tie purse

Whenever I’m in a charity shop, I always have a rummage through the selection of old ties. Having acquired a few of the things, I figured I should probably start turning them into stuff.

Here is one I tried from the excellent book Making Stuff. You basically chop off the skinny end of the tie and fold it in on itself, turn it inside out, and then sew down the sides. Turn the right way again, add a button to the front and twist some embroidery thread through the pointy end for the closure.

I’m going to keep an eye out for projects involving ties so I can use some of the others in my collection!

© Cosycrafter 2013

one lovely blog award

The fabulous hayleymade has nominated me for a One Lovely Blog Award, which is…well, lovely!

Essentially, it’s a way to find out something about the person behind the blog as well as showcasing other blogs – like doing your bit for the blogging community, if you will.

Thank the person who nominated you

Thanks hayleymade! (Check out Hayley’s rather awesome newsprint nails over at her blog now.)

Name 7 things about myself that you don’t already know

Heheh, well…

I wear eyeliner in colours a Barbie doll would be ashamed of. Seriously, it’s almost like letting a five-year-old attack a make-up counter. Don’t believe me? Here, see for yourself…

I’m a collector of crap. Currently avoiding destination bin are: a box of videos; some vintage Sindy clothes picked up from a charity shop; those pink plastic tokens you get from the 2p machines; toys from Christmas crackers; china (not the country); and er, bottletops.

When making things, I don’t have fabric chalk, I always don’t pin stuff, uhm, basically, I start cutting and hope for the best. Sometimes, I don’t know exactly what I’m doing when I start either. My husband will usually peer over my shoulder and make a face until it resembles something normal.

I’m addicted to those Lego games for the Wii. I’m talking 8 hours playing Harry Potter, after which I suffer with headaches and vivid dreams involving those pesky mini kits.

I’m a bit of a film geek, especially when it comes to sci-fi and comedy. I even studied it at university. However, I have a penchant for terrible films, the badder the better. Currently tempted by this classic – Gymkata.

I can quote Wayne’s World pretty much line for line and always find a Simpsons quote for any occasion.

I once dressed up as Bender from Futurama for a fancy dress party.

Nominate 5 blogs that I love

My lovely friend Cheryl over at The Cake Escape, maker of amazing and delicious cakes.

I’ve recently discovered Pillows-a-la-Mode, which has some absolutely fabulous cushions as well as other crafts.

bridgettbeau has a lot of awesome tutorials on retro crafting.

Eileen at Touch Wood Design does really ace looking bags and cute vintage cushions.

Arianna at Runway DIY takes catwalk looks and shows you how to make them yourself. Seriously cool.

Let each person know you nominated them for the award!

© Cosycrafter 2012

heart balloon cushion

What with it being summer and ice cream weather, I was wondering what to do with the scraps of ice cream patterned fabric that I had leftover from a previous cushion. I started to cut out the individual ice creams and then tried spreading them out across different fabrics. It didn’t quite work, so I cut some fabric out to back them and started trying to group them together.

I put two together against a heart shape and sewed them on it. Next, I stitched it onto my cushion fabric. It didn’t quite look enough, so I added a yellow bow on one side of the heart.

It still needed something else, so I put a trail of coloured buttons leading from the bottom of the heart, which gave it the appearance of a balloon floating away.

After finishing all the seams, ironing and putting in the cushion pad, it was complete. Time for a couple of snaps outside in the sun and inside the relative cool of my living room.

 

© Cosycrafter 2012

cat cushion

Another short post to join my other cushion posts, this time with a cat pattern on the front, instead of the usual ribbons, buttons and beads.

I drew the shape a while ago when I was trying to come up with different ideas for the cushions.

I stitched the cat on the front and put the rest of the cushion together.

© Cosycrafter 2012

fabric flowers

I had a day where I thought ‘I really need to make fabric flowers’, you know, like you do. You don’t? Oh, maybe it’s just me then. Anyways, I found my box of fabric scraps and started messing around with gathering bits of materials and sewing them together.

‘Hmm’, I thought ‘How can I make it look more like an actual flower?’

I decided I should probably look for some tutorials rather than thinking I could just fudge my way to amazing fabric flowers.

It seems the craft blogging world love their fabric flowers. The first tutorial I found was Emily’s Little World, which demonstrated making flowers out of t-shirt fabric. This was great as I had a load of scraps left from my t-shirt rug. I thought it was quite a simple flower to make and suddenly realised that perhaps they were all pretty straightforward. Yay! I don’t have any glue guns or suitable glue so I used a good old needle and thread for mine.

Next, I found a tutorial at Sew, Mama, Sew! for these really lovely light looking flowers. I also realised at the same time that I need to buy some more material that would be suitable, as I only have the one colour.

The next one I tried, which involved lots of stabbing myself in the finger with the needle and was a bit more fiddly than the others, was a guest post at 100 Layer Cake by Michonne.

For fun, I thought I’d also give the tutorial a go using book pages rather than fabric after my book page flower card.

I’d exhausted my enthusiasm for fabric flowers and needed to give my fingers some time to heal, so left them a few days.

I started again yesterday while watching a trio of pretty poor films – St Trinians 2 anyone? I found a simple one to get me started using a scrap of fabric at Maize Hutton. The tutorial demonstrates how to turn it into a brooch or pin, but I just sewed a bead into the middle of mine to cover the stitches.

Next was one at Made By Lex. I found it tricky to get the shape right on this one – perhaps I need a more flimsy material, or need to put more stitches in at the back, but anyway, here it is.

Finally, I found a tutorial for fabric roses at Simple Analogy. Again, I’m not entirely sure if I was happy with the result – some of the stitches were a bit too visible and I think I sewed it too tight.

I’m on the hunt for some more fabric flower tutorials. As well as some more fabric. Here is the collection of finished flowers.

© Cosycrafter 2012

book page wedding cards

I made two wedding acceptance cards for friends Jemma (The Embellished Elf) and Ross, and Clare and Neil using book pages again.

For the first one, I found a tutorial for paper flowers at Holly Mathis Interiors. Once I had made the flowers, I carefully stitched a bead into the centre of each one.

I then stitched a ribbon through the side and cut out some heart shapes from patterned paper.

For the second one, I cut out the bird shape I had used on previous cards and cut out letters from the book I was using to spell out ‘wedding’. I also cut out a heart shape from patterned paper. I did think about putting flowers on this one too, but it looked quite nice and simple as it was, so I thought I would leave it with just the bird and heart.

© Cosycrafter 2012

bird card

Just a short blog today – here is a wedding acceptance card I made a couple of months ago. I drew two bird shapes (freehand, because I’m lazy like that) on patterned paper, glued them to some cardboard and then stuck them on the card. I then used a needle to pull a ribbon through and tied it in a bow. And er, that was it really!

© Cosycrafter 2012