Beach Pouch DIY

Remember how, back in November, I posted about destashing?

That I claimed to have a list of project ideas to work on?

Well, my friends, I finally used some of that fabric, and made this cute stripy pouch with an embroidered nautical design. 

Summer might be months away, but dreaming of those warm and dry days is a nice way to forget about the grey skies and damp air, don't you think?!

There are a zillion and one zipper pouch tutorials out there, but here's another. ;)

You'll need:

Stripy fabric

Neutral fabric*

Fabric for lining (I used thin polycotton)

5"-6" Zip (mine was old and a weird size)

Embroidery thread

Sewing thread

Optional: thin ribbon

Tools:

Sewing needles

Sewing machine

Zipper foot

Ruler

Scissors/rotary cutter

Dressmaking pins

Optional: pinking shears

*I used some loose-woven neutral fabric, but it was a total pain in the butt to sew. I could have done with some interfacing on it! Lesson: take care in your fabric choices!

Okay, on with the tutorial!

Costume Bits! (Tutorial Roundup)

Halloween is lurking ever closer!
Whilst I have no full costume tutorials on this blog, I do have a few posts on 'costume bits': those little accessories that finish off a costume.

Here's a quick roundup of the pieces you'll find at Unfortunately Oh!

DIY Ruff | Customised Top Hat

Witch Fingers Tiara | Jabot with Neckband

Elasticated Jabot | Square Eyepatch | No-Sew Pirate Eyepatch

Hope you find something here to help or inspire you with your Halloween preparations! :D

Pinning Inspiration #17

Last week's Pinning Inspiration looked at reading nooks. This week, how about something to wear when you're chilling out with that book? The theme is customised clothes!

Some of the pins this week are from ready to wear designer lines--but offer plenty of inspiration for DIY customisation!

Pinning Inspiration #15

This week's Pinning Inspiration is all about things you can do with all those little 'bits and pieces' that accumulate in junk drawers (and often seem to reproduce in the dust and darkness). Those bits of children's toys, those popped-off buttons and broken charms, wayward escutcheons and tiny keys from suitcases long gone.


  The huge and obvious answer is to stick it all to something and make it look awesome. The not-so-easy part is 'stick it to what?'

So here are some inspirational uses of 'stuff' compiled for your inspiration!

The Curtain Skirt: DIY

Do you keep a list of all the projects you’d like to do?

Something from my project-in-waiting list was this ‘curtain skirt’, made from what I think is a curtain fabric sample, found at a charity shop!

Swishy Maxi Skirt DIY

Lately I’ve been having a bit of a ‘crafters block’ and the UK’s heat wave hasn’t helped. Hence why tutorials and crafty posts have been a bit thin here!

Despite the hot weather frying my brains, I knuckled down yesterday and knocked together this swishy maxi skirt (remember the bargain fabric?)

It took me around 2 hours, with a tea break. The method is fairly easy and uses just one seam, with gathers at the waistline.

Here’s a tutorial. You can use this method to make shorter skirts, too :) This works best with thinner fabrics such as cottons.

Refashioned Wrestling Tee

Last weekend, my middle sister returned from a business trip to New York. Of course, she came home with lots of lovely things which in turn this meant she turned out some old clothes from her wardrobe...from which I, our youngest sister, and the charity shop reaped the benefits! Yay!

One of the things I snaffled from her pile of cast-offs was a slightly outsized, cropped t-shirt that my sister had picked up at a retro shop a while back. I liked the design on the front, but cropped tops do not have a place in my wardrobe!

So I gave it a little refashion:

Not too bad, eh?

It’s a really simple and obvious refashion but I stumbled a few times along the way so I’m sharing this how-to in the hope that you don’t have to!

Note: My sewing method is seriously ‘gung-ho’ and this will probably have accomplished dressmakers groaning and crying. I cut corners and muddle my way through!

Decorated Cuff

I’ve been totally lax at posting DIYs as of late, and I’m sorry for that. Altogether I’m feeling unmotivated in all aspects of creativity! (Haven’t even got around to photographing new stock for my Etsy store. Naughty me!)

Anyway, here’s a quick, easy, no-brainer of a DIY!

Customising Clothes: Bottoms

Last week, I posted about customising clothes, focusing on tees and shirts. Here’s part two, which looks at skirts and trousers!

In some ways bottoms can be a little harder to customise, particularly trousers. There may be lots of seams, pockets, zips and goodness knows what else to work around, and if you’ve got a sewing machine like mine, sewing several layers of heavy fabric can be difficult if not impossible!

Plain work skirt gains playful feature

This skirt had already been customised by its previous owner, in that it had been made shorter, which saved me a job!

I injected some fun and colour into the style by sewing on some contrasting trim in a wavy pattern and adding buttons to the peaks and troughs of the wavy line.

Customising Clothes: Tops

In this bustling, throw-away society, it’s easy for clothes to become tired, boring, or (with fashion’s ever-brief dalliances with retro styles) frumpy.

