Getting Crafty

Did you know that it is possible to have spent hundreds of dollars on crafting material and still manage to not have what you want when you need it?

Well, I’m a walking example of this phenomenon. The main reason why this is the case is because I don’t follow a rule that applies to clothes shopping too: When you buy, think of what you already have that it can go with. If your eyes light up at the sight of a 75% sale and you find yourself shovelling bargains into your shopping basket without even pausing to examine what you’re buying, it’s time for a change. Here’s how to be a savvy crafty shopper.

Take inventory of what you have
You may want to tackle this by type of craft material: paper, yarn, and stamping materials, for example. Make a note, mental or otherwise (recommended) of the colours/textures/sizes you have and what colours you’d like to have. For things like yarn, it will be important to also note how many balls or skeins of each colour you have. This means the next time you’re out shopping and you see a ball of pink yarn drastically reduced in price, you’ll be able to pass it by because you know you already have 13 balls of the exact same stuff at home.

Group things in families
If you are not sure what colours go together, check out a colour wheel and read up on complementary colours and colour triads. Practice putting different patterns together, get used to seeing how things go together and what things go together. This is important because it’ll help ensure that you don’t come home with something that doesn’t match anything you have and will therefore never get used.

Shop with a list
Your shopping list can include anything you are missing from the gaps you noticed after taking inventory. This can be a list that is created on the computer and updated regularly after each shopping trip. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to be able to pick up every item on the list but by taking the list with you and watching for sales, you’ll be sure to get what you actually need on sale. And the list prevents you from picking up things that either don’t match or you don’t need.

How do you make the most of sales and ensure you keep your craft supplies well stocked?

savvy shopper, save money, sales, crafts, paper, yarn

Oh glitter.

So shiny, sparkly and fun! It is impossible to be serious and boring and be a fan of glitter; I refuse to believe it. Once your favourite child discovers glitter and the other important “G” of crafting, glue, you are in serious trouble and will likely never again have a day that doesn’t involve finding random specks of glitter in your hair, on your cheek or in your morning coffee (you have been warned).

If you would like to keep your glitter activities confined to crafts alone, good luck! Here are some things that you can use glitter for:

• to outline anything, by first “writing” or drawing the item with glue, then covering the page with glitter. Do this over a flexible surface (paper is fine but a plastic placemat or craft mat works really well) and you can return the excess back into its container. If the thought of using liquid glue is too daunting to contemplate, you must check out the glue stamp pad that Kari wrote about here.
• encase glitter in clear plastic and it can add some dimension to your art work. You can create a frame that can be shaken to move the glitter around, or create a card that has the front half covered in glitter and a “Happy Birthday” or “Congratulations” confetti (picture to follow).
• if you’re having a somewhat fancy party, you may want to sprinkle tables with a bit of glitter and some metallic confetti to add a festive feeling to things

How have you been using glitter?

glitter, sparkle, shine, using glitter, crafts with glitter

Ah, ribbon.

Fat or skinny, shiny or matte, rough, made of sheer chiffon, organza, tulle, paper or silk, ribbon is great stuff. It generally gives things a dainty, fancy or “dressed up” appearance–tie a ribbon around anything and it gives it a special air.

I like to tie up gifts wrapped with ordinary wrapping paper with cloth ribbon, or continue a rustic theme by tying a gift wrapped in plain brown paper with paper ribbon. Another nice use of ribbon is to sew up cute fabric bags, and use ribbon to tie them up.

Or, dress up a handmade card by punching holes in cardstock and weaving ribbon through it.

Another neat idea I saw in a Christmas craft magazine was sewing several long strips of wide ribbon across the middle to create a quck and easy table runner.

What interesting ways do you or have you used ribbon lately?

crafting with ribbon, ribbon crafts, making things with ribbon, ribbon

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At last, I’m finally posting the tutorial for how you can make your own very basic scoubi keyring.

I apologize in advance if the pictures aren’t helpful. Hopefully the words will help explain any tricky bits.

Without any further delay, here we go:

Obtain a keyring and two 3-4 feet lengths of scoubi lacing (or gimp). Contrasting colours look quite nice.

Tie one of the lacings around the keyring (here I have tied the red one) and slip the other piece of lacing through, allowing an equal amount of lacing on each side.

