Valentine's Day is almost here

It's a cold morning today so I thought that I would sew one of the new Felt Heart kits that I have just added to the Craft Fairy web site.

This kit is the pink heart kit and it is made up of lots of our beautiful Crat Fairy products.

So. I'm sure that you want to get started on your project.

Get your kit here:

Decorated Felt Heart Kit

This is what you will need to do.

The heart is decorated before it is sewn together.

Start by sewing a length of the heart ribbon in a diagonal across one side of the felt heart. Don't worry if the ribbon is a bit too long as you can trim it later.

Now sew on the buttons as seen.

Next sew on the beads. I sewed them on randomly. You can add more if you want. There are plenty of beads in the pack.

Take a length of ribbon and fold it into a loop. Pin the loop to the inside of the felt heart.

Now, using the white embroidery thread, sew the heart together. I used blanket stitch. Make sure that you sew the blanket stitch through the ribbon loop as this will hold it in place.

When you have sewn about three quarters of the heart, fill it with some stuffing until you are happy that it is bouncy enough. Not too full though.

Finish sewing the heart together. remembering to remove any pins. 

You have a heart. Perfect for a little girl's room.  

Ribbon Roses with a Twist

This is a very different way of making ribbon roses. It is perfect if you don't have any wide ribbon in your stash. I've used 16mm and 25mm ribbon and achieved fairly big flowers.

I've had lots of fun making this video so I do hope that you enjoy it too.

All the products used can be obtained from the links below.

How to make these beautiful ribbon roses and then add them to a hair comb for a stunning wedding hair decoration.

The ribbons that you will need can all be bought from

www.craftfairy.co.uk

16mm pink ribbon

25mm satin ribbon


6mm silver sparkle ribbon

Marabou feathers

Silver colour hair combs

A Jute Bag for the Tiger in You

You can't have escaped the growing craze for personalized jute bags. Many of them are of stylized faces that look fantastic, but not everyone wants one of these so I thought that I would show you an alternative bag for the more tigerish amongst us.

You can make this bag in an hour, it's that simple.

First, get your hands on a bag from Craft Fairy. Click this link to get one super quickly.

Small NATURAL JUTE Shopper 250 x 110 x 290mm

Then you will need:

Leopard Print Grosgrain Ribbon, 2m x 23mm

Chocolate Brown Grosgrain Ribbon, 2 METRES x 25mm

Raw Silk, Single Faced Satin Ribbon 2m x 38mm

Needle and thread

Double sided tape

Start by cutting a piece of  Leopard Print Grosgrain Ribbon to fit the front of the bag. Stick a piece of double sided tape to the back of the ribbon, remove the tape backing and stick down to the bag. You can now attach it to the bag with a row of running stitches. This will help to make it more secure.

Now make a dior Bow. I'll make a video for this.

Cut a piece of Chocolate Brown Grosgrain Ribbon to the length that you wish to have the bow tails and cut a 'v' out of the ends. Stitch this in place on the bag.

Sew the dior bow to the bag and you're finished.

Beaded lariat in silver and grey

This is my first lariat. I believe that I am proud as I have managed to make a necklace from very few components. The trick in this piece is to bunch all of the beads used at the ends so that they make a striking focal point.

The other thing about this lariat is that you don't really need any findings. The necklace is closed by looping one side over the other. I used the new P'Leather to string the beads and it is wonderfully non slip so it can be placed without the fear of your beads ending up in colourful pile on the floor.

So, what do we have to do?

In the picture below are the beads and P'Leather that I used.

You can find them here on Craft Fairy:

Lt. Rose, 6/0 Glass Seed Beads, Opaque about 4mm, 

 Acrylic Beads, Faceted Oval, Silver Colour about 24mm long

Spacer Beads, Platinum Color, 8mm hole: 3mm

P'Leather Cord 1mm diameter Black, 5 meters

Shocking Pink Painted Glass Beads, Round, 16mm x 10 beads

Start by cutting your 5 metrese of P'leather into three equal lengths.

On to two of the ends, thread a 4mm rose bead, a platinum spacer, a pink glass bead and a 4mm rose bead. Tie a knot at the end of the p'leather to keep the beads from falling off the end. Then tie another knot after the last rose bead. See below:

Once you have done this on two of the ends, you can add a little variety and thread the third cord ens with a silver oval bead instead.

Before you tie the know in the p'leather stager the length of the cords as shown above. Tie a knot about 10 - 15 cm from the end of the last bead. You don't have to be too precious about this, it all depends on how long you want to have the dangling beads.

