Etched Glass Champagne Flutes

Merry Christmas!! Since most of you are probably reading this after opening presents and all that other good stuff, I figured it was a tad too late for another Christmas themed project. However, it would be just in time for a New Years Eve project! So for this week I'm going to show you how to etch some glassware to make some pretty cool looking customized champagne flutes. You could make some as a gift for the host of the New Years Eve shindig you go to, or you could even make them as party favors for guests for your own party! Supplies. Use a sharpie marker to rough out your design. I wanted to do a bubbly design. Use the puffy paint to block out the areas that you don't want to be etched. Apply it a bit thick so it will be easy to peel off later. Let dry. Here's what my champagne flute looks like after blocking everything out. It looks a little confusing, but essentially I'm going to apply the etching cream to the bottom half of the glass, carefully "coloring" inside the lines around the middle bit. Apply the cream in a thick layer with a foam brush. Also you should be smarter than me and wear gloves while you do this. This stuff is etching glass, imagine what it could do to your skin. Let the cream set for a few minutes. I've seen people say that they let theirs set for as little as one minute, but I let mine set for the long long time of about 20 minutes. Rinse off the cream under warm water and soap. Let dry. Peel off the puffy paint. This part is so satisfying! Admire your work!

I hope you all enjoyed this project! You can totally do any design you want to do this. You don't have to limit yourself to only New Years designs if you didn't want to!

GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. Winner will be announced 1/1/15~

Also, there's still time, so don't forget to enter my giveaway!

Sea Urchin Ornaments Part Deux

Yesterday I posted a video of me making an ornament with a sea urchin using a lathe to turn the parts for it. I realize not everyone has access to a lathe, so I decided to put together some sea urchin ornaments using materials that a lot of crafters would have but also would be easy to find at your local craft store. A little video summary will follow!

I will be doing a giveaway for the wood turned ornament from yesterday, so if you're interested in that, click here for more information.

I made two different kinds of ornaments.  One using a drawer pull I bought at my local craft store, and one using beads.

Drawer pull ornament:

This is by far the easiest method. You're basically just screwing the drawer pull together around the urchin.

Hover over or click on the photos for instructions.

Bead ornament:

Hover over or click on the photos for instructions.

I hope you all enjoyed! If you have any comments or suggestions for future projects, please let me know!

GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. Winner will be announced 1/1/15~

And don't forget to enter for your chance to win a wood turned sea urchin ornament made by me!

DIY Embroidered Appliqué

A few months ago I came across a sweater that I totally fell for. It was the embroidered crane sweater from the Altuzarra for Target collection. I just loved the design and the placement of it, but of course, being the crafter that I am, I ended up talking myself into embroidering some of my own designs and throwing them onto a sweater to create something that has the same feeling like the original sweater. So today's project is going to be the embroidered appliqué that I made to attach to a thrifted sweater.

Keep reading for a video summary!

Here's what you'll need. You'll want to cut the water soluble fabric and tulle to fit your embroidery hoop.

Draw your design onto some water soluble fabric.

Take the middle hoop and drape the black tulle and water soluble fabric over it and then push the outer hoop over it all and tighten the hoop slightly. You'll want to keep it loose enough to be able to pull the fabric in the hoop, but tight enough to keep it in place once you've pulled it.

Work around the hoop gently pulling the fabric taut. Then finish tightening the hoops all the way.

Embroidery time! I was totally inspired by Michele Carragher's embroidery style. I'm not really going to go into detail about how to do this part because I was just kind of winging it and doing what felt right for that part of the design. According to my research I was using a combination of stem stitches, detached chain stitches and split stitches. And of course I added some beads and jump rings as embellishments.

Here it is all finished! Well, the embroidery part anyway.

To secure the thread ends and to make sure nothing moves too much, paint a thin layer of Mod Podge onto the back of the design. It's important to use Mod Podge because once its dry it isn't water soluble so you wouldn't have to worry about washing the glue away whenever you did laundry.Tear off as much of the water soluble fabric as you can.

Trim the excess tulle away leaving 1/8 inch on the edges.

You can see here where the water soluble fabric didn't tear away, so off to the sink I was.Under running water, gently rub the areas where the water soluble fabric is still clinging on for dear life. It will dissolve away.

I made two mirrored embroidered appliqué designs and sewed them on the shoulders of a thrifted sweater.

And...

Finished!

I hope you enjoyed this project! I actually like it a lot more than the original sweater I based this project on. This is my first major embroidery project so if anyone has any better techniques or anything like that for me then please leave a comment! :D

Stay tuned for some holiday goodness next week!

3 Easy Beanie Mods

I love beanies. Like shoes and scarves, I feel like you can never have too many. Since it's finally starting to get cold where I live, I thought I'd put together a few ways to spruce up some simple, plain beanies.

A summary of the video will follow!

For the first beanie I embellished it with two pom poms to give it a sort of teddy bear ear-esque look. Hover over the images or click on them to see instructions!

This second beanie mod is inspired by Korean fashion. One of my guilty pleasures is Kpop music, and I feel like I was always seeing the idols wearing cute beanies with really long bunny ear like bumps on top. I decided I needed to own something similar. And here it is! Hover over the images or click on them to see instructions!

This last beanie mod isn't reminiscent of any kind of animals like the last two were. This one is simply if you wanted to add a little edge to the thing. Hover over the images or click on them to see instructions!

And those are the beanie modifications I wanted to share with you all! I hope you all liked them. I'm super excited to add these guys to my beanie rotation now!

5 Thanksgiving Leftover Recipes

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope the day is going splendidly and your bellies are stuffed. Since the upload day for my videos and blog fall on this particular holiday it would be kind of silly for me to do a recipe for Thanksgiving, but since most of you will be seeing this post after Thanksgiving I thought it would be a good idea to shoot a video/write up a post with a few recipes for your leftovers! I want to point out that since I made this video before Thanksgiving, instead of using a turkey I cooked a  while chicken instead. The recipes are still the same, just pretend I'm using turkey meat/bones instead of chicken! I didn't cook a turkey for two reasons: I couldn't find any whole ones at the grocery store when I was going to make this video and because these meals were made for just me and my husband, so even if I could find a turkey, I didn't want to cook all of that meat and then have it go bad since we couldn't possibly eat it all by ourselves.