It can also be pretty easy to bypass clothes because they aren’t quite right--perhaps that skirt has a great print but an ugly style, or that thrift-shop shirt has a stain on the cuff that looks rather permanent.

But there are so many easy ways to customise clothing that these uninspiring, damaged garments can easily be turned into something stylish and wearable, sometimes with only a few minutes work!

This post focuses on customising tops. Next week, I'll post about bottoms (not that kind, cheeky!)

Drab denim jacket into rockin’ waistcoat!

The makeover on this piece was incredibly simple. I hacked off the sleeves and then brought out my ancient BeDazzler and added a bunch of evenly-spaced gold studs from my stash!

Ethnic Tassels and Ribbon Necklace

It would seem that I haven’t had enough of tassels yet. Haveyou?

I made this necklace a little while ago and always intendedto write a tutorial to go with it! Unfortunately I forgot to take photographsas I made it. Go me!

However, I think it is clear enough with the photos I tookafterwards.

This necklace is pretty straightforward to make, really, soyou can probably guess the construction fairly easily!

You’ll need:

11.5 inches ribbon

4 x 6 inch lengths of chain

11 tassels (buy or make! Check out steps 1-4 of this tassel necklace tutorial for a how to)

Three large jump rings

Needle and thread

Scissors

Flat nose pliers

1. Fold over the ends of the ribbon and stitch to secure andthen stitch on one end of each 6 inch length of chain to each ribbon end.

2.  Use jump rings toattach three tassels to the chain, evenly spaced. To stop the tassels fromslipping, hook the jump ring through one of the links. Open and close the jumprings using flat nose pliers.

3. Stitch the back of the ‘heads’ of the other tassels to theribbon.

 

4. All done! Here is Mr Cow modelling the finished piece:

This has fast become one of my favourite necklaces. It’s nottoo fussy but is different enough that it easily jazzes up a plain outfit!

Over the past three weeks, I’ve shared three ethnic inspirednecklaces featuring tassels and/or pompoms.

Missed one?

Understated Pompom-Tassel Necklace

Sweetlime-inspired Pompom Necklace

Will be linking up to the parties listed at the bottom of the page!

Understated Pompom-Tassel Necklace

Did you like the Sweetlime inspired necklace I posted about last week, but found it too big for your tastes or too busy for your personal style?

Then this tutorial is one for you. This pompom tassel necklace uses some of the same, or similar, parts, but produces something smaller and more understated.

It also takes less time!

Sweetlime Inspired Pompom Necklace

Whilst flicking through a copy of Marie Claire, I saw a gorgeous statement necklace by Sweetlime. It had everything: colour, texture, metal, textile, beads and a real ethnic, world traveller feel.

It was £365. Trust me, if I had £365 to spend on a necklace (or a couple of thousand, having looked at all the lovely things on their website) I would be making a huge order!

My version

Thanks to my stash, I was able to make my own version of Sweetlime’s ‘Pom Pom Madness’ necklace. This took me almost a day to make which proves that Sweetlime’s expertly crafted jewellery is worth the money (if I could afford it!)

Source: sweetlimeuk.com via Kei on Pinterest

And here is the original from Sweetlime (isn’t it lovely?) Sweetlime source parts of their jewellery from all over the world and a percentage of all their sales goes to the Salaam Balack Trust, a charity that runs 24 hour shelter homes in India (read more about it on their website, here). So you get karma points with your unique jewellery!

As you can see, there are several differences, especially when it comes to the beads. I was trying to stick to what I had, and ended up only spending 50p on an extra bead (the blue glass one with the red swirls) from Big Bead Boutique because that’s all I needed!

I didn’t have any nice ribbon and despite trawling the internet and high street alike, couldn’t find any embroidered ribbon at all! I ended up using embroidery thread to weave a friendship bracelet style ‘ribbon’ instead.

Okay, you’ve probably had enough of my rambling, right? Right! On to the tutorial :)

This is a great weekend project!

Embellished Boots

These embellished boots are a project I started about two weeks ago, after seeing a post on A Matter of Style about Saint Laurent's 'homemade boots'. (Read the article on A Matter of Style here)

I customised a pair of boots that I bought from New Look last year. Everything I used here came from my stash, so these embellishments didn't cost anything to make...

Here's the picture I pinned from aforementioned blog:

Source: matterofstyle.blogspot.co.uk viaKei on Pinterest

My method was almost the same as suggested on A Matter of Style.

I wanted to make these embellishments removable, instead of gluing them on, as I have monster feet (UK 9, if you're wondering!) and find it hard to find great boots in my size.

I cut two pieces of faux leather to fit the front of the boots. and sewed four loops on the back of each piece (two for each boot strap):

I didn't think to take a picture of this before sewing everything on, so you get to see my stitching in all its glorious messiness!

Sewing on my selection of embellishments - buttons, charms, beads and chain - took an absolute age, which is why I only just finished this project. I have to admit that I procrastinated a lot on this!

