>Badly behaved buttons

>Ah, alliteration, how we have missed you!

A while ago, I made a cute pair of earrings from some rather yummy green vintage buttons, and they were snapped up rather quickly (hurrah!). I wanted a pair for myself, so I was thrilled when I found not one, not two, but four of the buttons in my stash over the weekend – whee! The downside is that now the buttons have been made into earrings, they have become unruly. To the point where I am considering starting a correctional facility for deliquent jewellery. I already have a plastic storage box of jewellery which refuses to be photographed correctly, and is doomed to stay there FOREVER (or until I finally get myself organised enough to attend a craft fair *hollow laughter*). Anyways, here are the little so and sos:

One of these kids is doing his own thing….

Of course, some buttons are simply in a class of their own, and know how to behave in polite society:

I have also been on the lookout for buttons to fit into some new ring blanks I’ve bought, and I managed to find just the right one: 

I do love those buttons – I must try to get hold of some more.

>Crafteroo Button Swap

>You might have noticed the rather snazzy button full of ….buttons in the sidebar which I made for the Crafteroo button swap which I organised. Have I told you my heart-rending tale of woe? I’d be surprised if I hadn’t, being a slight drama llama at times. Short story: I ended up with no swap partner as someone dropped out, so superfab swap partners Pennydog and Handmade & Heritage decided to ‘adopt’ me, and we did a threeway swap. So, I sent goodies to Pennydog, she sent to H&H, and H&H sent to me. Geddit?

Well, in the last week or so, we all sent out our parcels, and people have been posting pics of what they sent and received. So without further ado, here are the fantastic goodies I received from my wonderful swap partner, Handmade and Heritage (I never know if we’re ‘allowed’ to use real names *shifty*).

So, my parcel of goodies arrived in the week, and I must confess, it gladdens my heart when people use my user name instead of my real name:

That’s obviously not my address. Although sometimes I wish it was.

 

And inside the envelope….am I building the tension nicely, or did you all scroll down already to see what I got?

Chocolate buttons! A fabulous card! Pretty parcels with ribbon! 

After a brief fondle of the parcels, I opened them to reveal……oh my goodness!

I love it! The colours are fab, the buttons are sooo cute, and the stitching is ace. There’s also purty backing paper at the back, which I didn’t take a photo of – you can see it on H&H’s blog. But wait, there’s more:

Buttons! On pretty card. And where do I know that phrase from….?

I am thrilled with my goodies, thank you so much to Handmade and Heritage. If you want to see more buttony swap goodies, have a look at the links below:

Big Blue Bed

Handmade and Heritage

Quartz

Pennydog

>Handmade Father’s Day card

>A couple of years ago I came up with the idea of making some felt plush sausages as a Father’s Day card/gift for my Dad, and this year, I was struggling to think of a card idea that might match that one. Rather handily, my (slightly spoilt) Dad bought a new camera, and so inspiration came from that. Although, as always, the best ideas are *not* the simplest, but the fiddliest. After an hour or two of snipping tiny bits of card, colouring in, and glueing, I came up with a card that I thought he would like.

 

I think it turned out rather well, seeing as my ‘magic’ white ink pen disappeared and I was forced to be creative. The photo in the ‘lens’ is of me and my Dad taken on holiday in Llandudno. The photo was a bit faded, even after scanning in and trying to restore it via the scanner options. Still, it worked out OK and Dad was pleased with it, which is the main thing.

Note to fellow photographers: Yes, I know that this card is not technically accurate. I am using a bit of the old artistic license here.

>Tutorial: fabric covered buttons

>

I have dabbled with making fabric covered buttons before, using a button tool, which involves a level of manual dexterity that I clearly don’t possess. So results have been, um, varied. That didn’t stop me from buying one of those tools at the weekend – I am stubborn determined to master it.

So when I found a tutorial on Craft blog that showed how to make fabric covered buttons without using the button tool, I was keen to try it out. The tutorial uses shank buttons, but as I knew I wanted to make fabric covered button earrings, I needed to find some old buttons which were flat. I have quite a lot to choose from:

Eventually I found two smallish buttons which matched in size – one was quite scratched, so couldn’t really be used anyway.

Aside from button(s), you will also need:
Fabric (don’t choose anything too silky or slippy – see more about this later)
Small piece of felt
Scissors, thread, a needle
Fabric glue
Findings (depending on what you will use the fabric covered buttons for – earring posts, brooch back etc.) and strong glue to attach

***What to do***

1. Cut your fabric into a circle measuring twice the diameter of your chosen button. If you are rubbish at cutting out circles, use something to draw round – I use this handy dandy orange doohicky (that’s probably not its official brand name):

I used a piece of recycled/upcycled/repurposed neck tie for this – it has a nice sheen to it, and the pattern is pretty on both sides.

I chose the ‘right side’ and drew my circles, then cut them out.

