Saturday, June 11, 2011

Free Fisher Price Little People Avatars- Set 3

Here is Set Three of my free Fisher Price Little People Avatars. I will be posting 8 a week, every Saturday, until I run out of them. I have roughly 60 in all.
Links to set 1 and set 2 are listed below:
FPLPA Set 1 
FPLPA Set 2

Each image is 72 pixels/inch; 96x96 pixels.

To save the images, right-click the photo and choose either "Save Picture As" (Internet Explorer) or "Save Image As" (Firefox). This will open a file save dialog box, allowing you to specify a folder on your system to save the image into.










Enjoy!

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Template for Giant Felt Flower Tutorial


In preparation for my family Fasinator party in July I have been doing a few web tutorials for making fabric flowers. I found this wonderful tutorial by Megan Reardon for making Giant Felt Flower Brooches. I decided to draw up templates for the tutorial so I don't have to cut the petals free hand and I will always have the template on file for making the flowers whenever I want.

Here is my template if you wish to make your own felt flowers following her tutorial. Click on the image to see it at it's original size and print it from the browser window.


A few notes about this tutorial. I found a mini hot glue gun very useful for this project. The glue cools much faster then the craft glue that the tutorial calls for. I was able to make petals very quickly. With a glue gun you can finish this project in about an hour. This tutorial also works well with leather. I made one flower out of purple pig-skin. I also beaded the center of my flowers instead of making felt centers, and am adding more embellishments behind them to make 'Dinnerplate' Dahlia brooches. I want these brooches to be BIG like the ones sold on Bando. The ones on Bando are approximately 7-10" in diameter. I'm also going with a Patriotic Theme. The two pictured at the beginning of this post are unfinished but I want to get them done and post them in my Etsy shop for 4th of July shopping.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Incomplete Project Wednesday- Restringing necklace and posting destash on Etsy.


This Wednesday I'm going to re-string a necklace that I want to post on Etsy and post some de-stash items in my Etsy shop as well. I've been sitting on all this de-stash stuff for some time because it takes time to sort it, clean it, photograph it, and post it.
Tell me what projects you plan on trying to complete or get further along with!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Slow posting this week; Featuered in another Treasury List!


School is out! Sort of.....My DD's private school is out for summer, but public does not let out until this coming Friday. I have a friend that teaches public school and I watch her toddler son while she's at work. I usually get my blog posting and Etsy things done in the morning and evening when I'm not babysitting, and in the afternoon when my charge is napping. This week I will be lucky to get much blog posting done because I will have my own child to entertain in addition to my usual babysitting. I will try to keep on top of things...but no guarantees. Posts this week will likely be short and sweet and I won't finish my purses or leather bracelet until next week as well.

That being said....on to the original post.... I was recently featured in another wonderful treasury list! My item is the red and white striped teapot on the second row. This List was created by handmadecottageuk. Here is her Tea Time Treasury List compliments Craft Cult, each image can be clicked to transport to the items location on Etsy.



Thankshandmadecottageuk!

Monday, June 6, 2011

Easy Beaded Beads


I need of a few beaded beads for my leather leaf bracelet to use as a closure bauble. I have seen beautiful peyote stitched beaded beads on Etsy, but it's a technique that I'm having trouble mastering.
On a recent trip to the local craft store I saw some beaded beads and took a good look at their construction.
They were in fact not peyote stitched, or really stitched together in any complicated pattern, but they still looked nice. So here is my attempt to improve upon their simple technique.
The base bead they used was made up of clear lucite oval beads about 20mm in size. Because I don't have lucite beads on hand I chose to use round 20mm wooden beads.

1) I want black beaded beads and my wooden beads happen to be black. If I wanted another color I would carefully paint my beads with a similar color of spray paint to match my seed beads; then let them dry for a day before beading on them.

2) Lace one wooden bead upon a plastic coffee stir straw. You can reuse the stir straw for making more beads if you are careful not to bend it as you work.


3) On 4 feet of 0.15 mm beading thread; form a ladder stitch base 6-7 beads long of size 11 seed beads with a 2-3 inch tail of thread. Here are instructions from Bead and Button Magazine for a ladder base. The example below actually uses larger beads, and a contrasting color thread. This makes it easier for you to see exactly what to do.


4) Form the ladder stitch into a circle around the straw by joining the first and last beads in the ladder stitch. Run your thread into the wooden bead between the straw and the inner bead wall; and out the other side of the wooden bead.
The first image shows the circle formed without the straw, the second shows it around the straw using the proper size beads (11), and matching color beading thread.



5) Push ladder stitch circle down against the wooden bead and pull the thread tight through the other end of the wooden bead. Now form another ladder stitch base 6-7 beads long (use the same amount as in the first ladder stitch circle) and form it into a circle around the straw. Form this new ladder stitch circle against the base of the wooden bead.



6) Now join the base bead circles together by bridging the space over the wood bead with seed beads. Work around the bead until you encircle the wooden bead with parallel bridges. Be sure each seed bead bridge lays against the wooden bead so there are no bumps in the bridges arc. If the seed beads don't lay against the wood bead remove one at a time from the bridge until they do. Remember how many beads you use in your first bridge and repeat that count for every subsequent bridge.
  

7) Begin filling the space between the first set of bridges with new bridges. These new bridges will have less beads in their count. Be sure they all lay against the wooden bead and again reduce the number of seed beads in each bridge (if needed) so the bridges lay against the wooden bead. . Keep working around the wooden bead add new bridges until you can no longer fit beads around the ladder circles. I removed the coffee stir straw at this point but you can leave it in until your bead is complete.
8) Now skip down from a ladder circle 1-2 beads and begin creating shorter bridges to fill in the gaps between the larger bridges. At the end of a new bridge weave into and up the next adjacent bridge 1-2 seed beads. Repeat and continue filling in the gaps with shorter, new sets of bridges on each trip around the wooden bead. As your gaps fill up your bridges will become increasingly shorter. Always be sure the bridges are short enough to lay against the wooden bead, but long enough to fill in the gaps.


9) Once all the gaps are filled weave the needle thread back toward the tail thread and tie them into a square knot. Clip the end tail to 2 inches long. Weave the tails into the bead work concealing them from view.

Here are some comparison photos of the store bought beaded bead and the one I made. Because I used a similar color base bead and matched beading thread to my base color the gaps in my bead are less evident.
Also the construction on my bead are tighter around the bead holes making the wooden base less visible at the ends. From looking at the end view if the beads (last image) can also see how the bridge lengths shorten and weave back into adjacent bridges,


Sunday, June 5, 2011

Sarah Coventry on Etsy

An Etsy treasury list for Sunday. I made a list of Sarah Coventry Jewelry on Etsy. It's one of my favorite jewelry lines. Each snapshot in the widget below will take you to the item's location on Etsy when you click on it.



There is plenty more Sarah Coventry on Etsy. The above items are only a few of my favorite items.

Click here for More about Sara Coventry Jewelry on Wikipedia.