Crystal Charm Pendant / Crazy Busy

Goodness me, has it really been so long since I last posted here?! 

I have been (and still am) crazy busy and blogging has really been put on the back-burner! 

Luckily I have a couple of ready-prepared posts, and five minutes to post one :)

Back in December, I went to a Christmas fair at the village centre. There was an abundance of stalls selling all kinds of things! One particular stall was half covered in crystals and half in collectibles, and it was there that I saw the craft bargain of the century...

A bowlful of small pieces of crystal, for just £4.

I instantly thought of all the things I could make with those crystals and couldn’t hand over the money fast enough!

In a crystals shop, those pieces would probably cost 50p-£1 each, so I wasn’t going to turn away at the prospect of spending £4 on them!

I’ve only done a little crafting so far, but easily churned out these wrapped crystal charm pendants!

Want to make one too?

The method is practically the same as my agate necklace.

Simply wrap the crystal as described in the agate neclace tutorial, and fix on a charm using a jump ring and flat nosed pliers.

To add beads, slide them on during the process of wrapping (as described in my post on crystal wrapping techniques)

Yet again this was a cheap project, but again would make a great little gift!

Will link up at the parties listed below (provided I get the time!)

Vote!

Voting for the 'I Will Wear it in Public!' challenge is now up! This time around you can vote for up to three entries per day! Click the button below to check out everyone's submissions and vote for your favourites.

 

Here's a quick reminder of my entry :)

Skirt Refashion

Today I want to share a skirt refashion that I finished off recently!

Originally this skirt came from a £1 sale rail at a charity shop. Well, I think that it was a skirt.

The original ‘skirt’ was a bit strange really!
It seemed to be a wraparound, since it had a hole in the waist band for threading one of the ties through. But wearing it in the normal way would put the pockets at the back...and the pockets were in a style clearly meant to be at the front of the garment, like on a hoodie.

So it was either a very strange skirt, or a large apron!

Anyway. I loved the print and wanted to keep as much of that as possible. So I unpicked the waistband and the end seams. Then I sewed the seams together and installed a zip at the top. I also sewed a piece of the waistband behind the zip

I cut the waistband to size, gathered the top of the skirt so it would fit my waist, and sewed on the waistband anew. Then I sewed on a press stud to finish off!

Now the pockets are where they should be: at the front!

Since I had a lot of waistband/tie left over, I made this headband, too:

The buckle is just plastic and came from a charity shop. To make this I threaded on the buckle and sewed a short piece of elastic between the two ends of the length of fabric.

I still have some of the original waistband left, so have put it in my stash for later use!

Challenge Completed!: Shirred Top

After being majorly distracted from the 'I Will Wear it in Public!' challenge, I knuckled down yesterday and churned out my submission!

I'd been a bit stuck on what exactly to make, and only knew that I wanted to try out some shirring. Then Pam from Threading My Way suggested shirring on sleeves! It reminded me of this gorgeous velvet top I've owned for years, but never wear:

The reason I don't wear it is because it's dry clean only! Also the shirring at the waist has worn so it doesn't stretch properly anymore. Boo.

So I decided to make a more casual, washing machine-friendly version!

 

It can be worn on or off the shoulders.

Here's how I put it together:

Bluewater Shopping!

Yesterday I went to Bluewater with my Mum and middle sister. It's probably the biggest shopping centre I've ever been to!
It wasn't my first trip there (I went there when it first opened) but I hadn't been there for years.

Despite all the shops there, I barely did any shopping! Here is my swag:

I saw this collar in the Brighton branch of H&M a few weeks ago, so when I found them again at the Bluewater shop I snatched one up!
I have plans for this one. It won't stay plain for long :)

In River Island, I found these fantastic headphones. The bumps on the skull are little rhinestones. I'm not always one for bling but couldn't pass up on these. For the record, the sound quality is great and they block out external noise pretty well too!

...and that's it. Amazing, right? All those shops and only two purchases. I tried on seven pairs of shoes, all of which were too big (unusual for me with my size 9 feet!), I saw some gorgeous shirts (none of them in my size) and some lust-worthy handbags (Vivienne Westwood and sadly way out of my price range).

But I did eat :)

We ended up going to Ed's Easy Diner--Mum didn't care where we ate, and the place I most wanted to go (Wagamama) was the only place my sister didn't want to go! Ed's was the place we could agree on. I hadn't been there before but love the retro American diner style. I half expected Sandra Dee to skip in and ask for a milkshake.

I chose a classic dog, which came with griddled onions aplenty:

There is a sausage under there, I swear!
Of course, I put mustard and tomato sauce in there too :)

Since you have to order things such as chips separately, and I was feeling like a pig, I also ordered the 'Atomic American Onion Rings'...

These came with sour cream, guacamole, jalapeno jelly, cheddar cheese sauce and chilli on the side. Delicious!

And to drink? Root beer, of course. :)
I think my waistline expanded an inch or two over the course of this meal :)

Asides the shops and restaurants Bluewater also has some pretty cool sculptures and facades. Here's a dragon, clambering up a column between the ground and first floor of shops!

I think he's looking for the sales ;)


Today I finally got cracking on sewing for the I Will Wear It in Public challenge. Hopefully I'll be able to post about it tomorrow!

I Will Wear It In Public (once I decide what 'it' will be)

As the title suggests, I've yet to decide upon what to make for the 'I Will Wear It In Public' challenge.

I previously wrote that I was leaning towards shirring, but to be honest I'm not all that crazy about the look. Or perhaps that's down to how high street fashion shops are currently using shirring--along the bottom of a loose-fitting top. Really not my kind of thing!

But I digress. Here are a couple of pieces of fabric I've been thinking of using for sewing projects:

This is just regular printed cotton; I have around 3 metres of it but it isn't very wide (I'd guess around 45-65cm) Originally bought it with the intention of making a dress, then decided that the flowers were too small. I'm still considering using it to make a dress, with shirring at the waist, though I'm not sure of the design.

This fabric is (according to the print on the selvedge) 100% silk. It measures approx 1m x 1m 60cm. I would love to make some super-wide-legged trousers from this vibrant fabric! My misgivings are that I'd have to make them with the print going horizontally, as above (not that flattering) and that silk trousers aren't all that practical, especially when you have five cats!
Still, isn't the print gorgeous?

I'm actually really stuck on this challenge! The 'try something new' part of it is what is troubling me most, I think...Also I'm still distracted with making costumes for later in the year, which I wrote about previously!

If anybody has suggestions, I'm all ears!

Higgledy-Piggledy Bracelets

Do you ever have days when you want to make something, but don't want to put in hours of time and effort to do it?

I had one of those days, and put together a few of these easy 'higgledy-piggledy' bead bracelets. (Called so because I threaded beads on at random!)

This is a great little stash-busting project, but also a child-friendly craft project!

Here is a bracelet I made when I was around 7 years old. In this how-to, I explain an alternative way of making a closure to finish off the bracelets!


It is so simple to make these bracelets that it barely needs explaining, but here's a quick tutorial.