 Not only do I have no drawing skills, my cutting skills are not great either. 

 If you like, you can check the size of the circles with the buttons. And if you are making two fabric buttons, you can make them look like slightly creepy eyes. This step is optional.

2. Using running stitch, sew round the edge of your fabric circle. Note: if you have chosen a fabric which frays (don’t choose a fabric which frays – take my word for it), make sure you sew further from the edge. 

If you knot the thread, don’t pull it all the way through – this will help you gather the fabric later.

3. Make sure you have the fabric wrong side up, and place the button inside the fabric circle. Pull the threads carefully to gather the fabric round the button.

You see now why I said ‘Don’t choose a fabric which frays’?

You can move the button about inside the fabric to make sure it is centred. Note: if you are making more than one fabric covered button, make sure that the buttons are the same way up inside the fabric. If they are not, you may end up with one flat button and one slightly domed button. [/voice of experience]

4. When you are happy that the button is centred, secure the gathered fabric by knotting the threads together. Snip off any excess thread.

 5. Cut out a small circle* of felt, big enough to cover the gathered fabric at the back of the button.

 *or your interpretation of a circle – let’s be creative here, shall we?

6. Glue the felt circle in place. You might need to press it down for a while to make sure that it covers the gathers.

7.Once the glue has dried, glue the findings onto the buttons.

The finished earrings!

I have to say, although I love the idea of using repurposed fabric from neck ties, the slipperiness of the fabric made it difficult to work with, both in this tutorial and in the button tool. I think using some sort of interfacing might help, but it would add extra thickness to the buttons (which might not be a bad thing). The bonus of using fabric from neck ties is that you get some interfacing fabric in it, so maybe that’s something to try. I might report back on that one.

As for the button tool, I *can* get it to work with less flimsy fabrics – for example, felt.

Mmmm…turquoise.

 And once you have your felt covered button, you can decorate it…with more buttons!

The purple button really is tiny – it has a diameter of about 5mm. Micro-buttons!

If you use my tutorial, I would love to see what you make – please post your links in the comments section below. Have (buttony) fun!

>Decorating cupcakes with fondant icing (or Introducing Sumo Bear)

>I have recently developed a taste for cupcakes, and despite never having been particularly successful at baking before, I’ve managed to make a few good batches of them already. The latest makes were lemon vanilla cakes with cream cheese icing. The Husbinator couldn’t fathom how cream cheese could be made into icing, but he did admit that they tasted pretty good:

So, spurred on by that success, I signed up for a cupcake decoration class with a friend. We spent three happy hours learning how to make cake decorations, including a bear and a pig, from fondant icing. I somehow got the proportions wrong for my bear, so he is a little…cuddly. Hence the nickname, Sumo Bear:

I’m just big-boned

He’s not bad for a first effort, and he is pretty cute. I guess all that time spent playing with polymer clay helped. My pig turned out OK too, although he looks pretty startled. We discovered why when we took him out of the cake box at home and discovered that his tail had come off. Oops!

 Dude, where’s my tail?

The less challenging cake decorations involved rolling out various colours of icing and using cutters, moulds and glitter (aka ‘Pixie dust’ to my friend, Nancy):

Pastel colours, flowers and swirls

Close up of the rose sprinkled with pixie dust!

One of the highlights of the class was at the beginning, using a small cutter to gouge out a piece of cake in order to fill it with jam or…..lemon curd! It’s available over here! And I have some! So now all I need to do is remember what the gazillion recipes are that I needed it for. Until then, there’s always….

>Gorgeous glass lampwork beads

>I have been wanting to buy some lampwork beads for a while, as I fancied making some earrings with them. I just happened to see a message on Twitter from the fantastic Carolyn of CeeGeeJewellery about being one sale away from 100 in her shop, EvaBeanBeads, and well, it was clearly fate. After some time spent drooling over the contents of her shop, I decided on these little beauties, which arrived yesterday:

Arty close up shot:

 Mmmmmmm….

And as if that weren’t enough, I got a free gift for being the 100th sale in the shop:

Ooh, what’s that I spy? Is it a matching pair of beads which would be ideal for a pair of earrings for me?

Why yes, it is! 

I also bought myself some more glass earlier in the week. Not beads, but from a bead shop at least:

It’s a gorgeous blown glass heart. It’s a couple of inches wide, so too big for jewellery. It will either go in a bowl, or be hung up on some nice ribbon. Which will have a very secure knot. We bought it at a rather nice bead shop in Ghent. It is full of lovely (but expensive) beady treasures. This is what the inside of the gift box says:

So on that note, I am off to use some of my new beads to make some jewellery.

