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!

Recycled Flower Earrings

I finally took out that whole bag of plastic bottles from homecoming (we made them into gum drops) and decided to set some things straight.Once again I resumed my studies of plastic, this time with the correct tools... my super amazing wood-burner which burns holes through anything (especially plastic) in a matter of seconds, a real diagonal cutter and wire! Last time, I had to use pliers to hold my plastic flowers over a stove and I burned my hand... I also painted the plastic with nail-polish and the smooth nail-polish chipped off. Plus, I burned the hole in the flower after I painted it which resulted in a discoloration.  This time... I successfully made these

 The original bottles were already spray painted and covered in sparkles... but unfortunately not very uniformly.

As can be seen from the closeup... I'll keep working on them. But here are some plastic-flower making tips!

• burn/cut the holes first!
• practice with spray-paint, nail-polish or acrylics first, before you have a shape you like
• don't burn yourself!

Ill have a real tutorial as soon as I feel like I've mastered the craft enough! Thanks!

Paper Jewelry

Many of you have probably made paper jewelry in the past, but did you ever make paper jewelry you'd wear? I definitely hit it off quite well with my paper-mache bangles, and recently made this matching set! I'm so excited....
This necklace has four beads, lots of chain and one pendant!

I made it to match the bracelet I sold earlier....

Mermaid Bras Could Have More Uses

These past two weeks I have been working on my belly-dance choreographies, college apps (bleh) and best of all, some sweet belly-costumes... half sewn, half hot-glued. But since they aren't yet finished I will have to post two other great belly-dance costume substitutes. JoEllen Elam or Lillyxandra is an amazing costume designer, who sometimes lets us in on her secrets on her blog at fireflypath.com. The pictures below link to her instructions on making sweet sweet under the sea belly-dance bras that could easily be modified.

This green bra would only need a small shell tassel or some beads strung in half-circles in the middle to transform it into a dance costume. If you follow the links on the pictures you can see how JoEllen had covered the bra with lace, appliques and silk. Now imagine this in pink, red, orange, purple, anything... it would still look divine and not even necessarily mermaid like. 

 This next one would be a little harder to modify, but a little easier to make. If you use more ruffles all through out, or add a ton of small flower appliques evenly through out the middle however you can transform it into a perfect belly dance bra as well. This one might even look better with some fringe strung across the bottom!

If you look close, you will notice that the edges on the fabric didn't even need to be sewn in, they were just burned in an intricate, random pattern!

 One last reminder for those two awesome tutorials that I hope you dancers checked out. These would require halter straps for safety if you wish to dance in them, and the straps have to be covered!

Halloween Wrap Up!

Amidst all the college apps, flu, and missed school I have managed to complete 2 full costumes and help out with four more! I think my new talent is specifically the demon wings below seeing as they managed to help their wearer get second place in a costume contest!

And of course my own costume (which I of-course forgot to take pictures of) featured these fun boots!

The boots were actually very simple to make and probably cost me $1-$3. They began looking more like this:

 They were very old, and very crappy (the ones no one really wants at a second hand store)! So I took some purple paint... and added some very simple swirls, and then hot glued the sparkles on to the troubled spots.

Sparkles and Gemstones!

To fix everything in place I went over with some fabric glue, and now they seem to stay on! I think I might do this with some more of my really bad shoes.

So to wrap up the Halloween... I hope your costumes worked out and lets move on to better things-- how about Belly Dance costumes and Christmas decoration!