Keep reading for the full ingredients and recipes!

• 1 cupcranberry sauce
• 1 red jalapeno finely diced
• 1 red bellpepper finely diced
• 1 tsp lemon juice

Throw the jalapeno, red bellpepper and lemon juice into a pot and heat over medium heat until they start to just soften. Stir in the cranberry sauce. Crank the heat to high and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to med-low and simmer for about 10 minutes or until thickened.*

*My cranberry sauce was quite loose, so I simmered mine for a little bit longer. And some people who have thicker sauce may need less time, but 10 minutes is a good general time.

• 1 cup leftover mashed potato
• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 1 egg beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Dump salt and 1 cup of flour onto a cutting board and make a well in the middle. Dump your leftover mashed potatoes on top and make a well with them also. Pour the beaten egg into the well and using a scraper start bringing in the sides of the flour and mashed potato into the middle to mix with the egg until it comes together like a dough. You could just mix everything together in a bowl, but it's more fun this way! Also, depending on your mashed potatoes you may need to add the additional flour. Just add a little bit at a time and knead it in until you have a dough that doesn't stick to your hands. Divide the dough into quarters and roll into long snakes and cut into 1 inch pieces. Gnocchi have lines in them that are typically created with a special paddle, but if you're a more casual gnocchi maker, you can get away with just using the back of a fork. What you want to do is place a piece of dough on the back of a fork, towards the base of the tines and using your thumb, roll the dough down. An alternate method is to just poke them in the middle to create a little dent. Place your finished gnocchi on a lightly floured baking sheet until you're ready to use them! If you're not going to use them that day, you could freeze them for later use.* To cook, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and dump them in. Since they're fresh they won't take very long to cook, usually they take about 2 to 5 minutes. They'll float to the top of the pot when they're done. Use a slotted spoon to fish out the cooked gnocchi and place directly into your sauce. If you like a little bit of crispiness, you could also take them out of the water and put them into a saucepan with a bit of oil and saute until lightly golden. Then top with your sauce. Or you could also use them as the "noodles" in soup like I'll show you later in this post.

*To freeze, place in a single layer, try not to have them touching, and throw the whole sheet pan into the freezer. Once they're frozen you can throw them into a ziplock bag in order to save valuble freezer space. Once ready to use, let them defrost a bit on a baking sheet in a single layer and then cook like normal.

• turkey bones
• 1 onion
• 2 large carrots
• 2 or 3 celery stalks
• 4 garlic cloves
• 3 bay leaves
• a few sprigs of rosemary
• a few sprigs of thyme
• water
• salt to taste

After you've picked all of the meat off of the bones throw it into a pot. Fill with water. You'll want to use enough to cover the bones. Crank the heat to high. Roughly chop your veggies and chuck them into the pot. Toss in the herbs as well. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat to med/low and simmer for 6 to 8 hours. Place a collander over a bowl and pour the contents of your pot in. Discard the bones and veg and herbs. Add salt to taste.

• bread
• turkey meat
• cranberry pepper jelly
• lettuce
• turkey jus or gravy

Build your sandwich! Spread a bit of the jus onto the bread. Alternatively you could skip this and just dip the whole sandwich in the jus while you eat it. Place the lettuce and spread the cranberry pepper jelly onto the other half of the bread. Throw the turkey on top of the lettuce, close the sandwich and there you go!

• 1/4 cup olive oil*
• 1 onion diced
• 4 garlic cloves minced
• 1/4 cup flour
• 4 cups turkey broth
• 1 large carrot diced
• 1 celery stalk diced
• 1 cup turkey chopped or shreaded
• 1lb gnocchi (conveniently my homemade recipe makes roughly this much)
• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 sprig thyme
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley

*1/4 cup might seem like a lot of olive oil, but you need it because we're going to be making a roux!

Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium/high heat. Throw in the onions and garlic and cook until the onions are translucent. Stir in the flour. Stir constantly for about 5 minutes. Stir in the turkey stock. Dump in the carrots, celery, turkey and herbs. Lower heat to med/low and simmer for about 20 minutes. Pour in the coconut milk and let simmer for 5 minutes. Fish out the bay leaf and any other herbs. Season the soup with salt and pepper to taste. Throw in the gnocchi and cook for about 5 minutes, or until the gnocchi starts to float to the top. Ladle into a bowl and enjoy!

I hope you all liked these recipes!

Geometric Turkey Candles

Thanksgiving is a week away and now is the perfect time to start getting your table decor together. Especially if you're like me and plan on DIYing most, if not all of it. Recently I've seen some tutorials on how to make geometric candles and I really liked that look, so I decided to create my own design for a geometric turkey that you could display by itself (along with the food of course) or you could pair it with the other geometric type of candles for an interesting tablescape.

Keep reading for a quick video summary!

Supplies! You can find the pattern HERE. I recommend printing onto cardstock since it's more rigid, but printer paper will still work. It just won't look as sharp as one with a cardstock mold.

Use scissors and/or an xacto knife to cut out the pattern.

Flip your blade over and, using the blunt side, trace over the dotted lines to crease, or score, the lines. This will help you to cleanly fold them.

Fold along the lines using this guide.

Apply glue to a tab.

And glue to the corresponding number. You want to glue the tabs to the outside of the pattern. Since we're filling them up with wax, if you glue the tabs inside, you'll get an indentation from the tab in your candle.

After you finish gluing the whole thing up take your glue and  dab some on to the corners to close up any holes.

Take some acrylic paint and paint a thick layer all over the turkey. Repeat 2 o r 3 times. This is to ensure there will be no leaks. I did 2 layers on this one and had no leaks. Let dry.

