Crochet Sweater!

Its finally done! My first crochet sweater! Check it out...

and the pattern was completely free and easy to understand from Drops!

I'm Back!

I'm back from UVA! During this amazing college trip I met some super artsy people-about whom I'll be writing my next couple of posts.

Featured on Stash Tea Facebook page!

Hey! I'm excited that my art is getting a little bit of appreciation. Stash Tea, which is by the way absolutely the best bagged tea in the world, featured some of the art I made from their tea packets on their facebook page!

Pop Can Belly Dance Belt

See Belly Dancer Metal Belt and 1000's of others - or share your own on Cut Out + Keep

I found this at Cut Out + Keep and am absolutely in love with it! I could totally make a belt, bra, bracelet or necklace for my next performance like this!

Recycled Bottle Hearts

Here is a small tutorial on how to make plastic bottle hearts. I made a necklace I'd like to wear on Valentines Day.

• Cut of the bottom half of a coke bottle (or a water bottle) and spray paint it pink (or any other color.)
• I sprinkled the drying bottle with clear sprinkles for some sparkle.
• Cut out a large square from the bottle once its dry.

• Draw a heart and cut it out.
• Cut lots of little ones too.

•  Using a burn tool, or a heated needle poke a hole through the top center of each heart.
• Take a blow dryer and heat the hearts up while holding them down with a pencil or a weight. This makes them curve out a little.
• Grab some pink string and knot through the big heart.

•  Make a knot at equal intervals on both sides of the yarn and slide on the little hearts.
• Make more knots and slide on more hearts!

I've made many ornaments for Christmas but did not get any pictures and instructions taken till after New Years. I hope I will remember to post them next year. However for the upcoming cold months I've created this ear warmer or headband crochet pattern.

This headband consists of 12 repetitions of a flower pattern that is 7 ch long, to make the headbangd bigger add equal numbers of ch to each end.

Pattern:
Ch 86, turn
Row 1: hdc across, turn.
Row 2: *dc, ch5, incomplete puff st 5th ch from hook, incomplete puff st in the next hdc st, skip 3 st work 1 incomplete puff stitch in next st, yo and draw through all loops on hook, ch5, work puff stitch in the top of previous puff stich, dc in next st* (12 times) finish with dc, turn.
Row 3: *dc, work puff st in the top of previous 4 puff st, ch 3, work puff st in the previous 5 puff st, dc*(12 times) finish with dc, turn.
Row 4: hds across, finish.
Stitch the ends together to form a headband!

Sweet Paper Decorations

Since I can't ever let go of anything colorful, my basement is filled with catalogs and magazines that I don't have the heart to throw away. I've been using some to create my bangles and paper beads but obviously that can't possibly catch up with the speed of mail delivery. So I found these three awesome tutorials that others like me can use to make pretty things out of paper!

These beauties are actually really simple and I can't wait to make a ton to decorate Christmas presents! The tutorial can be found at How About Orange!

Martha Steward went for something much more simple, but still pretty clever! Since my mom gets christmas card catalogs at her work this might be very useful! You can find the tutorial here in case its not too obvious :-)

These roses by T. Matthewes are indeed a fine art, I am already tracing spirals on my magazines!! Check his sweeeeeeeeet sweet blog here!

Fabric Scrap Bracelets

Hah! just discovered another cool recycled bangle bracelet idea! Check these out... First... Jungle Fever

Black Crow bangles and neclace

 

Warm and Fuzzy

 Jewel Box

 and last but not least... Vicious Red

All in all they were much much easier to make than the recycled paper bangles. I also got to use the fabric scraps, left-over beads, and yarn pieces I've accumulated over the years... I can also use these for belly dancing costumes, and I have some on my etsy  I'll have tutorial soon!