Selecting one colour (here I chose red again), making two loops going in opposite directions (one looped toward you, and one away from you) and hold the loops in place with your finger.

Using the end of the second colour on the left hand side, weave this end over the loop to its right, and under the loop furthest away.

Using the end of the second colour on the right hand side, weave this end over the first loop to its left, and under the loop furthest away.

Pull all four ends tight. I usually grab two ends, each of a different colour, and pull, then pull each individually.

Repeat.

And repeat.

When the desired length is reached, make a double knot with each colour. The result is your very own keychain!

scoubi keychain, scoubi keyring, gimp keyring, gimp keychain, scoubidou, scoubidous, gimp lacing, gimp

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I know I promised you a tutorial but camera issues (the issue being I don’t have enough hands to both demonstrate and photograph the demonstration) have prevented me from posting it.

Never fear, it will be posted by the end of the week!

In the meantime, check out some of the neat things you can make with scoubis:

Alphabet keyrings
Funny faces
Key chains, zipper pulls, necklaces and more (I also discovered that this plastic lacing is called boondoggle too!)

Denise in New Zealand recently sent me an article about a young entrepreneur who is making a name for herself with her handmade luggage tags. These tags, which she calls ’scoobies’, are made from colourful plastic that is looped and plaited. A metal charm finishes off each tag.

I was able to find some of the plastic lacing in a local store:

Tomorrow, we’ll look at some techniques with these plastic laces, called scoubidous (it is also known as ‘gimp’ in North America). In the meantime, check out Yoarra for instructions on the many different ways that scoubi lacing can be knotted, and check out the flickr photoset of a talented scoubi manipulator for inspiration!

children’s crafts, crafts for kids, scoubi, scoubidou, plastic, plastic lace

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Alphabet beads are always a hit with children–they love being able to spell out their names in colourful beads so it’s only natural that an easy craft involving beads and children is to string some beads on some stretchy cord or thread and make a bracelet or necklace. The alphabet beads can be centered on the cord, and coordinating beads can be added on either side of the alphabet beads.

Scrapbooks can be embellished with beads too, without having to string them up first. Instead, you can stick the beads directly onto the surface and use them to spell things out while adding some dimension to page. I have done the same thing on cards too. If you want to make a necklace with beads, you can incorporate the necklace onto the card by allowing it to dangle across the front of the card, perhaps underneath the “Happy Birthday” message, for example.

Alphabet beads can also be worked into knitted work if the holes are large enough. Perhaps one fringe on each side of a scarf can be strung with the letters of your name or the name of the recipient.

How do you use alphabet beads?

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Want to know how to get to this:

From the two things below (beads and a fine wire)?

Tune in on Thursday for the very easy instructions. If you want to cheat, you can check out Cyndi’s site and see if she shows you how to make simple beaded jewelry in addition to all the other lovely things she has cooking.

The ring that I made above was my first try and it was too wide and loose for my finger, although it looks alright on my thumb. I’m going to experiment with a ring only two beads wide and I need to work on the sizing as well.

beads, wire, beads and wire, beaded ring, beaded bracelet

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I have a lot of brads, and I have a lot of eyelets. Eyelets are a bit more high maintenance than brads because they actually require some tools for their use. I bought a whole kit but you would be fine with a hole punch and a hammer, both relatively small and easy to use. You may also want or need a crafting mat to ensure that you don’t dent your table during the process.

Setting an eyelet is easy; you can do it in three very short steps:

1. Create a hole where you want your eyelet to appear.
2. insert the eyelet right side up where you want it to be.
3. Turn the paper over and using the hammer, bang down on the wrong side of the eyelet to set it.

And now what? Well you can use the pretty eyelet holes to thread ribbon and hang things from it. Two eyelets and a piece of ribbon long enough to be tied into a bow can be used as closures of paper bags. You can use eyelets to create neat and funky holes in your work that isn’t boring, or use eyelets as part of the design. Eyelets can reinforce holes.

How do you use eyelets?

eyelets, crafts with eyelets

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I’ve got weddings on the brain: one of my friends is getting married in 17 hours!

Aside from the bows I made, not much crafting was involved in this wedding. When I get married I intend to do most of the work myself, including the assembling of the favours and making the programs and invitations. Some have told me that planning a do it yourself wedding is a recipe for disaster but if others can do it, so can I.

Have you witnessed or been party of a good do it yourself (DIY) weddings? How about horrendous ones?