Take the tube shape and glue the tabs onto the matching triangle tabs on the chest of the turkey like so. After I did this I noticed a few iffy spots on my turkey so I just dabbed on a bit more glue to those areas. Theoretically you could have just done a few layers of glue rather than paint initially, but with paint you can easily see if you have missed any areas.

Mark a hole on the back of the turkey and poke a hole.

Stick your wick in and pull through so an inch or two is sticking out of the top and bottom.

Apply some water soluble glue(Elmers) around the base of the wick. You want to make sure it's water soluble so that if, after you removed the mold, there is glue still on the wick, you can just easily clean it off under running water.

Melt your wax in a double boiler. I'm using an old coffee can that's sitting in about an inch or so of simmering water. I'm also using crayons to color the wax. For this specific candle I attempted an ombre and totally failed at it. I explain it more in the video, but that is why the candle ended up having some weird horizontal stripes in it.

Pour your hot wax in the mold and let cool slowly. I had another mishap at this stage. Since I was trying to do the ombre effect and I'm impatient, I threw the mold with the hot wax into the freezer between layers in an attempt to speed things up. My resulting candle has cracks all in it and I believe that the freezer step is what caused that. The two prototypes I made before this one were both cooled on the counter overnight and didn't have any cracks like this one did.

After you let the wax harden, cut the excess wick off the bottom and then remove the mold. If you made a cardstock mold you will probably have to use your xacto knife to get it started.

When removing the mold from around the wick just pull up carefully. Like I mentioned earlier, if there is still some glue attached to the wick just clean it off under running water. Trim the wick down to about half an inch to an inch.

And here it is with my first two prototypes! (The new guy is in the back) You can see the cracks in the new one. The smaller prototype has a line halfway through it because I didn't melt enough wax initially so it had started to harden by the time the second batch of wax melted.

Here they are all lit up! You can see the slight design chance I did in the tail between the first two prototypes and the newest turkey.

Aside from the ombre fail and the unfortunate cracks in this last turkey, I really do love how they turned out and I'm definitely going to throw these guys on my Thanksgiving table this year!

Flower Curtain Wall Decor

It's finally getting a bit chilly here and finally feeling like fall, so it's put me in the mood for all the autumn things. First things first, some decoration. My original intention was to make a wreath, but after getting my supplies home I changed my mind and decided to make some hanging wall decor instead. Here's how I did it!

Keep reading for a quick video recap below!

Supplies:

Cut all of the flowers apart.

With the flowers I bought, the leaves were loose so had I superglue them in place.

Find the center of a flower, squirt some hot glue in the middle and stick the end of a stem into it. Hold until the glue is hardened.

Repeat until the strand of flowers is as long as you want. I made mine four flowers long. Repeat to make as many segments as you need for your branch size. I made nine.

Tie a length of string onto the stick and then to the head of the top flower of one of the segments.

Repeat until you've attached all of your segments. I tied mine about three to four inches apart.

Here it is over my tv!

My branch was pretty lightweight and adding the flowers didn't add much weight to it so I was able to just hammer two nails in the wall and rest the branch on those.

If your branch is too heavy for that method, you could tie a piece of twine or yarn on each end of the branch and hang from a single nail like in the image above.

Hope you all enjoyed this project! I love it. I have a feeling like this piece is going to stay up on the wall for a while!

5 Last Minute Halloween Costumes

Halloween is right around the corner, so I put together this video that has five quick and easy DIY costumes!

Paper Mache Halloween Decor

Hey guys! Today I'm going to show you how make some nice Halloween decorations with paper mache. I found some small paper mache skulls at my local craft store, and yeah, they're not too pricey, but once I saw them I knew I wanted to make some on my own. I figured I could put a bit more personality into them, and I think I succeeded. I made two types of skulls; one that's a bit cartoony looking and the other a tad more realistic. I also made a little jack-o-lantern as well. This tutorial is best viewed in video format, however I'll provide some video stills with captions after the video!

Le supplies

Blow up your balloons; you'll want to fill them up only halfway. For the cartoony type of skull, tape around the bottom third of the balloon. Don't worry about being precise. Once you tape it up  you can squish the balloon around a bit to alter the shape of the balloon until it's just right.

For the realistic type of skull, take some cardstock and tape it to the balloon like so. This is only going to be temporary so we can draw the face on with the correct proportions.

Roughly sketch a skull face onto the cardstock. Carefully remove the tape and cut the shape out.

Tape it back on. Yeah,  you could probably just draw the skull face without taping it onto the balloon, but where's the fun in that? The best part is riding that fine line between almost popping the balloon and not.

For the jack-o-lantern, wrap a balloon with three rubber bands equally spaced apart, like so.

Draw on the face of the cartoony skull. Sure it's about to get completely covered with paper mache, but you need to sketch the whole face to see where the jawline will be. That's where we're going to stop layering on the paper  mache.

So much paper. You can use newsprint or any similarly weighted paper. I'm using brown packing paper. Tear the strips rather than cutting them, as a torn edge blends more easily.

Glue mixture. Two parts glue, one part water.

If so inclined, don your gloves.

Dip a strip into the glue, wipe off the excess glue and place on balloon. Repeat x1000. But really, do about 2  or 3 layers of paper, let dry, and repeat until it feels thick enough. Mine ended up being about 7 or 8 layers I believe. Although, I wish I had done more layers on the jack-o-lantern, because, as you will soon see, after I cut the face out it wasn't very strong and it started drooping.

Anyway, once you layer enough, let it dry overnight.

Before you pop the balloon, gently squish it down around the edge of the hardened paper shell. This should help prevent any distortions on the edge that may arise after popping the balloon.

Snip a small hole in the balloon and let it deflate.

You re-drew the face back onto the skull right? Oh, well if not, do so now.

Cut out the eyes, nose and mouth with the help of an xacto knife and scissors. And here he is!

Here's a realistic-y skull. I decided to do an opened mouth one by cutting the bottom jaw and taping it on separately.