>Vintage buttons and earrings

>I went to a flea market yesterday – I’ve not been to one before, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I could’ve gone mad and bought a load of gorgeous teacups and coloured glass, but we’ve nowhere to store/display it. Instead, I contented myself with buying some vintage buttons and some earrings. Here are some pics of my finds:

Yummy blue buttons

Shame there’s only one of the smaller buttons, they’d be ideal for earrings.

Pink buttons in the same style. I love the cards they came on.

Purple buttons.

Deliciously blackcurranty.

I spotted these beauties on a stall where my mum was buying some nice rugs rather cheaply – they cost 50 cents. Not sure why there’s a random non-matching button in the mix.

Pretty mother of pearl leaf clip earrings.

Rather nice brass filigree clip earrings. Both pairs may be made into something – possibly retro style sweater clips, using the tutorial I saw on the Dainty Squid blog.

Maybe I am channelling Emma Pilsbury…

>Vintage sewing items (aka A Load of Old Bobbins)

>I recently got some sewing stuff from my Nan, who no longer does any sewing. I love looking at this kind of stuff, although it always reminds me that I should get myself a decent case for my own sewing supplies. Anyway, here are some of the treasures I found.

Thimbles, fasteners, buttons (yay!) and even some dressmakers chalk, which is worn nice and smooth:

Pins in an old cigarette case:

I Googled the name on the tin, and apparently a decent quality cigarette tin fetches about $15.

Instruments of torture! If you’re a mattress….

Check out the fabby scrapbook paper – love it! It’s from Making Memories, in the Vintage Findings set.

Lovely brass (maybe) thimble with the pin case again.

And finally, an arty shot of some old cotton reels which, for the sake of the poor pun in the title, I am referring to as bobbins:

>Oxidising copper jewellery (or Adventures in Egg Land, part two)

>I have already tried oxidising silver jewellery last year, so when I read that it’s also possible to use the same method to oxidise copper jewellery, I decided to give that a go. I recently ordered some copper findings from a fantastic Artfire seller called RoyalMetals and my goodies arrived this week. I set to work making some earrings with them, and then picked a pair which I thought might suit the darker brown colour of oxidised copper:

When I tried oxidizing the silver earrings last year, I used a tupperware container. I’ve seen tutorials mentioning ziplock bags, so I thought I’d try that this time. I read online that copper-plated items might not oxidise well, so I ‘cleaned’ the metal bits of the earrings with 70% alcohol (from the first aid box, not the drinks cabinet). Acetone is recommended for this, but I didn’t have any, as I buy acetone-free nail varnish remover (to go with the numerous bottles of nail varnish I own but never use).

So I hard-boiled a couple of eggs, and put them into the bag. I then bashed merry heck out of the eggs with my hand. It was a bit warm, but great for stress relief. Actually, this would probably work even better if you draw a face of someone you don’t like on the eggs first. *makes a note for next time*

 Note: If you are trying to lose weight, you can open the bag at this point, and take a good deep breath of the eggy fumes. I bet you won’t feel like eating much after that. Nice.

Then I added the earrings to the bag:

“Hey, a sauna, this is kind of relaxing. Wait, what’s that awful smell? No, I’ve changed my mind, let me out. I’m choking…”

So I left the earrings in the bag, and tried not to keep looking at them. Occasionally I would poke the eggs a bit to release more of the fumes. After an hour or two, I could see a colour change, but it wasn’t quite dark enough. So I left the earrings in the bag overnight, and this is how they turned out:

The earring wires have worked really well, but the headpin wire and bead caps are a bit patchier. 

That could be because I didn’t clean them with the alcohol properly. I guess I could try oxidising the individual components first then making them into jewellery. Or I could just buy them ready oxidised. But where’s the fun in that?

>Tackling the bead stash – bead busting monthly

>I’ve mentioned the blog ‘Operation Tackle that Bead Stash‘ on here before – I’ve recently learnt peyote stitch and made myself a seed bead bracelet thanks to a peyote stitch tutorial I found on there. As the name would suggest, the blog was set up to inspire us to use up beads which have been lying about in our craft stash, waiting for that perfect project. A recent blog post suggested trying to get us back to our old bead stash busting ways by challenging us to post our bead stashing goals on the first Tuesday of the month, and then post updates on how we do. So, my Bead Busting Monthly challenge goals are:

 1. To create something for the May Moodboard challenge.The blog team does a monthly ‘moodboard’ challenge, choosing a colour combination to inspire us to create. Of course, I like looking at the pretty colours, but inspiration never hits at the right moment. The colour for May is green. Yummy, luscious green.

2. I don’t have any WIPs (works in progress) to finish, so my second goal is to make at least one item from the bead stash shown below:

This is the contents of one jar of beads – I have a few more. And a couple of boxes. 

But wait…do I spy some green beads?

I do! Well, that’s both goals from the same jar of beads. Cool!

Hello, dolly! Well, hello, dolly!

Sorry, it’s been in my head since the Husbinator decided he needed to watch that particular film….