Whilst sewing the first one I realised it's much easier to sew on the chain after everything else.
The more that goes onto these pieces, the easier it is for the thread to tangle around things and I found the chain caught in the thread a lot!

Even once I thought I was done, I kept finding little gaps that needed filling! I could easily fill a few more gaps and make these look even bulkier, by using tiny gold beads (like in my Buttons and Beads Bib Necklace Tutorial). However, I decided I'd sewn on more than enough!

This was a great DIY project for using up all the short scraps of chain I had left over from making jewellery! I also used some of the vintage buttons a family member gave me, beads from a few bracelets that I don't wear anymore and a selection of charms.

I'm really pleased with how these have turned out and can't wait to wear them!

Removable Shoulder Embellishments

Following my intention to do more stash-busting, rather than buying new things to craft with, I made these removable shoulder embellishments to add to my accessories collection.

This is actually a project I’ve been thinking about for ages, but it took me a while to gather together enough buttons!

Originally I was inspired by a picture on the cover of a record in a friend’s collection. I forgot about the project until I saw a little customisation feature in Company magazine (October ’12 edition - said feature involved embellishing the neckline of a t-shirt. It looked good!)

I’m pretty pleased with the outcome, which can be fixed onto the shoulders of just about any garment.

It’s really simple to make these, so here is a tutorial.

Zip Clutch Tutorial

Remember this zip clutch? It was my submission for the Naughty Notions Challenge, run by Keren and Rikka! (The challenge they most recently hosted was the Typography Challenge. Read about my entry here and vote for your favourite here)

As I wrote before, the clutch gave me a bit of a headache and there was some trial and error involved in its production. But it was worth it--the clutch looks fab and I won silver! (Check out the other winners here)

Anyway, I finally got around to writing a tutorial for this bag. Pictures are somewhat limited this time (sorry!) as I forgot to take them.

...Okay, I’ll confess: I didn’t write a complete tutorial. I skipped the first part. Mainly because the hinge frame bag tutorial over at Bag’n-telle explains it perfectly—so check it out first for how to draft a pattern best suited to your hinge frame and your needs. (Then come back here…you will, won’t you?!)

You’ll need:

Pattern

Lots of zips

Outer shell fabric

Interior fabric

Bias binding (to match or contrast with interior fabric)

Chains

Jump rings

Cottons to match your zips

Hinge frame

Strong glue (I used E6000)

Tools:

Ruler, set square etc for drafting pattern

Tailor’s pencil/dressmaking chalk

Scissors

Wire cutters

Sewing machine with zipper foot

Needle

Flat nose pliers

Something with a rounded point (I used flat-nose pliers)

Giant Curtain Tassel

Happy New Year everyone! I've been a bit MIA over the past few weeks, but I'm back now!

One of the crafts I wanted to do for the Pinterest Challenge was make a big tasselled curtain tieback, inspired by the giant tassels I saw on The Autocrat!

Back then I didn’t have the time or materials to make one.

Until now:

Pin It

And here’s the awesome tassel that I pinned:

Source: theautocrathaley.blogspot.com via Kei on Pinterest

Isn’t it fantastic?! I love the creativity in this; all the extra touches like the beads and luxurious mix of patterns and colours really make it special!

As for me, I had to work with what I had lying around...

It took me a while to work out how I was going to make mine. Hayley at The Autocrat wrote that the giant tassels had a water bottle in the centre, but also linked to a Hobby Lobby how-to.

I looked at Hobby Lobby’s instructions and decided their way wasn’t entirely for me (I didn’t have half of what they said I needed) so I went the water bottle route, too, and muddled along until I got the result I was after!

Basically, I used the top part of a 500ml water bottle:

To make an inner row on the tassel, I cut out the middle of the bottle and made a slit up the middle.

I then stapled it at a slight angle before hot gluing on the strips of ribbon.

After that I hot glued this inside piece to the inside of the first section of bottle.

Note: Plastic bottles don’t like hot glue! I did have some trouble with warping when I glue things together!

The rest of the bottle was made mainly in the way Hobby Lobby explained, but with the plastic bottle instead of the polystyrene ball.

For a final touch, I decided to put more lengths of fabric in the centre. I cut some length of purple cord and tied them to a large D ring.

I then popped the tassels and D ring through the centre of the tassel, from the top, and looped some cord through.

Instead of using a tassel topper I used a metal thing that I found in a box of junk. I threaded the cord through the centre top to bottom and then again bottom to top, to make two loops on the top of the tassel. I tied the ends around the D ring underneath before gluing the metal part down.

My curtain has needed a tie back for 9-10 years. Oops?!

I only made one tassel (rather than a pair) since the curtain on the opposite side of the room goes behind a shelf when I draw it back!

This tassel cost me nothing—everything I used was to hand. The plastic bottle was waiting to be recycled, the ribbons came from my Nanny, the purple cord used to be a skirt and everything else was either left over from old projects or lying around the house! Hurrah for free stuff!


Linking up at the parties in the sidebar!