And here's the little jack-o-lantern dude and his droopy face! When I paper mache-d him, I covered the whole thing except for about 1/8in around the knot of the balloon. That's where I popped the balloon. After I popped it, I rolled up some glue saturated paper and stuck it in the hole to create a little stem for the pumpkin. I pulled out the balloon and rubber bands after I cut the face out.

And here they are! All done!-- Well, almost anyway. I'll be posting the fully decorated pieces on Saturday the 25th, so stay tuned!

Hanging Plate Wall Decor

On my last trip to the thrift store, I found a great set of plates with botanical drawings of spices and herbs on them and I instantly knew I had to hang them up in my house. I love cooking and food  and, even though I'm not great at it, I love gardening and plants, so these plates are kind of  a nice mixture of the two. Like last week, I decided to make a video of this tutorial as well. Photo recap of the video will follow!

Supplies:Note: paperclips and safety pins are listed as items you can use as the hanger for the plate, however I made my own out of wire, so that's why there are also pliers, wire cutters and wire pictured in the photo.

 Shape the wire into the hanger. Basically making it into a curly, pretty upside-down letter V. That's all. Nothing more.

Since my plates had a design that required them to be situated a certain way, I eyeballed it and marked on the back where I wanted to put the hangers.

 Mix epoxy into disposable container. I used an old medicine measuring cup. If you're doing more than a few plates, like me,  you'll have to make a few small batches of the epoxy because it sets very fast.

 Place hangers where you marked earlier and apply epoxy to the curled ends. Let cure for 24 hours(or per instructions).

 Hang them up and enjoy!

Redo Wind-up Key

Six years ago I posted a Halloween costume I made that featured a working wind up key. Four years ago I posted a tutorial on how to make said key and around Halloween it's almost always my top visited post. My husband has been wanting me to make some tutorials in video format, so I thought what better tutorial than this! So lo and behold, here's the video!

Here's a quick little photo recap of the video:

Supplies. Not pictured are some pliers and a screwdriver that I used to take the toy apart.

The sacrifice. Poor guy didn't see it coming.

This toy was nice because it was held together by just two screws. After unscrewing I just pulled the mechanism out. This is all we need from him!

In the original tutorial I used pliers to break off the wind up toy grip but this time my dowel(aka the piece of bamboo I had lying around) already had a hole in it and it was the perfect size with the grip still attached, so I just kept it on.

Mark the center point of the belt, cut a teeny tiny hole and stick the wind up mechanism through. You want to tack it down with a small dab of hot glue, taking care not to glue the moving parts.

Oh yes, the belt. That's how we will be securing the key to our bodies! I had this black elastic belt that I never wore anymore so I just used that.

To hide the white boxy mechanism cut a piece of matching fabric (I used fleece) and attach it on the belt. You can either sew it on or hot glue it.

Making the key pattern out of form core board. I traced a glass and then free handed the rest of it.

So in the previous tutorial I said to use a strong glue, namely a two part epoxy, since people will be cranking that thing all night. However, I have since tested it out and using a high temperature hot glue gun works just as well. You can still use a stronger glue of course, but hot glue does work.

For painting I did two coats of black as a base and then finished with a single coat of an antique copper.

Do not use spray paint! If you've made your key out of foam core board the chemicals in spray paint will react with the foam and eat it away. Craft paint is the way to go here.

Almost done!

You'll just want to put a bit of hot glue into the hole of the dowel. I had a pre-existing hole, but normally you would have had to CAREFULLY drill a small hole on the end of the key.

And here it is on the back of my costume!

And in motion!

So I hope you guys enjoyed the video. Is that something I should do more often? Let me know! It's pretty weird to sit there and talk to the camera, but it turned out alright I think.

Letter Pillows

I've been itching for some new pillows for my awesome couch, and I ended up coming up with the simple idea of just using my boyfriend and my initials. And an ampersand. Here's how they turned out:

And I also took some progress shots for you all and will walk you through how to make these suckers.

Draw your letters out on paper, cut them out and arrange them onto a piece of fleece or felt. You want to use a fabric that won't fray on the edges. I used some leftover fleece i found in my fabric stash.

Realize that if you're going to trace them out, you want the outline marks to be on the back side of the letter so it won't show. Flip the letters over and rearrange them again.

Cut them out! (I added the little dot for the 'j' in the middle of the letters, there.)

Admire your beautiful letters.

Align your letter in the middle of your pillow fabric and pin it down. (I made my pillows out of 16 by 16 inch canvas fabric. You can use whatever you want. I just ended up using whatever plain colored fabric I had.)

Sew it up! For added interest, use a nice contrasting colored thread. I used a lime green thread.

Admire your beautiful sewing skills. Put the right sides of your pillow together and sew up the edges leaving a few inches open. Flip it right side out, stuff it, sew it closed and you're done! Yay, look at your pillows!

Here are mine arranged on my couch. I love them!

A Step by Step in Making Black Pointy Earrings

Like a lot of crafters, I have an excess of crafty things laying around my house.  Lately, I've been trying to work my way through unfinished projects and extra materials I have.  I also recently got 2nd ear piercings so I've been very excited to make myself some earrings that will fit in normal ear holes! (I have my original ear piercings stretched a bit, so normal piercings fall right out.)  So combine trying to use up crafting materials with the need for new earrings, and that equates to me making over 20 different types of earrings in one day.  After the first few ones I decided I should document the making of them!

Here are some of the materials I used in the beginning. As I went on I slowly added more and more out of necessity.

Materials pictured are:

• Super Sculpey
• black permanent marker
• metallic pigment
• a sharp blade

Materials not pictured:

• earring posts
• eye pins or head pins
• needle nose pliers
• glitter
• nail polish top coat
• two part epoxy glue

At this point, I knew I wanted to make some pointy black earrings. Unfortunately I could only dig up my skin colored sculpey, so after researching online for a little bit, I saw that some people colored their clay with permanent markers. I figured I could give it a try!

