my blog, Truly Lovely,
today where she is guest posting as well!

In the meantime, I am Kassi from the blog Truly Lovely!

We are just over TWO WEEKS from our June wedding!!!
Right now much of my life and my blogs are consumed with wedding planning.... Trying to wrap up all the last minute details of course!

If you'd like to follow my wedding planning in more detail,

I have a 'just for the wedding' blog over here. :)

A wedding craft that I did just for me, just for fun, was my Bride Bag!

Every bride needs a handy little bag to carry around the wedding planning essentials!

So...

I am so excited to be able to share my Bride Bag tutorial with you today!
The same concepts can be applied to make a Momma Bag, Shopping Bag, or work tote!

Materials Needed:

• Plain Tote
  

• Sticky backed Vinyl or other stencil


• Fabric Paint


• Iron on embellishments (I used my wedding flowers, daisies)


• Cute little craft iron... Or a regular iron will do ;)
  
  (All these materials were Christmas gifts from my sweet sister, so thanks Miss Kayli for gifting me some awesome craft supplies!!)
  

First, I used my new Silhouette SD (Christmas gift from the hubs-to-be) to cut out the lettering, "Kassi's Bride Bag June 2011".

Next, I pulled the cutout lettering away from the vinyl sheet.

This became the stencil.

Then I peeled the backing off of the vinyl and stuck it to the tote.

*Tip - Sticky backed vinyl is great because once the backing is removed you can stick it onto pretty much anything and it'll last long enough to work as a stencil.

The only fabric paint I had at the time was puff paint... but that wasn't the look I was wanting for my bag... So I improvised...

I just used a small paint brush to brush the puff paint onto the stencil... I used pink and turquoise paint, my wedding colors of course!

It took a few coats of the puff paint to get it dark enough on the black tote to pop, but once I got those coats on, I just left it to dry overnight.

The next morning I simply peeled the vinyl stencil from the tote and walla, insta-tote wording!! :)

To spice it up a bit, I ironed on a few daisies (my wedding flower of choice) using my nifty little craft iron! (Again, thanks Kayli!)

The next, and final step is to fill your new Bride Bag with all the wedding planning essentials!!

In went my wedding planning notebook, wedding ring brochures, hand written guest list draft, and our engagement pictures CD.

I literally carry this bag with me everywhere I go!!

At less than two weeks til the wedding, it's so nice to have everything I need right on hand in my handy little Bride Bag!

This picture was taken by my Maid of Honor, Miss Kayli of course, after a LONG day of trying on wedding dresses!!!

As you can see, it'll wear a girl out! ;)

But the Bride Bag in tow means less stress for the bride-to-be!!!

Thanks again to Miss Steph for having me over!!! :)

Always happy to share with my bloggie besties!!!

Clutch bag makeover (take 2)

Seeing as blogger rudely deleted my post from yesterday of my clutch bag and didn't return it to my blog as their maintenance page informed me it would I'm having to repost it again!

So a small dilemma happened when I last wanted a black bag for night out.. my little black clutch bag looked sad, worn and well, hideous to be honest... in the end I changed my whole outift as I didn't want to be seen with such an awful looking bag. The other day I had a brainwave and thought I could make it over as it's only the outer fabric that's shabby.

And after a little bit of thinking and throwing fabrics out of the drawer this is what I came up with....

If you want have a go at this too then you'll need:

• a clutch bag
• complementing colour fabric
• fabric flower
• 22 x 6mm beads
• glue gun
• scissors1. First I cut the lacy fabric off (this was the bit that was amking my bag look awful so it had to go). The fabric underneath is great and is the same as the fabric I used for the leaves to cover it.
  
  2. Take your fabric and cut it into little pieces, one for every leaf. Make a small pile of fabric, draw a leaf on the top piece and cut it out, repeat till you have enough to cover the bag. (I needed 36 to cover my bag)
  3. Start by glue gunning the first leaf at the bottom of the metal frame.
  
  4. Continuing glue gunning the leaves along the bottom of the bag.
  5. Continue by sticking leaves in layers that just about cover the top of the leaves on the layer beneath.
  7. Glue the top layer as close to the metal frame as possible. Don't worry if there's a little glue overspill as the beads will cover this.
  8. Start glueing the beads along the lower edge of the metal frame, removing excess glue before it dries.
  9. Continue glueing beads on till there's enough along the frame to mirror the starting point on the opposite end. 10. Add the fabric flower as an embellishment and then the bag is finished!
  Looks 100 times better than it did when I started and now I'm more than happy to take it out with me :) If the fabric flower isn't your taste then skip the last step as it still looks good without it, or perhaps add a different embellishment to suit the outfit you want it to go with.