Now on two of the cords only, thread on a silver faceted bead. Tie all three cords into a knot after the bead.

Now leave a gap of about 10 cm and tie another knot. Then thread a large pink bead onto 1 thread. You won't be able to get two threads through. Tie a knot after the bead.

Leave another 10 ch and tie a knot. Thread all three cords through one of the platinmum spacers and thie another knot.

Leave 20 cm and tie another knot. Add a platinum spacer and knot. 

Leave 10 cm and tie a knot. Thread on a Silver faceted bead and tie a knot. 

Leave 10cm and tie a knot. Thread on a pink bead and tie a knot.

Now leave a space equivalent to ont of the spaces on the first side of the lariat and tie a knot in just one of the cords. Thread on 1 small bead, 1 silver faceted bead, 1 platinum spacer and 1 small seed bead. Tie a knot trim.

Repeat this with the rest of  the beads to match the first side. I varied it a bit on this side and had two faceted silver beads and just one pink one. That way I ended up with a total of 3 pink beads and three silver beads when the lariat is folded over. Look down to see what I mean.

Felt Hearts with Lace, beads and ribbon

Have you noticed that decorated felt hearts are all the rage at the moment? Well, if you haven't you must be hiding under a craft free stone. They are all over Pinterest. I decided that I wanted to make one of my own designs. So I'll tell you how I get started on designing any of the projects that I let you have for free on this blog.

Today's project is a pretty, purple felt heart that I've decorated in beads, ribbon, and lace. 

Keep in mind that these are the quantities that they are sold in, you won't use any where near so much and if you buy the pack of hearts you will be able to make at least 3 of these hearts with lots of ribbon beads and lace left over for other projects.

To make this heart you will need:

Glass Seed Beads, Ceylon Round, Lilac, about 3mm, hole:1mm 6cm tube

Antique Mauve and Ivory Luxury Damask Ribbon 2 metres x 16mm

22mm Guipure Lace x 1 Metre - ivory

Purple Felt Hearts 7.5cm, wide 40% Wool and Synthetic Blend x 6

Light Orchid Satin Swiss Dot Ribbon, 3m x 6mm

Some soft filling. I used kapok.

Cotton, I used an off white sewing cotton, nothing special really, just what I had in my sewing bag.

Once you've assembled these pretty bits and pieces, you will need to start by stitching the mauve damask ribbon to the felt heart. I believe that the stitch is called whip stitch, but it is simply sewing the edge of the ribbon to the heart. 

Now trim the ribbon to match the heart exactly.

Lay on a piece of lace and stitch that to the heart too. Trim the lace. 

Sew the lilac beads to the top section of the heart in a random pattern.

With the cotton,  I used a blanket stitch, join about three quarters of the heart. Remember to add, and stitch in, the loop. You can make it as long or as short as you like. Fill with enough filling to make the heart puffy and finish off the blanket stitch to close the heart.

Finished.

String Bracelet Video Tutorial

Have you noticed how popular these string bracelets are becoming with both young and older people today? Well, if not, now is the time to start looking and making.

My apologies on Youtube's behalf. They seem to have cropped the edges of the video. It does play properly though.

You can get the string and buttons at Craft Fairy

http://www.craftfairy.co.uk/thread-and-monofilament-483-c.asp

 I'll put an image here so that you can see it if the YouTube image does not display properly.

Happy stringing.

Plum and Gold, Luxury Colours for a Ribbon Flower

Do you have trouble finding stamens?

Do you have trouble attaching stems to your ribbon flowers.

Well today, I hope to solve both of those problems in one fell swoop.

I've created this ribbon flower with a single stem from a bunch of 12 flower spikes. 

I chose satin as it has a fabulous sheen that brings the flowers to life. So for today's project I decided to use this luxurious plum satin ribbon as my treat. 

You need a length of ribbon
Plum Double Faced Satin Ribbon 3m x 23mm
A needle
some thread







Don't be afraid that this is a lot of difficult sewing. All you need to do is thread the needle and sew a running stitch along three edges.

When you 've done this, pull the thread to gather up the ribbon.

Put the stem in the center of the gather and pull the the ribbon tight around it.

Secure the ribbon with a few tight stitches and a knot or two.

If you can manage it sew through the wider part of the stem at the base of the spikes as this will really secure the ribboon in place. Turn around and admire your work.

How about a bunch of these flowers in a minature vase?

Textured pearl bracelet.

There's no denying that pearls are beautiful beads. They have a beautiful lustered shine that has been the object of many a wonan's desire since the time that jewellery making began. Can this be improved upon? Of course it can. With the new style textured pearl you retain the good of the old with the striking qualities of the new.