I flattened out the clay and colored it black.

Then I just worked the clay until it was a solid color. I repeated this process until it was as dark as I wanted.

Here's the final color compared to the original skin colored clay. Pretty drastic change! I have to say, this method worked out very, very well. Will use again!

Now I'll do a play by play of how I made the earrings~

I cut equal parts of the clay and rolled it into spikes.

Using a sharp blade, I cut the top at an angle.

I made a few of these and I highlighted the flat area with various things like glitter and metallic pigments.

The lid had plenty of pigment on it, so I just rubbed the flat area around on it.

Ta da! I had to do the glittery ones after baking, so you shall see those in a few pictures.

I wanted to make some ombre earrings, so I just dipped the ends into the pigment, and using my fingers I smoothed and faded it out.

Ta da!

I wanted to make dangly earrings, but I only had earring posts like these:

So I had to be inventive. I figured I could take a small amount of clay and some open eye pins and make little studs that I could attach the dangly part off of.

Unfortunately I only had head pins. So I had to make my own open eye pins. Also, since the studs were going to be so small and I wanted to make sure the pin would stay, I made figure 8 shapes out of the pins and squished then into a small ball of clay.

Like so. Then I squished it onto the earring post to make the back of it flat.

I ended up baking them like this to make sure they'd stay flat and then carefully popped the posts off and reattached them with glue.

Anyway, after making all my random clay pieces, I threw them in the oven to bake. According to my clay I baked them at 275F for 15 minutes.

Done baking! Also, the picture quality after baking kind of suffered because a storm decided to blow in and engulf all the nice natural sunlight that is the key to taking awesome pictures. Now, I love me some good thunderstorms, but only when I'm not trying to take photos for my blog!

After baking, I took a paper towel and rubbed off the excess pigment. I originally intended to seal these pieces with a clear acrylic sealer, but I couldn't find my sealer(I must have left it back in Texas :( ) and they actually don't rub off any pigment at all after taking the excess off. I also ended up liking the matte-ness that the black clay ended up getting after baking as well.

As promised, here is the glittering.

I basically just painted top coat nail polish onto the area I wanted glittered (here being the flat part) and then dunked it into the glitter. I used my finger to gently pat the glitter flat and into the to coat and tapped off the excess. I repeated this process with the black glitter. After they dried, I glued on the earring posts using this fella:

A two part epoxy glue. A little goes a long way, especially with earrings (even with the mass quantity I did) but it does set quite fast so you have to work quickly. I ended up having to mix up about 3 different small batches of glue to do all these suckers.

Here they are all glued up! After curing for a few minutes they were set enough for me to attach the dangly earrings together, and I was done! Woo hoo!

(Note: you may notice the ombre spikes I made for the dangly earrings here in the front right of the picture. I forgot to mention that before baking, I made eye pins for them and stuck them in. Then, after baking, just to be sure they would stay in place, I took the pin out, dipped it in the epoxy glue and stuck it back in. I've had problems before with polymer clay jewelry slipping off of straight pins after baking, so I like to do this just to ease my mind.)

And these are some of them completed! I wanted to display them on my ears, but they're still healing so I can't take out the studs for a little while. So my hands will just have to do instead. And in the mean time I get to stare at these guys every day until my ears are healed!

Here are two dangly ones. I actually love how they all turned out and I can't wait until I can wear them!

Freaky Friday!

So I've been pretty busy with crafting especially with Halloween right around the corner, and thankfully I've actually managed to take some pictures for you guys to see!  I was meaning to make this post earlier but time caught up with me so here we are.  Sorry about that!  To make up for that, this is pretty much going to be three posts in one!  I have two parts of my costume I need to show off as well as a semi tutorial on how to make a wand for my sister's costume. So here we go!

I'm going to be Poison Ivy from Batman this year.  So first things first, for my costume I decided I wanted to wear some sort of heel.  I wanted to see if I could score some green pumps from Goodwill, but I ended up going home with these:

I decided I could just cover them with some leaves and be done with it, so I ended up with these:

Which look... okay.  I tried them on with my dyed tights, but I didn't really like how they looked with everything.  I was just going to suck it up and deal with it, until one day I decided that I NEEDED some knee high super villain looking boots.  I looked up some tutorials for converting high heels into boots, and found a simple boot cover tutorial by Sarcasm-hime.  Easy enough!  I got green vinyl from the fabric store (it was half off! Score!) and got to boot-coverin'.  I've seen where people just sew the bottom up and leave a hole for the heel, so you can just slip the cover off and on, but I opted for a more permanent solution.  I used hot glue to secure that sucker down.  Here they are:

They ended up kind of wrinkly since the vinyl fabric wasn't cooperating very well, but I think they'll work out just fine for my costume.  This actually worked out a lot better than I thought it would, and I'm probably going to attempt to make more boots sometime.

So next!  I wanted some long gloves to make this costume complete.  I had no idea on how to make gloves, so I started trying to search for some patterns online.  I found some really complicated ones, and I even found how to draft a custom glove pattern that I tried out (with muslin!) but I got some of the measurements wrong and I decided that those types of gloves would be too much work for a little Halloween costume that I'd wear once or twice.  I didn't want to make gloves that were as easy as just tracing around your hand and sewing along that line, but I didn't want to waste time doing the super complicated gloves, so lucky for me I found something that was in between those two.  I ended up finding a video that taught you how to draft a pretty easy pattern for gloves.  Click here to see!

So here's my drafted pattern.  I messed up on marking the thumb.  The bigger curve is the correct one.  If you want to know how to do this, please watch the video I linked to above.  He's much better at explaining it than I would be!

My master patterns!He recommends using tissue paper to draw your pattern on, so I grabbed the closest tissue paper I had around me.  Primary color polka-dotted tissue paper, ftw!   I pinned the tissue paper onto my stretchy knit fabric and started sewing. When done sewing, you cut out the thumb hole and then just rip the tissue paper right off!  One finished glove! And here's what it looks like on.  Pretty wrinkly, but it will serve its purpose.

