Tag: accessory

Craft Projects, Jewelry

Chandelier Bib Necklace

Jessica Smith

Are you ready to see the coolest project ever? I hope so, because I’m about to blow your mind.

My mother in law is awesome and loves to give me things she thinks I can craft into something awesome. Sometimes, I think she’s crazy. For example, she gave me this hot mess of chandelier crystals that were all tangled together and just a hot, hot mess. What the heck was I supposed to do with all of these crystals that I’d surely have to spend hours untangling?

Well, I’m me and I save pretty much anything that people suggest I craft into something — especially if it is sparkly — so I put the heap of chandelier remnants in a plastic bag in my craft room. When we moved, the crystals were upgraded to a glass bowl on a shelf, and that’s where they’ve been since we moved.

I was finally  inspired to create something out of the crystals, so I pulled the bowl off the shelf and got to destroying chain after chain of chandelier. The crystals are really old and were really dirty, so I scrubbed the recently freed crystals with some soap and got to creating.

My plan? To make a bib necklace for my coworker’s birthday! To start, I took a piece of cardboard and cut out half of the shape I wanted for my bib necklace. I placed it on a piece of black felt and then folded the felt in half and cut along the edge. Perfect.

Next, I tested hot gluing my crystals onto a scrap piece of felt. Good news: hot glue + crystals + felt = awesome. So, I started placing the crystals where I thought I’d like them to go. When I had them in a good arrangement, I started gluing them into place. I was extra careful to not let any hot glue get on the surrounding felt because it would be impossible to get it off.

With all of my crystals glued to the felt, I needed something extra for the necklace. I didn’t want to make it too heavy, and with almost 15 glass objects already on it I opted for a really light, silver bead cap. I very carefully glued these into place as well. Once I was finished with my necklace (yes, I’m skipping ahead) I decided it needed a little extra something, so I went and added some costume pearls to the bib as well. That’s what you’ll see on the final photo.

After I had everything glued into place, I took a bead reamer and pierced a small hole through the felt. It just so happened that my flower-like crystals had holes in them, which was the perfect place to thread ribbon through that couldn’t possibly tear through the felt over time! Coincidence? Pshhh, please ;p

The final step was to thread the ribbon through the hole, which I did by poking one end of the ribbon onto the bead reamer and re-poking the reamer through the hole. It worked rather well! I love when simple solutions are, well, simple! I tied knots in the ribbon at the edge of the felt, then trimmed the ribbon down to size.

What do you think? I love it and I know my coworker is going to die when she sees it.

Isn’t it amazing what you can create from something you originally thought was a hot mess? I’ll add a photo of my coworker wearing it later on, but her birthday isn’t until mid-November.

Until then, here’s me sporting the sweet bib (I sound like a baby…). You can tell my the look on my face that I really love to take photos of myself to put on the blog — but hey, sometimes you need a model…. and my hubby sure wasn’t gonna try it on!

And kuddos, Robin! You were totally right — the chandelier pieces were totally craft worthy 🙂

Update: Mill loved it!

Craft Projects

Flower pins and barrettes

Jessica Smith

I was a crafting machine this weekend! Unfortunately for the blog, I was making oodles and oodles of the same things, all of which I’ve shared with you already. My weekend was consumed with Mod Podged candles and feather pins and barrettes. I did get a chance to try something new that I think will be a big hit at my fair in November — flower barrettes! If I had a daughter, she’d be wearing these things every day. They are so flippin’ cute!

Since I was making these for the Trash to Treasure fair, I was using materials that others my otherwise think of as garbage. So, I pulled out a scrap of blue fabric about 4 inches x 6 inches and some cardboard that came in a package at work this week.

The first thing I did was cut out five petals from my fabric. I cut these petals with a pointy tip, but I think I like the rounded edges a little bit more.

Next, I sewed the petals together. To do so, I started on the bottom edge of the petal and stitched it down through the top, then back and forth three times. This puts a nice little crease in each petal.

Once you do the first, add the rest in the same manner. With all five threaded, put a stitch back through the first petal, then tie the thread in a knot.

Now it’s time to add the backing. I cut out a square of cardboard and a piece of felt and glued them to one another. Then, I glued the cardboard side to the back of the flower.

By glueing the cardboard side to the flower, this leaves the felt side up — this is the part that will touch your hair, so you want it to be soft.

Next step: hot glue on the barrette clip or your pin back. I made this on into a pin.

Clean up the felt by removing the hot glue strings, then flip over your pin and add a button to jazz it up!

All done!

Here are a couple more that I made. This one is another pin:

And this one is a barrette. I added tulle “leaves” to this one. So cute!

Craft Projects

Feather Coat Pins and Hair Barrettes

Jessica Smith

It’s almost coat season, and I’ve got the world’s most boring, brown coat that I’m never super excited to wear. Actually, I hate most coats…. I am allergic to wool, so I’m always stuck with the oversized down coats instead of the super stylish pea coats. Cry myself a river, right?

Anywho, I decided to try my hand at making a coat pin to jazz up my brown coat. So, I dug around in my craft room for some supplies and set to work.

Supplies: Feathers, Buttons, Pin backings, Cardboard (I used old coasters), Felt, Hot Glue, Barrette backings (if you want a hair barrette instead of a pin).

Here’s what you do:

1. Gather the supplies above, selecting one button per pin and between 4 – 6 feathers per pin

2. Cut out a small piece of cardboard (or in my case, a piece of the coaster) to glue feathers onto. It can be as large or small as you’d like, depending on how much of a statement you’d like to make with your pin. I’m not that brave, so my cutout was about 2 inches wide. Before you start gluing ( I didn’t this the hard way the first time around), cut out a piece of felt the exact size of your cardboard. This will be the backing on the pin later on.

3. Glue feathers all over your piece of cardboard. Tip: Place the hot glue on the cardboard, not the feather. It becomes almost string-like on the feather and slides off easily. When all of the feathers are on the piece of cardboard and none f the backing shows through, let all of the glue harden. Then, glue on your button. I placed my button at the spot where all of the feather stems meet to hide them. It seemed to work rather well.

4. When everything is good and dry on the front of your pin, flip over the pin and use hot glue to attach the felt backing.

5. Attach your pin backing or barrette clip to your felt with hot glue and let it all dry. I found it useful to fold up a little piece of my coaster and place it in between the prongs of the hair clip so the glue wouldn’t fasten each side to the other.

6. Your pin/barrette is done! Put it on your coat or in your hair and show it off.

I think they are adorable and will really help make my boring coat a little more exciting (whenever I actually dig it out of the closet… I’ll probably be cold for a little while longer).

I think this one is my favorite: