Jingles!

A while ago, I was going around the shops in town and found some really nice beads and a bracelet with rings to hang things on. I also found some bells.. So once I got home, I added bells to the bracelet, and three bells to some earring hooks. I also added the beads to earring hooks, so within an hour I had three sets of earrings and a bracelet.

Since I don’t have holes in my ears, the earrings went on to be presents for my mother and a friend. My mother phoned me a while later telling me that the bell-earrings were impossible to wear, since they jingle so close to the ear. The bracelet is much easier to bear since it’s further away. I do enjoy wearing it every now and again.

Put a Bow on it

[Update below!]

At some point I saw a girl with a large bow in her hair. I immediately wanted one too. This was… 2 years ago. Now, I know bows are not the most difficult objects to make, but apparently I was to lazy to actually do something about it. Until now!

I grabbed a bit of felt, cut a long strip, cut pointy bits on the two ends, did a bit of folding, a bit of sewing, some more cutting and I had myself a hair bow! Then I figured out that my hair is so dark, that my bow doesn’t actually show up very clearly in it… I may have to remedy that with another 5 minute bow in another colour.

I put a hair elastic on the back so that I could wear it. This seems to work fairly well. So I’m happy with it. Now I just need to see whether it will swoop down or fall out during the course of the day. On to testing it is!

UPDATE:

I decided that I indeed needed some more, after wearing the black one all day yesterday. So this morning I set out to create two more. One identical to yesterday’s but in red, and a blue bow with a clip on the back and no .. pointy end bits? Here they are!

And here’s how I wore it, for about 2 minutes (never do this in real life….). Also, in case you are wondering, yes, my hair is partly grey; natural highlights or so they say.

 

Watching the Watches

You may recall my first self-made watch-band (here), which has been in constant rotation since first assembly. I did change out the watch face at some point for one with clearer numbers on it. Now, what I found out was that watches that have non-movable supports, in the picture below the one on the strap and the middle and bottom one on the right side, fit perfectly fine in this. They don’t slide around and stay put. However, the watches on the left, weren’t so keen. They would move and therefore I never really put them in this band.

Thus, a new strap started to take shape in my mind. It is an alternative design, with the opening at the top of the wrist instead of at the bottom. I know this sounds weird, but the pictures make it make sense, hopefully. The buckle is attached to approximate middle of the band, then goes through a loop attached with a rivet on one side, then on goes the watch face, you put it on the wrist and pull the strap trough the riveted loop on the other side and through the buckle to close.

The reason why I’m liking the idea and not the execution so much anymore is because I dropped the watch face every second time I put the watch on. Also, because of the heaviness, I ended up with the watch on the underside of my wrist more often than not. I want to have my watch on top. Left, the watch as it was when I’d just made it, and right after wearing it for a week or more. You can see the points splaying more, and that, and the stretching of the thin strap was most likely what kept pulling the watch down.

Below you can also see the bottom buckle and the side view.

I do like the idea with the single rivet loops and I’m planning on making a band that opens like normal at the bottom, but does have pointy bits on the front. I wanted to make the new one today, but I got distracted by new ideas. What if I didn’t use loops or rivets to make the watches interchangeable but created built-in loops in the band itself?!

I created a sort of wave-ish design with pointy bits around the watch face on cardboard. Added slits for the thin strap to pass though and copied it all onto leather. Simply cutting it out, and riveting the buckle on, and done it was!

Apparently there were two different types of leather in the bag of offcuts that I bought last time. I quite like the look of the back, although the front is similar colours. I’m going to have to wear it more to be sure, but I think that the movable support will stay put in this design.

So that’s it, two new watch bands. My fingers hurt from cutting the leather so I’m going to postpone making the improved version of the top band. That way I can also test if the bottom version actually works to my liking.

Next up, a knitted gift.

Interrobangs and Cats

A while ago, I was browsing the internet (and pinterest) looking for interesting earring inspiration. I found a few pins that I really liked, namely this one, this one and this one. And some others, what the heck, here’s my entire board of crafty things. Anyway, a friend of mine had her birthday a while ago and I still wanted to give her a small present. So I delved into the fimo stash and produced ‘inspired’ by earrings from the three pins above.

Let’s start with interrobang. The interrobang is a symbol used to ask a question in an exited manner, expresses excitement or disbelief in the form of a question, or to end a rhetorical question. It was a marketing idea in the sixties and never really took hold (Wikipedia), but I for one love both the name (BANG!) and the idea it expresses. Nowadays, the interrobang still isn’t used, but we do use the two symbols the interrobang is composed of separately. Say what‽ or She’s pregnant?! (Again Wikipedia). I came across the name at some point in the past when I was reading a post about (potentially) useful punctuation marks. That might also be where I learned that the &-symbol is called an ampersand. Which is information I actually regularly use in my day-to-day life.