Clutch Bag Makeover

Just in case anyone missed it here's my bag makeover tutorial that was featured on Making The World Cuter at the end of April...

So a small dilemma happened when I last wanted a black bag for night out.. my little black clutch bag looked sad, worn and well, hideous to be honest... in the end I changed my whole outift as I didn't want to be seen with such an awful looking bag. The other day I had a brainwave and thought I could make it over as it's only the outer fabric that's shabby.

And after a little bit of thinking and throwing fabrics out of the drawer this is what I came up with....

If you want have a go at this too then you'll need:

• a clutch bag
• complementing colour fabric
• fabric flower
• 22 x 6mm beads
• glue gun
• scissors1. First I cut the lacy fabric off (this was the bit that was amking my bag look awful so it had to go). The fabric underneath is great and is the same as the fabric I used for the leaves to cover it.2. Take your fabric and cut it into little pieces, one for every leaf. Make a small pile of fabric, draw a leaf on the top piece and cut it out, repeat till you have enough to cover the bag. (I needed 36 to cover my bag)3. Start by glue gunning the first leaf at the bottom of the metal frame.

4. Continuing glue gunning the leaves along the bottom of the bag.5. Continue by sticking leaves in layers that just about cover the top of the leaves on the layer beneath.7. Glue the top layer as close to the metal frame as possible. Don't worry if there's a little glue overspill as the beads will cover this.
8. Start glueing the beads along the lower edge of the metal frame, removing excess glue before it dries.
9. Continue glueing beads on till there's enough along the frame to mirror the starting point on the opposite end. 10. Add the fabric flower as an embellishment and then the bag is finished!
Looks 100 times better than it did when I started and now I'm more than happy to take it out with me :) If the fabric flower isn't your taste then skip the last step as it still looks good without it, or perhaps add a different embellishment to suit the outfit you want it to go with.

Featured Over At My Girlish Whims

Ok so I think we can definately call my Anthro One More Time Tank Tutorial a success now... today Rebecca has featured it over at My Girlish Whims!

Featured over at I'm Topsy Turvy

Today Ashlee over at I'm Topsy Turvy has featured my Anthro One More Time Tank as well, what a success this lil top is turning out to be!

Featured Over at Someday Crafts!

Woke up this morning to a comment from Michelle from Someday Crafts saying she was featuring my Anthro One More Time Tank knockoff, how happy am I?! :)

So here's the top again and the tutorial is a couple posts below...
..come check out the other 2 knockoffs featured as well coz they are so cool! Here they are

Featured Over At Making The World Cuter

So today I'm being featured over at Making The World Cuter with a little tutorial for you all...

If you have a little clutch bag in need of some TLC then head over and have a look at my refashion tutorial :)

Anthro One More Time Knockoff Tutorial

Here's the Anthropologie One More Time Tank, no longer available online so I've had to make myself one for considerably less than the asking price!

Here's how mine came out.. the tassle needs a little ironing to get it the right shape but it's otherwise all good

To make one you'll need:

• 2 matching tank tops (although contrasting colours could also work)
• sewing machine
• scissors
• pins
• contrasting colour threads

1. Cut the back of the spare top off, this will be the material used to form the bow and tassles.

2. Cut 2 strips of the top 2.5" x 20" these will form the tassles. (I kept mine shorter than the originals as I didn't like how low they hung when you wore the top)

3. Sew the tassles together along one of the long edges with a 1/4" seam allowance and pin roughly down the centre of the top in a curvy shape.

4. Move the pins around till they hold the tassles in the right shape, alternate the sides of material that you pin to create the right shape.

5. Sew the tassles onto the top in small stages till you come to a pin then start a new stitch on the opposite side of the tassle.

6. Trim the end of the tassles to a point

7. Cut a piece from the scrap top 5.5" wide from the bottom of the top to the armpit.

8. Sew the short edges together with a 1/4" seam allowance, this will form the main piece of the bow.

9. Cut a piece 3" x 5.5" and pin the edges down, this will form the centre of the bow.

10. Sew the folded edges down.

11. Lay the piece over the centre of the bow and start to pinch the main section into shape.

12. Fold the centre piece, pull tighly an pin in place.

13. Sew the centre piece of the bow so it stays in place and holds the bow in shape.

14. Pin the bow on to the top roughly into the centre.
15. Pin the top of the tassles flat so they sit under 3/4 of the bow centre.
16. Try the top on to ensure everything is pinned in the right place

17. Sew the bow onto the top, working from the back of the top through the back of the bow.

18. Pop a couple of stitches throught the inner layer of the top of the bow (just to makes sure it's held securely to the top and that it sits right when you put the top on).

Here's the finished top :)

Hang it up, admire it and start wearing it!
On the off chance anyone tries this tutorial can I have some pics, just email them to me, I'd love to see them :)