I actually liked making the more complicated gloves, but I'll probably try those out again with better fabric and more time.

So on to the last part.  My sister wanted to be a wizard, so I ended up making her a long hooded cape and a wand.  I don't have any great photos of the cape yet, but she will send me some soon.  I did, however, take photos of the wand.  So many, in fact, that it serves as a sort of tutorial!  So here we go:

It started with a stuffing stick.  I got it in a bag of poly-fil.  You could just use a dowel or a disposable chopstick or something.  If you use a dowel you'll have to sand down one end to make it tapered.

I wanted to add decorative elements, so I whipped out my trusty hot glue gun!  You can do whatever you'd like.  The stick is pretty skinny, so I was limited, but I just added some bands and dots and stuff.

Here's some of the decorations.  Don't worry, it'll look better I promise.

I wanted to make a sort of handle and I had left over leather strips from my purse, so I ended up hot gluing it to the base of the wand.  Lookin' pretty snazzy!  Now pull out your paints! (You should probably wait until after painting to do this step, but I wasn't thinking.)

I just used some acrylic paints I had laying around.  I didn't have brown, so I mixed the primary colors together-red, blue and yellow, and it made a nice brown color for me.  Slap that paint on there!  I showed my sister the wand at this point and she thought I had carved the decorations out.  That means it's coming along!

To make the decorations pop, I painted them with some gold acrylic paint.  I actually wanted to add some gems or something like that on the middle decorated part, but I had none so I just stopped there.  I was pretty pleased with how it came out!

Here's the (folded) cape and wand together!  When she gets those pictures to me, I shall post a better picture of the cape.

Phew! That was a doozy of a post!  Sometime next week I'll post photos of my completed costume as well as my sister's.  I hope this post was helpful to you guys! If you have any questions just leave me a comment and I'll answer it to the best of my ability! :)

DIY Fake Lashes

Need some gigantic eyelashes sometime soon, say, for Halloween, and don't want to pay almost $10 for them?  Well I got the tutorial for you!  I found a tutorial on youtube on how to make your own false lashes with just a few materials that most people have around and got to makin'. Materials:

• Another fake eyelash (this is just to give you a guide at how long you need to make the lash.  You could also just take a small piece of paper and measure your eye that way)
• Eyelash glue (Not everyone will have this item; I didn't, but it's fairly inexpensive for a bottle of some, especially considering just how many eyelashes you can make with one tube)
• An old makeup brush (Mine had really stiff bristles so I would never use it because it poked my face all the time.  Be sure to wash it before using it!(Thanks MissVass on reddit.  I assumed this would be common knowledge but better to be safe than sorry!))
• a plastic work surface (I used a tupperware lid)
• Something to help you manage the bristles when you inevitably get glue on your fingers (I used a disposable eyeshadow swab thing.  In the video she uses a spatula.)
• Black eyeshadow(not pictured)
• Hair spray(not pictured)
• A curling iron
• Scissors
• Any little things you want to add to it for  decoration (feathers, glitter, sequins, etc.)

Using the other eyelash as a guide, draw a line of eyelash glue.

Take a little bit of the makeup brush and snip it off at the base.

Spread it out carefully with your fingers and place the cut edge into the glue.  Use your "bristle managing" tool (in my case the eyeshadow swab thingie) to hold the bristles down so you can let go of them without taking too many back out.  I found that the bristles kept sticking to my fingers, so that tool was very important.  Repeat this a few times until you made them as thick as you want.

Use your tool to really press the bristles into the glue.  You'll want to wipe down the tool every once in a while because as it gets more glue stuck to it, the bristles may want to follow it.

Once it's dried for a few minutes, put a dab of glue on the end of your tool and carefully coat the top of the edge of glue.  Let dry.

Once dried, CAREFULLY lift the eyelash up, holding on to the edge of the glue strip.

Powder the front and back of the strip of glue with black eyeshadow.

Cut off excess glue strip.  Be careful not to cut of too much, you'll lose too many bristles!

Trim the lashes into the shape you want.  In my case it's shorter towards the inside of my eye, and thicker towards the outside.

Use a hot curling iron to shape the lashes.  BE CAREFUL!  I was using tweezers to do this at first to keep my fingers safely out of the heat, but I misplaced them as I was taking these pictures, so I'm using my fingers to show what to do.  Luckily my fingernails are long enough.  After they're curled as much as you want them, generously spray some hairspray all over them.  Of course by the time I was taking pictures I had run out of hairspray, so I have no pictures of this process, sorry.

And here are your lashes!  In this picture you can see the difference between the hairsprayed lash(left) and the un-hairsprayed lash(right).  They keep their shape much better when they have a good coat of hairspray on them.

This is also the point where you would add decorative features if you want.  Maybe some glitter along the glue line, feathers glued onto the bristles, the possibilities are endless!

Here are some action shots:

All in all, I really liked making these, and I plan on experimenting with more materials.  Definitely going to make some that fit the theme of my Poison Ivy Halloween costume!  The best thing is that you can trim them down a lot to make false eyelashes that you could potentially wear on less costumey occasions.

If any of you guys decide on trying these out, I'd love to see!

xoxo-chez

Dyed Tights with Food Coloring

For Halloween I decided I was going to be Poison Ivy from Batman.  I needed green tights, and of course the one time I need them, there aren't any green tights at all.  Frustrated, I bought a pair of opaque white tights with the intention of dyeing them with food coloring.  I had seen people dye yarn this way, what would be the difference?

Here are my materials:  white tights, food coloring (I used green and yellow), vinegar, a stainless steel pot and a measuring cup.

Pour water in the pot.  It varies for how much you're dyeing.  I used about 4 cups.

From what I read about yarn dyeing, people added about one tablespoon of vinegar to each cup of water.  So I used 4 tablespoons.  The vinegar makes the color really stay in the fabric.

I put the tights in some water to soak for a bit while I mixed and heated the dye bath.

