2014 Crafting Recap

2014 may have been a quiet year on the craft blogging front, as I became rather distracted with Doing A Thing, but here's a recap of some of my posts from the past year...

Vintage Measuring Tape Belt

Made using an old measuring tape, a buckle, eyelets and glue.

Paper Sticks of Rock / Beach-Themed Party Favours
Made from paper, card and cellophane.

Easiest Christmas Pine Cone Ornaments
Made with pine cones, pins and ribbon

Wire-Wrapped Beaded Leather Bracelets
Made with leather cord, wire, beads and basic findings
A project to use up some accidentally-bought leather cord.

Pearl & Leather Wrap Bracelet
Made with leather cord, faux pearls, and basic findings.

Cord & Chain Necklace
Made with cord, chain, beads, embroidery thread and basic findings

Upcycled Festive Heart Decorations
Made with an old pillow case, pillow stuffing and embroidery thread

Charity Christmas Window Display
Created from donated, handmade and recycled/upcycled items!

 Well, that's probably about it for this year. I'll post more leather cord crafts as I make them, and some others along the way. Until then, seasons greetings to you all. :)

Cord & Chain Necklace

Though I had some hassle getting cord ends that would fit my reams of leather cord, I finally settled for some coil end springs (which are slightly too big, but close enough).

So, armed with my shiny new pack of cord ends, I began experimenting and now I have this cord & chain necklace tutorial to share with you!

This project will take 1-2 hours; it took me a while because I made a couple of mistakes during the process.

Here comes the how to!

Brown Paper Packages...

'Tis the season when the makers of gift-wrapping products are rubbing their hands in glee.
Well, sorry rich dudes, but I wrapped all my presents for the grand sum of 89p.

(Yes, 89p!)

Christmas Window Display

As I've mentioned here previously, I volunteer at a charity shop. One of the great perks of volunteering is that I get to flex my creative fingers in putting together window displays!
Being a charity, we don't have a huge budget to play with (or any budget, really) so it's a case of being super-inventive with reams of donated stuff and scrap card/paper/etc.

Get your skates on and grab that charity bargain before someone else does!

This year in particular, I've tried to make some displays that are more visually interesting! I've intended to post about some of them for a while, so will eventually share pictues of the summer and autumn-themed windows I created.
For now, here is our Victorian Christmas-themed display!

Ivy & Pine Cone Wreath

With Christmas in just a couple of weeks, Channel 4 have gifted us with more Kirstie's Handmade Christmas. One of the features on this week's episode was an ivy wreath. It was made to be hung up horizontally, and was adorned with candles and little paper stars in true Scandinavian style.

I was inspired to make one myself, but opted for one to hang vertically on the door. I ended up with the wreath in the picture above, which I decorated with some ribbon, baubles, and good old pine cones.

Hopefully this will hold together during Christmas--the ivy is remarkably easy to manipulate and holds itself in shape, but last night we had really strong winds (luckily I'd seen the forecast and brought the wreath indoors!) For a first attempt, I'm pleased with how this turned out!

Upcycled Festive Heart Decorations

Yesterday I made these Scandinavian-inspired heart decorations for our Christmas tree. They're very simple to make, and almost completely upcycled!

The method is so easy it's guessable, so I didn't make a proper tutorial, but here's a quick run down.

I used:
Template (from junk mail)
Fabric (old pillowcase)
Filling (from knackered old pillow)
Embroidery thread (from charity shop)

Using the template, I cut out hearts and sewed them right sides together, leaving a gap for turning.

Then I turned them so the right side of the fabric was facing outwards, and stuffed them with filling.

After sewing up the gap, I threaded a darning needle with 5-6 inch lengths of embroidery thread and pushed it through the top of the hearts, tying the ends in a knot to make a loop.

Here they are on our tree! Also seen here are several homemade items I've posted about in the past:
Recycled Magazine Garland
Tin Can Tea Light Holders
Felt Doves and Peace, Hope & Joy Stars Decorations

Pearl & Leather Wrap Bracelet

In my attempt to use up some more from my leather cord stash, I made this pearl and leather wrap bracelet!

With this DIY you can make use of any small beads you have lying around; I went for faux pearls as I had lots of small ones left over from some broken vintage necklaces.

You'll need:

Leather cord (I used 4mm cord)

Small beads

Beading wire

Jewellery wire (I used approx. 1mm wire)

Clasp

Jump rings

Crimps

Tools:

Scissors

Wire cutters

Round nosed pliers

Flat nosed pliers

Crimping pliers (optional--use flat nosed pliers if you don't have crimpers)