Guest Post Nifty Thrifty Things

And here's the post I shared on friday over at Nifty Thrifty Things

Hi my names Steph and I post over at Southern Fairy Designs. I'm an aircraft mechanic, glider pilot and crafter... polar opposites I know but it keeps me ahppy and that's what really counts. I make jewellery, bags, home decor, celebration items (flags and bunting), brooches and recently I've started making some clothes for myself.
One of my favourite pieces of clothing I've made is the top in the photo below. I made it to take away on holiday, if you want to see what happened the day I wore it to Gibraltar then click the photo below.

To see the details of the projects below then just click on the photos.
Another of my favourite makes recently is this lace flower necklace... yes I've lived in it, hence it being in 2 photos in this post and many more across my blog

This cupcake pouch is my new jewellery bag for when we go travelling... been making these as presents for friends and family... in the last few weeks I've been making these for customer orders, plenty of lovely fabrics sat in my drawer waiting to be turned into many more pouches.

Then there's what seems to be the most popular post I have ever put on my blog... My Anthro Power Of 3 necklace knockoff  tutorial... which well over 6 months after I posted it is still receiving 100's of hits every week.

Thanks for taking the time to have a read and I do hope you stop by and visiti my blog some time soon :) And thanks to Vanessa for letting me post on her blog!

 

Guest Post over at... Nifty Thrifty Things

Oooops I forgot to put this post up on friday, got too busy in my week at university talking business, planes and all sorts of other rubbish... that's what happens when you mix civilian aircraft engineers and military engineers... then it's company based riuvalry and banter.. all good fun but very distracting...
On friday Vanessa from Nifty Thrifty Things let me do a guest post on her blog to cover one day of her trip away... go check out her blog and meet some of the other people covering her holdiay days....  

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.

Anthro Power Of 3 Knockoff Tutorial

Just in case you missed this post over at Kitty Cats & Airplanes earlier this week I've posted it here too for a second chance viewing ;)

Here we have yet another piece of Anthropologie jewellery that I've been lusting for, 'Power Of 3', but immensely disliked the £38 price tag that came attached to it. So I decided to raid my stash again and make my own take on the piece.. If you want to give it a try to then you'll need:

• 21 beads ( 7 each of 3 different colours)
• 2m of a coordinating colour ribbon (i used 2 different colours 1m of each)
• 1m of tulle fabric
• Handful of jumprings
• Necklace clasp
• Scissors
• Pliers
• Needle (not pictured)
• Coordinating colour thread (not pictured)
• Fraystop (not pictured - optional)

1. Firstly cut the lenght of fabric in half. Don't worry if the edges are raggy like mine, they can always be trimmed and fraystopped later. (I just fancied a bit of a raw look to it) 2. Feed one length of fabric through a jumpring and tie a knot. Repeat for the other piece of fabric.

3. Attach several jumprings to one of the jumpring/fabric knots and a necklace clasp to the other.
Now for the main piece of the necklace

4. Fold the ribbon in half and cut it to make 1m lengths.

5. Fold the ribbon lengths in half again and tie them together, forming a loop.

6. Decide which colour of your beads will be each bead type on the original necklace so you can follow the pattern.

7.Thread the first bead onto a ribbon length, use a needle to thread the ribbon through the bead if need be, then tie a knot after the bead. 8. Thread the second bead onto the same ribbon as the first bead, don't tie a knot yet.

9. Thread the third bead onto the other ribbon length.

10. Take both lengths of ribbon and tie a knot below the second bead.
11. Repeat the beading process, using the original as a template for the order to thread the beads on, till you've used all 21 beads.
12. Leave a couple of cms of ribbon after the final set of beads then tie a double knot to form a loop to end the bead section of the necklace. Trim the ribbon down.
Now to attach the 2 necklace sections together.. well at first I tried putting the fabric through the ribbon loop and making a knot.. This looked awful as the picture below shows, but maybe some of you could make it a beautiful knot if you wanted to.. so I tried a tidier method..

13. Take a fabric section and feed the loose fabric through the ribbon loop about 3cm or so.

14. Fold it back on itself and sew it together. (I used quite heavy stitches on the parts that won't be seen when I'm wearing it, the beads are quite heavy so I wanted the stitches to hold).

15. Repeat for the other end of the necklace.
16. Trim and fraystop the fabric edges if you need/want to.

And that's it all done..here's how mine turned out when it was all finished.
17. Put it on and show your OH, make them take a picture of you wearing it and then have to explain why he's taken a picture of you for no reason and that yes you did actually make the lovely piece of jewellery hanging round your neck...

Or is step 17 just what happens in my house everytime I make something new?

Kitty Cats & Airplanes

Hey everybody, come have a look at Amie's blog to see what I've done for my guest post tutorial today...

Here's a little sneak peek to tempt you in to go over and have a look

Polly Want A Crafter

Hi bloggers! Guess where my blog has been featured today....

Click the button to come check it out and to have a look at the other lovelies that people have been sharing too!

Here's the direct link to my project too

I'm rather excited by this as it's the first time I've been featured on someone else's blog :)