Add your food coloring to the water/vinegar mixture!  I wanted it to be a very greenish yellowish and I was worried the tights wouldn't take the color so well because of the material it was made of, so I used a lot of food coloring.

That looks about right.  Now heat it on medium heat until it simmers

Squeeze the water out of the tights and throw them in the simmering dye bath.

Make sure to get all of the material submerged.  This was kind of hard for me because the fabric kept floating up to the top.  You're supposed to stir it every once in a while as it dyes, but I overestimated just how long it would take to take the color, so I didn't get to stir it at all, which caused an uneven color.  Fortunately that's not a big deal for my costume, but if you want an even color, make sure to stir it every few minutes.  I'm pretty sure I could go back later and re-dye it later anyway.

You know when it's done dyeing when the water is pretty much clear.  You can kind of see in this picture, the water is significantly clearer than before I added the tights.  It's a pretty bluish green color.  I probably could have left it in longer to get more color but I was satisfied with what shade it was so I turned off the heat and let it cool.

Once cooled enough for you to touch, rinse it with water and a tiny bit of dish soap until the water runs clear.

Rinsing!

And here they are!  You can really see how uneven the dye job was in this picture.  Overall I'm super happy with the results, and I'm planning on dyeing more and more tights and things.  Hopefully with time I'll get better at achieving an even color.  Maybe I'll even be brave and attempt an ombre sometime!

I will eventually get an action shot of these tights, but it will probably come after I get the whole costume done.

xoxo-chez

Fancy Magnetic Pin Holder

I had never really thought too much about how I stored my pins.  I'd keep them in the little plastic box thing that they came in and of course, whenever I'd open the thing, I'd pull on it too hard and end up tossing pins all over my work area.  I would always tell myself I should really get better storage for them and finally I did.  While lurking around on the internet I found a few examples of people taking dishes and gluing a magnet underneath so you could toss your pins in it with no worries.  I thought it was brilliant and ran to Goodwill to snatch up a small dish to use!

Here are my materials.  A soap dish, a very strong magnet from an old harddrive and my handy dandy E-6000.

I had originally intended on getting a dish with a foot that was sunken in more so I could glue on the magnet and have the dish sit flush, but there weren't any dishes like that available and I wanted to make it NOW!  So I grabbed this soap dish will the intentions of cutting out the bottom with a dremel tool.  However, to my surprise, the magnet slid right in!

I somehow got the magnet back out and squeezed a good amount of glue inside the hole and put the magnet back in.  Using another piece of metal on the top of the dish, I guided the magnet into the middle.

So here is the finished product!  I love it, and the magnet is so strong I don't have to worry about the needles coming off at all!

One thing I like about not having to dremel out the bottom of the dish is that I can later hang it on the wall using the two holes.

How to Wind-up Key

UPDATE: I made an updated video version of this tutorial! Check it out! Hope this is helpful!

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So, it's been a while... stress filled senior year of college.  Anyway,  I've received a lot of comments asking for a tutorial on how to make this key for a Halloween costume I had made a while ago.  I had started to create a tutorial for this but I ended up moving and all that stuff got packed away, but I just so happened to find all my stuff the other day, so I figured I'd throw this post up before Halloween so hopefully you guys can make yours in time. :)

The parts:

Here are the parts for the wind up key.

A few inches of dowel (really the length and size of the dowel are up to you.  I used what I had, which is a 1/4" dowel which I cut to be 2 1/2" long.  You'll need to drill a small hole into one side of the dowel in order to fit the metal rod of the wind up mechanism.  I used a small drill kit that I bought from the local hardware store that looked like a screwdriver but with interchangeable drill-bit head things.   Be slow with this part, or you may split the wood like I did.  Don't panic if you do though, it should be okay once we glue it all up.

The next thing you'll need is a piece of foam core board cut to resemble a wind up key.  Cut the little notch at the bottom to be the same width as your dowel.  In my case it's 1/4".  I imagine you can use something other than foam core board, but you just need to make sure it's lightweight, or else it will bog down the tiny wind up mechanism we're using.

Speaking of, the third thing you'll need is the wind up mechanism.  To get it, I took apart a dollar store wind up toy.  Usually there's a little piece of plastic at the end of the metal rod that makes it easier to turn with your fingers that you need to remove so you can stick it in the dowel.  I just used some pliers and squeezed it a bunch until it broke off.

I used some quick drying epoxy to glue everything together.  You need to make sure to use some heavy duty stuff because people will be cranking that thing all night and you don't want it to start falling apart on you.  If you choose to use epoxy, be sure to do so in a well ventilated area because this stuff reeks!

Epoxying in progress.

Here it is, now attached to the mechanism.  Be careful not to drop epoxy or glue down into the mechanism or else it may screw up the gears and whatnot inside and it won't work anymore.  As mentioned before, I had split the wood somewhat during the drilling progress, so here I also squished some epoxy down into the crack to make it stronger.

And here it is painted.  I just used some craft paints on this one.  The very first one I did was spray painted, so really it's up to you on how you want to do it.  If you spray paint it though, be sure to tape up the mechanism really well beforehand.  Or you could just paint it before you attach the mechanism.

Now, when I used this in a costume I ended up carefully duct taping the mechanism onto a piece of cardboard(to help stabilize it) that was a little smaller than the width of my back and a few inches high, then I proceeded to duct tape the cardboard onto the tank top I was wearing.  I literally duct taped this thing onto me for the whole night(it was hidden under my corset thing), but that was the best I could come up with at the time.  If anyone else has any better ideas on how to wear this thing please let me know, it would be much appreciated! Thanks :)

Hope this helps you guys out!

Oh my god, shoes.

I'm not even going to try to come up with excuses as to why I haven't posted in forever... I'll just get to the good stuff. My little sister had some shoes she didn't really care for anymore, and asked if I could re-cover them for her.  I had seen an article in Craft Magazine where they had done this so I knew it could be done.