So, for this bracelet I've used textured pearls and smooth pearls to creat something modern but with a distinctly vintage feel.

The pearls that I used are:
Pearlized Glass Beads Strands, Matte, Round, Dyed, Barely Plum, 8mm 
4mm glass pearl strand, approx 220 pearls, White
I also used:
Purple 12/0 Glass Seed Beads, Transparent Colours, about 1.9mm - 6cm tube
Tibetan Silver Toggle & Bar, Lead Free and Cadmium Free
Monofilament 0.35mm
Wire Guardians, Silver colour
Silver Colour Crimp Beads
20g Assorted Silver Jumprings, 1.5mm thick wire

To make the bracelet you will need to cut 1 metre of monofilament. Thread it rhrough the guardian and centre it at the half way point. Now thread both strands through a crimp and squash the crimp.

You will need to use both ends of the monofilament. Pass both ends through a 4mm pearl. The thread 2 pearls on to the right hand thread and one onto the other. Now pass the left hand thread through the last pearl on the right hand one. You should now have a pearl with thread coming out of each side. See the illustration.

Step 1. On each end string an 8mm and a 12/0 bead. String each end in opposite directions through the 8mm pearl.

Step 2. With the filament coming out of the bottom end of the pearl, string a 4mm an 8mm and a 4mm pearl. With the top filament string a 12/0 seed bead and then pass both filaments on opposite directions through the 8mm pearl.

With the top filament string a 4mm an 8mm and a 4mm pearl, withe bottom end string 12/0 seed bead and then pass both filaments on opposite directions through the 8mm pearl.

Repeat the above 2 steps until you have 2.5cm of your finished length and then repeat Step 2.

With the bottom end string a 4mm and an 8mm, with the top end string an 8mm. Then string both ends in opposite directions through a 4mm.

Now string a 4mm on each end and then both ends in opposite directions through a 4mm pearl.

String both ends through a crimp bead, then string both ends in opposite direstions through and over the guardian.  Pass back through the crimp bead. Pull the filament fairly firmly so that it does not slip off the guardian and squash the crimp. Trim the monofilament close to the crimp.

Attach the clasps with jump rings.

Spend a little make a lot, Seed Bead Necklace

Spend a little make a lot is my motto for this post as I've made a necklace that uses only £1 worth of beads.

You all know what I mean when I say that I'm drawn to packs of beads with lots and lots of colours in them. They shine and seduce and when you get them home you wonder what on earth to do with them. Well, this is what I've come up with. I'm in the process of doing the Video clip but for now I'll content myself with showing you the piccies.

I used
20g 6/0 Glass Seed Beads, Dyed Colors, Round, Mixed Colors, about 4mm 1 pack
6 Alloy Chandelier Components, Lead and Cadmium Free, Antique Silver Color, 34mm just 2 of these
Tibetan Silver Toggle & Bar, Lead Free and Cadmium Free, x 6 sets just 1 set

100 metres of Monofilament 0.35mm I used less than 4 metres.

12 crimps

2 jump rings

Here's the video to explain how to do it.

Make a gift box - tutorial

In the last post I gave you a video on how to decorate gift boxes, and this one is on how o make them. It should have been the other way around really but that's femail logic for you.

So this post is on

How to make small gift boxes

It's a video tutorial again so I hope that you enjoy and learn and make lots of boxes.



Get your supplies from

www.craftfairy.co.uk

Enjoy and please let me see the boxes.

Tutorial on Decorating Gift Boxes

I'm a member of a local WI and this weekend I'm going to have a table at a craft show that they're organising at Margam Country Park. We are going to be in the Orangery so, if you are around then please come along.

Now why am I prattling on about the fair when this is a tutorial about decorating gift boxes? The answer is quite simple in a femail logic sort of way.

I am going to sell some of my handmade jewellery and I need some boxes to sell alongside the necklaces and bracelets so I though that I would get on and make some and make a video a the same time.

This is a very simple way of decorating boxes, but don't knock simple as it comes in handy at Christmas when you've lots and lots of packaging to do.

Happy Crafting

Yvonne

Tutorial - Midnight Blue Crystal Necklace

I've finally been able to get this video on Blogger. If you click the link below you will see the video. It's only 5 minutes long.

http://www.youtube.com/v/rK2I0RnMRxo?version=3&autohide=1&autohide=1&feature=share&autoplay=1&attribution_tag=WgZ2EHdDnJFjnWjtE5X_qQ&showinfo=1

Midnight Blue Necklace Tutorial

Boy was I pleased with the outcome of this necklace. It's one of the things that I like the best:

Minimum work, maximum impact.