So, I didn’t make the interrobang, I just really wanted to talk about it. I did make earrings with a loose ? and !, one for each ear. Black & Metal, a good combination right? I deviated from the original by putting the pin through the question mark completely. I actually like this maybe better? Anyway, here they are:

 

The second was an adaptation from the other two pins, one for each ear. So one dangling cat, and one graceful jumping cat. Well, my cat faces aren’t nearly as nice as the inspiration, but I still quite like them. The friend did say they were heavy, so we’ll see if they work out. It was mainly for fun anyway. So the pictures you’ll see will have a plastic cookie box in them. My ears aren’t pierced and I couldn’t find anything that would work well to show they were supposed to look, so a pierced cookie box it was.

 

I also need to improve on cat faces and I still want to try the biting shark, and maybe mix it with a surfboard or something. For now though, I liked the results and I think my friend was somewhat interested in them. I had to wait until I’d given them to my friend before I could post them, you understand. On a different note, now I can already tell you that my next installment will be about the pants I finished yesterday and test-wore today. Very high waisted, woolen red pants. I love them.

Changing Times

Sometimes you find something online that you really really like. You wonder if you should buy it or not. So you ask the seller the question that’s haunting you, but receive no reply. What do you guys do?

I decided to create something that would give me a similar vibe, but from scratch. This was my inspiration picture:

DaWanda shop “My old Watch”, click the picture for the listing

I really liked this item. The leaves, the thickness of the belt, the vintage-y look, but there was one potential snag. How would it close? The reason this is important for me, is that the last time I bought a watch online, the band was both too long and almost too short at the same time. It was one of those studded wrap watches that wind around your wrist three times. Well, with three times I had so much band left over that it was still studded, so no holes yet. So I decided to have holes added at the end and then I could wear it, but wrapped four times. Depending on the day, this can be just that little bit too tight. So if the watch didn’t have the possibility of having extra holes made to fit my chicken wrists, it wouldn’t work for me.

In the end I purchased six separate watch faces from another DaWanda shop. I bought some leather, a clasp and rivets from a local haberdashery shop. I wanted to be able to change the watch faces depending on my fancy of that day, this would mean that the face wouldn’t be attached completely.

I ended up cutting a 14 cm by 2.5 cm strip of leather and rounding of the edges. Second bit was a ~20 cm by 0.8 cm strip of leather.
I made a hole in the thin strip to thread the clasp through, the leather was then doubled at one end. I made a hole in the double end and another in the thicker strip and riveted them together. I then added supports using a rivet on either side under which the thin strip could pass to keep the watch face in place. I added the watch face for that day and attached a small oak leave pendant using a jump ring. This is the result:

On the left, you can just about see the supports  for the thin strip to pass under. Because of the design of this specific watch face, these supports are adequate to keep the face in place. For the next iteration of this design I will place the supports closer to the actual watch face. You can just about see the rivet underneath the end on the right picture. To get an even better idea, you can see it laid out below, with the alternative watch faces. The top right one doesn’t fit in this design, so I’ll have to think of another method for that one.

I think I found a new hobby. I like cutting out leather with sharp tools and using my hammer to whack things. Now I just await the new smaller rivets that are coming my way and create a similar design to this. Maybe I’ll use the wrong side of the leather for some added contrast or such. I might also round of the support edges to make it a little cuter. Use a different colour leather. Add another pendant.. So many possibilities!

Bats!

What do you do when you have to housesit the building you work in and literally only have to get up every two hours? Do you also race home to collect your fimo stuff and create little bat earrings with your friend? Well I did, in the first weekend of this month.

We found the inspiration here, and decided to make our own versions. Mine are a little cross eyed, which was exactly was I meant them to look like.

I smoothed over the back such that they are one whole. I like them. But I haven’t got my ears pierced, so I think that I will hand them over to a friend. I think I’ll make some more fimo stuff in the future. I forgot how much I liked it, I also found some more inspiration which I’m gathering here. If you’re ever interested.

 

Woolly Necklace

No, not a woolly jumper yet, although I’m getting there. I am slowly finishing up a green sweater with a side front closure and weird collar. However, in the mean time, I made a few necklaces. I have a colleague who owns a necklace made of a lot of rolled fabric strips in coordinating colours, all in hues of blue. I really liked that idea and when I found some interesting yarn on sale, I figured I’d try to recreate that necklace. This was the yarn and the first part of the necklace.

I wanted to figure out a way to make the necklace without using any knots in the yarn. So I looked through my stash of jewellery equipment and found some bits that have a hole in the top and fold over to grip whatever you put in. I had about 20 of them. I made the first necklace, the red one and didn’t have enough bits to make another one. So I looked through all the shops I could think of to find bits to make more necklaces. Couldn’t find any, and I didn’t know what those things were called, so ordering them was difficult at first. Using some interesting methods I eventually found out that I was looking for “Fold Over Cord Crimp Beads”, and I got 3 packets of 150 bits in 3 colours.