Here are the shoes in question:

So following the instructions in that magazine, I whip out my exacto knife and start cutting.

Basically you cut all of the fabric off.. All of it!  Also, not pictured is me ripping out the inside of the shoe.  The bottom cushioned part.. thing.  Be careful when you do this though, because you'll need them later.

The remains of the shoes.  As you can see, I kind of rushed ripping out the bottom parts.

Next, I took the fabric she chose and used the old shoe fabric to make a pattern.  You might not want to use markers here to draw it out... I just usually end up grabbing the closest thing to me when I'm doing this sort of thing.

I also drew out and cut the pattern out with the inside fabric, shown here.  These are the tongues of the shoes. (I also cut them with the houndstooth fabric as well)

Sew those puppies up.  I used the old fabric from the shoe as a guide for the decorative sewing.

Sorry, bad picture.. Me grommeting the holes for the laces.

A crappy, blurry picture of the new pieces with the old pieces.  As you can see, I added a little more on the bottom of the tongue because I wanted to make sure I had enough.  I ended up cutting off some when I put it in, but I figured that was better then not having enough!

More unpictured steps are where I glued in the fabric.  I glued in at least 1/4 inch of the fabric all around the bottom edge of the shoes, glued the tongue in and finally the bottom cushioned part back in place.  If done right, the fabric for the main part of the shoe should be sandwiched between the sole of the shoe and the cushioned part that was glued in last.

I waited for the glue to cure and whatnot before I laced them up because I didn't want to accidentally rip out the fabric.

What I did though, was put the shoes on (unlaced) to put some weight on the shoes so it would be stuck real good!

Ta da!  All laced up and ready to go!

I'm hoping to take some better pictures of the shoes soon.  When I do I'll make sure to post them up!

Adventures in Bread Making.

I love to bake and cook, but I've never tried to make bread before.. that is, until a few days ago.  Unfortunately my first loaf turned out wierd and half unbaked, but I've since then redeemed myself.  The kind of bread I chose for my first ever to bake is challah.  When it came to the egg wash and the topping I changed the recipe slightly.  I'll elaborate on that when I get there though.. for now, I'll talk you through the journey!

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons yeast

1/4 warm water

3 1/2 cups flour sifted

4 eggs (only three go in to the dough, the last is for the egg wash)

1/4 honey

1/4 oil

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Mix the yeast with 1/4 cup of the flour and the warm water and let it sit for at least 20 minutes.  While you're waiting, mix together the three eggs, honey, oil and salt.  When the yeast mixture is all good and bubbly mix your honey mixture into that.  Then dump in the rest of the flour (3 1/4 cups should be left) and mix it all up by hand.  When it starts to come together, dump it out onto a floured surface and knead it.  The recipe I used said to need for 5 minutes maximum.  I averaged about 3 minutes.  After you're done kneading take your little dough ball and put it in a bowl, cover it with a damp cloth and put it somewhere warm.  When I do this, I usually set the oven at a low temp. while I'm making the dough, and then when I put it in I turn it off.  Anyway, after that is the fun part!  The braiding.  I searched around youtube for a good instructional video on how to braid challah, and I chose to do the 6 strand braid.  Here's how it looked after braiding:

Pretty nice... except for that little area at the bottom, but whatever.  I figured I'd eat that end first.  So after you braid it all up, you get to have more fun waiting.  Another two hours.  Oh yes.  Cover it with a towel or plastic wrap and stick it back in that warm spot.  After two hours it should have doubled in size... but for me on my first attempt this did not happen.  It didn't even double in size after the first two hour wait.  Stupid yeast ended up being too old.  Oh well.  I'll show what it looked like when it didn't work and when it did, so you guys can kind of tell if you decide to try to make this.  Here's the stupid after the second two hour wait.. and how barely grew:

Stupid thing...

Anyway, I still tried to bake this thing.  Set your oven to 325 and get out that egg to prepare the egg wash.  Crack it in a bowl and mix it up and you've got your egg wash.  Brush it on carefully.. you don't want to push out any precious air.  Some places I've read that you're not supposed to put that much, but some places say to use a lot, so I'd just say go with what looks good to you!  That's what I do.  After the egg wash you top it.  Traditionally it's topped with sesame seeds, and sometimes raisins... but I wanted mine to be sweeter, so I topped it with cinnamon sugar... yeah, I cheated.. but it's delicious.   

Now throw it into the oven!!  Bake at 325 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes.  The recipe I used said to stick a pie pan full of ice cubes in there with the bread to keep the conditions humid inside the oven, but to take it out for the last 5 minutes of baking, to let the crust really get brown and harden.  Here's what I pulled out of the oven after 35 minutes...

Eww.  It looks wierd.  It ended up being so dense because it didn't rise.. that the inside was still dough.  It was pretty gross.  I still ate the butt ends though.  Yum.

On to the second try!

I got newer yeast and tried again the next day.  I meant to take a picture right after I braided it and before I let it rise for a good comparison shot, but unfortunately I forgot... I have a good shot of it after rising though!

This is with the egg wash and the cinnamon sugar.  My mom said it reminded her of chicken.  My braiding is pretty shotty for this loaf... this is a picture of the pretty side.. the other side is wierd and uneven.  I was preoccupied with the season finale of Lost.  You can compare the last loaf with this one... I used the exact same sheet pan to cook the bread, and you can see just how much bigger this one got.

But of course, something had to go wrong(actually, it's not too bad, it just makes it not as pretty as I hoped it'd turn out).. the oven decided to bake unevenly so the pretty side of the challah is a lot lighter than the ugly side.  The ugly side got as dark as challah's supposed to, so I didn't want to keep it in longer.  Well, that and because I'm impatient and I wanted to eat some.  Here it is:

There we go.. Looks MUCH better! 

Here is a picture of its insides:

Mm, so yummy.

I've heard that this bread is great for making french toast with because it's already sort of sweet because of the honey.  I'm totally going to make some sometime.  It's also good just by itself. Mmmmm.