Please share!

As promised, here are pictures of the bows I ended up making. The bow is called the florist’s bow if I’m not mistaken:

I learned that wired ribbon is not usually the ribbon that most instructions refer to, and despite its flexibility, it can be hard to manipulate exactly as you’d like them.

I made five such ribbons (both the bride and her mother have the philosophy of “less is more” when it comes to decor, so I’ll be lucky if all five bows get used) and I’m pretty proud of how they turned out. However, I’m still trying to decide if I’d like the bows more if the ribbon was less sheer.

For more bow instructions, including the Chrysanthemum Bow, Carnation Bow and Poinsettia bow how-tos, you must check out these instructions from the Container Store’s site.

HGTV also has some easy instructions to make some pretty bows too.

bows, ribbon, bow, ribbons, wire ribbon, weddding bow

Over the course of two hours, I attempted to turn a spool of ribbon with wire at the ends into a bow worthy of a wedding.

While the mother of the bride and the bridesmaid were impressed with the creation, I was not. I should have snapped a picture of it for your viewing pleasure but it was thoroughly unimpressive.

To be honest, I thought turning a roll of ribbon into a lovely bow would be a piece of cake and now that I realize it isn’t, I have turned to the internet to see if I can’t find a better way to do it.

My first stop was at Martha’s.

She has the Three Perfect Bows and while those are pretty, they aren’t quite elaborate enough for what I need. I recommend bookmarking the page if you ever need to tie pretty bows with plain ribbon.

Through Marth’a site, I stumbled across a site that has instructions on how to make a pretty rose bow. While lovely, it’s not quite what I’m after for this event.

Third time’s the charm: this site has exactly what I’m looking for! I’ll be buying ribbon tomorrow and plan to have pictures of perfect bows to share.

ribbons, bows, wedding ribbons, wedding bows

Brads are fun little embellishments. A common scrapbook and cardmaking material, I really don’t have any non-paper recommendations for brads. Without further ado, here are some good uses for brads:

• to join or hold two sheets (or more!) of paper together (if you were making fancy invitations you could use one or two pretty brads to hold together a plain sheet of cardstock and a sheet of vellum, printed with the invitation details)
• as the center of paper flowers, like I did here:
  
• as buttons, eyes, a nose, anything on images of people, things or creatures
• to frame images on a sheet of paper (depending on the detail and shape of the brad: less is definitely more when it comes to brads)
• brads shaped like objects (like the maple leaf) can be used to give dimension to art that would ordinarily be flat

Hit me with your best shot: what novel or well known uses for brads have I left out?

brads, scrapbooks, cards, using brads

Last entry’s talk of unfinished projects made me feel sufficiently guilty enough to share two of my unfinished projects.

My most recent unfinished project dates back to last November or December. I was feeling fairly proficient in my knitting so I decided that I would knit scarves for some people as their Christmas gift. Thank goodness nobody was depending on me to prevent them from catching hypothermia or I’d be in trouble!

The pattern for the 1 x 1 rib scarf came from last year’s special issue of the Martha Stewart magazine, the holiday Handmade Gifts edition. I recommend you get your hands on this magazine if you’re thinking of making your own gifts this coming holiday season. You may want to start now if you tend to procrastinate!

My second unfinished project is a scrapbook.

I started this in the spring of 2006 and I’m still labouring away. My hope is that this scrapbook (my first!) will not see another spring in my hands (it’s a gift).

Your turn: what unfinished projects do you vow to finish?

unfinished projects, knit, scrapbook, scarf, Martha Stewart, knitting, Christmas craft, holiday craft

Buttons are so pretty and the craft industry has certainly taken buttons beyond their original purpose of fastening things together. Nowadays, buttons can be used in a number of ways:

• Large, antique buttons can be used to make interesting magnets, bracelets, or to decorate a bag (all courtesy of Martha Stewart’s site)
• buttons can be glued onto a frame to make a unique frame. You can use a monochrome colour scheme with a similar type of button, or include a completely random selection of your favourite button styles and colours.
• As eyes on crafts. Who can resist a handmade stuffed animal with brown button eyes? I can’t!
• To embellish your creations: a button can be the wheels of a car, a frisbee or a pancake.
• Make a necklace using unique buttons and a nice cord.

What neat things have you used buttons for?