To make the necklaces, I put the yarn in the bits, fold over the sides and cut of the yarn that comes out the top. I do this for 8 or so strands and then I string them on a jump ring. Another jump ring is added and the other ends are strung on another jump ring, then the second jump ring with closure are added. This produced, in my opinion, a nice finish. You can also first braid part of the strings or add a metal chain or two. I personally really like the mixed media approach.

I have made three so far. Of which I only took pictures of two. I sent the third one to a friend, I hope she likes it.

This one has 5 red stands, one black and a doubled chain, the bits are silver coloured. This one was the first attempt and I really like it. The second one, below, used all the colours, two strands of each, one chain and old copper bits. I twisted this one a bit before I put it on. Which is an alternative method of wearing it.

So this was my new project. I like it and I have still quite a lot of the yarn left over. This means that I can experiment and make all kinds of things, using this approach. Maybe even add large beads or knot, braid or twist strands. The options are endless!

Kiwi!

So, my mother’s birthday was a while ago and we had a party!
The theme was colours, so everyone was expected to wear something in a fun colour. I assigned myself green, so I could wear my green pants, with a kiwi sash (see below for kiwi sash).

I was planning on wearing a black top with a cowl/drape front bit. So, I figured I had to make something nice to go over the top of it. Otherwise black is black and that is, apparently, boring. I started thinking and made the choice to make a green bead necklace. However, it wouldn’t only be green beads, I also wanted to make kiwi beads. I got out my fimo clay and started the work.

Green beads were easy, just roll green clay into beads and stick a pin through it to form the hole. (Admittedly they sat on the living room table for about 3 days before I punched the holes, since I was distracted at some point.)
For the kiwi beads I looked at the matching sash for the green pants (and clearly missed the light middle part). I started with a small green roll, then added really thin alternating green and black rolls to the outside. Another layer of green and black tiny rolls was added. Then a layer of green and a layer of darker green was added to the outside. I mixed some random bits I had left over and they made brown (which leftovers always seem to do). I rolled out the brown very thinly and added it around the roll. I rolled out the now quite fat roll to tighten the cane and make it a bit smaller.

I made green-ish beads as a base bead that I could stick three kiwi slices on. I did that a couple of times, until I thought I had enough of the kiwi sliced beads. I still had about 15 cm of kiwi-cane left. So I decided to chop of about 1 cm bits and round out one of the sides. This would form half a kiwi (like the one above). I poked holes through those too, and chucked all of it in the oven. They cooled down and I got extremely frustrated with the wire I chose. It is metal ish and quite thin, but it holds knots very well. I also likes to tangle and fall of the ‘wireholder(?)’. So I yelled at it, but in the end it cooperated and I made myself a necklace. This is it.

The shorted wire holds green beads, the longest the half kiwis and the middle is the sliced kiwis. I like it, and have worn it since the party!

Ring

I made a ring today! I was looking around the internet and I found the cutest little ring with a rabbit on it here. Sadly it was sold out! Otherwise I might really have bought it (since there are other cute items in the shop but the shipping is expensive so combining might have helped). I decided I could not make a better one, but I could be inspired by it. So I got out my fimo for the first time in a year or so, and made a little rabbit ring.

I made a metal wire base (basically an elongated U shape bent in an almost circle) and formed the paws on that, then I formed the head as a little squashed in bowling pin. The ears were two little ovals with rice grains pressed in and taken out to shape the indent. I just my pinky nail to smooth everything out and put more clay over the bottom of the U to form the back and end. I redid it about 4 times because I wasn’t happy with the results. With this final version I’d done enough and this was going to be it, so I popped it in the oven at 110 degrees C for 30 minutes and out came a cute little rabbit ring.

 

The original rabbit looks a little desperate because it can’t reach its bottom, in my opinion. Mine doesn’t have eyes so that is less the case and his ears are not as far back. I’m really liking him, although I’m not sure how much use it will get, since I tend to not wear rings. I also found open ended rings like this in cat and mouse shape. Although, I think I like rabbits better.

 

Also, it’s dark and my pictures are really yellow, but I know me, if I don’t post soon, I don’t post at all, so I hope you’ll excuse that issue.

Jewellery

So the visit to town on Wednesday landed me some other goodies too. I’ve been looking for some big red beads since my mother showed me her necklace.

I made the red plaid skirt some time ago and found that wearing a black/grey is turtle neck with it and that necklace looked really nice. So I’ve wanted to make one for myself. I couldn’t really find any nice red (and affordable) beads, so I opted to go with purple. To add some difference I added some black beads and some white swirly ones. I really like the finished look.

 

The other bits I made were two earrings for my mother. She wanted some over the top earrings to wear during samba performances. So they needed to be in the samba colours, yellow and blue. However, we found it was difficult to find some in the shop. So when we were in the bead shop, we got two square donuts and two blue beads for in the donuts, to make her some earrings. I had some feathers at home and some other bits and bobs like the hooks and something to secure the feathers with. And within 5 minutes my mom had some over the top samba earrings.