So what I did was simple.

I made up a set of connectors with a crystal through the centre to make them really pretty.

I used:
Tibetan Style bead frames, x 8 (2 packs)
100 Eyepins, Plated Silver Color, Nickel Free 30mm long, 0. 7mm thick, If you use this size you will not need to do any cutting.
Glass beads - 6mm Abacus 
10 Silver Colour Lobster Clasps, Nickel Free, 15mm
6mm Silver Color, Iron Jump Rings, Closed but Unsoldered, x 120

Tools required:

Round nose pliers

You will have lots of things over to make the next necklace.

Thread an eye pin connector making sure to put a crystal in the centre. Using a round nose pliers finish the other side with a loop.

I made 16 of these.

Connect the crystal elements with a jump ring until you have  a necklace of your desired length.

Finish with a clasp and your necklace is ready to wear.

Here's the video, or there would be one if Blogger would caaept the code. Try this:
http://youtu.be/rK2I0RnMRxo

Poppies for Remembrance

Christmas preparations are well underway and I am surrounded by red, green and some gold. So I thought that I would keep the Christmas colours going for a while with this green, red and cream card. It is also almost November Remembrance Sunday so this card is perfect for that too.
.

The stamp is from Stampinback and available here.
The ribbon is available here.
The buttons here
The sentiment here

To make this card you will need to stamp out the poppy on to a piece of watercolour paper or even hammer card. I used Stazon in Stone Grey to do this. Colour in the image.
Stamp out the saying and mount with red card.
Use some scrapbook paper to cover the base card and leave a thin margin all around the edge.
Use double sided tape to stick the ribbon to the card.
Mount the stamped poppy onto a piece of red card and stick onto the base card with foam pads. This will give it height.
Stick the sentiment and the buttons to the card and you're finished.

Bags More Ideas

Last weekend I exhibited at the Hobbycraft Show at the Cardiff City Stadium and had a wonderful time. I met lots of wonderful crafters and I hope that I was able to inspire them with what we had for sale. I believe that the most popular inspiration was the bag designs. You've all seen them before, but to may customers they were new. So it has spurred me on to come up with more designs and this is the latest. It's artistically arranged in my garden of course.

You will see that I've used a different bag this time. Well you do need a bit of vatiety in life and a girl can't have too many bags.

All of the following items are linked to the website.
You will need:

Natural Sage Coloured Jute Bag

Red Ribbon with Green Saddle Stitching
This is a 23mm wide fairly soft ribbon which allows you to make the folds easily.

A piece of Light Stone Felt

Embridery Cotton

Buttons


First of all, make the roses  as described in a previous post. I make three widths of rose so that they would look better on the bag. All the same size is not so good. Look at the picture below to see what I mean. The graduating in size looks best.

Sew the roses to the felt as shown. Then stitch a line of embroidery thread to make stems. No need to be too precise here.
Sew the felt to the bag with blanket stitch.

I then added some large red buttons because I love buttons and because they look good on the bag.

Rose Posy Picture so 'Chic'.

Today's post is going to be about using some of those beautiful flowers that we sell at Craft Fairy in a picture frame. I've made this because so many of my customers say that our flowers are too beautiful to use and they keep them in a draw to look at from time to time. Well we cant have that can we. So this is how to get them out of the draw and use them to good effect.

Do you like this frame? Does it look expensive? Well, it actually cost me 99p and it came from the shop of the same name. You probably have a local one yourself so get on over and have a look at what they have in stock. There was no glass. What did I expect for 99p? Better for the purposes of making this picture.

The paper is from Making Memories and was part of my stash that I'd been keeping for a long time as it was too pretty to waste.

 Cut the paper so that it fits on the backing board. Fix it in the frame.

For the posy, I used a selection of flowers.

Large curly roses in pink.
Vintage blue roses in blue

Shape your roses so that they form  round shape as seen in the image. Then apply foam pads to the back of the posy.

Stick down onto the backing paper.

To make the vase cut a vase shape from some decorative card. I used some non shed glitter card but you could use any toning card that you have.

Tie a knot in a piece of 16mm ribbon. I used french blue,  and trim to make it look like a bow. Apply tape to each side of the ribbon and tape to the back of the vase shape.

Now attach this to the picture with more foam pads and your picture is complete.

I have just entered this on the Our Creative Corner Challenge. So if you have anything in the colours pink, aqua and a flower then why don't you enter too.