At First Disapointed But Not Anymore ~ A New Tutorial

Hello my dear friends,

I woke up at 6 am yesterday morning and since it was a grey and rainy morning and I had no intention to venture out of the house or wanted to spend my day tidying my craft room (I know I really should have), I decided I wanted to create a new tutorial for you in which I was going to recycle small tins. I sat down in my dining room at the big window for about 2 hours, wrote the instructions as a post, saved it and then worked on the actual creating part but unfortunately things just didn't want to look the way I had imagined them, so I gave up on the idea for the moment. Eventually I will return to it and work on it more another time. You never know, it might work out fine the next time round.

I must admit I was quite disappointed with myself that my idea didn't work, so I just had to try something different, hoping it would work out this time. The basic idea stayed the same but I decided to use different materials then I had chosen the first time and I think it worked out fine.

So here is a new tutorial for you ...

... a vintage jelly form pincushion tutorial.

 

You will need the following:

- Small vintage jelly form

- Hammer and nail

- Permanent marker

- Wire

- Pliers

- Scissors

- Fabric

- Tacky glue

- Fibre fill

- Needle and thread

- Lace, ribbon, pieces if old doilies

- Buttons, old piece of jewelry or anything else you would like to use to embellish it with

- Old tag or tag cutter and tea-stained card

- Fine marker

Let's start now ...

 

 

You can use a jelly form or even a little tart tin if you like for this tutorial.

 

 

Now take your jelly form and with the permanent marker make a small dots on either side of it where you want to have your holes for the handle. Then using your hammer and a nail, carefully punch the holes through the tin but make sure it's not too big.

 

Cut a piece of wire approx 16 inches long. I used thicker old wire for the handle. 

 

Bend you wire into a handle shape with about 4 inches left on either side.

 

Insert your wire from the inside out of your jelly mold.

 

Bend the straight end around the handle part and with small pliers curl the end of the wire.

 

Now take a square of fabric about 8 by 8 inches and place a good bunch of fibre fill in the centre of it.

This is the part where you will have to "play" and see how much fibre fill you will need so you are happy with the "cushion" part and  it will fit your jelly form (as you can see my fabric has creases from "playing" with the amount of stuffing).

 

 

Gather the corners of your fabric first and then start gathering the sides of your fabric together.

 

Pull the fabric into your hand until you are happy with the shape and firmness of your "cushion".

 

 

Using a piece of string wrap around the cushion, tie off and cut off the excess. Trim the fabric below the string but not too much.

 

Now place your cushion into the jelly form and using your tacky glue glue in place by pulling the cushion away from the form and dabbing a bit of glue onto the tin and then letting the cushion fall back into place. Be careful not to use too much glue or it will come out at the top of your pincushion and spoil it.

 

 

This is where the fun part starts - embellishing.You can use as much or as little as you wish ~ it's really up to you. I used a small piece of an old doilie and hand stitched it to the cushion.

 

Then using my tacky glue I glue tea stained lace to the top of the jelly form.

 

With this pincushion the motto was " less is more" and I wanted to use something really different for the embellishment so I used a few old Monopoly pieces ~ thimble and iron ~ which I held in place with a stronger glue. You can used an old brooch or vintage buttons ~ what ever your heart likes.

 

 

As a final touch I added a double bow made from some crinkled seam binding and a tag made from tea stained card. A few long pins and a vintage button and there we go! Finished!

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you will enjoy this new tutorial that I have created for you. I do work very hard to ensure I explain everything to my best ability so you will have a wonderful result. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to e-mail me and ask! I am sorry if my photos are not the best at times ~ I take all my photos whilst I am creating which sometimes it is very tricky with sticky hands.

I hope you are all well.

Have a peaceful and creative day,

Karen B.

No Time To Be Creative

Hello my dear friends,

I can't believe that is has been 7 days already since my last post and even worse I haven't been creating at all this past week and I have had almost  no time to read any of your wonderful blogs either! One of the reasons for this is that I am out and about a lot with my girls lately. The good thing about this is that I have found many new treasures. Another reason is that it is still so very hot and humid here and I just can't seem to get a clear thought at times about what to do. I have had a few new ideas and they are in my little "companion" tucked away until I get a chance to sit down and use them. Reason number 3 is that my craft room is in total chaos right now (you will see for yourself later in this post). I am reorganizing everything and as the saying goes "it will get worse before it gets better"! Well that is true in this case. I am hoping to be done in a day finally so I can get back into my room and create something new. My final reason for not being able to spend time creating is that I am planning how our backyard will be looking hopefully in the near future - we are going to be making big changes. I will post about this in the future some time when things have started.

I would like to share my newest treasures that I have gathered with you. I am already stocking up for the coming winter when there are no more garage sales or flea markets around to find anything old and neat. I am happy that I am at least able to do that at the moment.

These are my newest findings from the past week.

Vintage embroidery scissors - the ones on the right in the picture are called "button hole" scissors. They are really neat and I have never seen any like this before.

More crochet pansies!!

Lots of Monopoly pieces ...

... and these are my favourite - tiny cast shoes!!

( ... fairy shoes??)

Some beautiful tarnished pieces.

Look at this ... my friend gave this to me! A complete antique lock with door plates and heavy glass doorknobs!

I took it all apart and cleaned the pieces a little but not too much or they lose their character I find.

These doorknobs are just so wonderful!!

Many more Scrabble pieces - they can be used for so many things.

These were my last find of the week. They are old glass furniture coasters, you know the things you put under the legs of your heavy sofa or table so they don't mark your floors.

I have a few ideas for most of my new treasures already and I will share them with you lovely bloggers once they are created!

And last but not least ...

... remember my craft room? Well, see for yourself - total chaos!!

Everything is everywhere and nothing has a proper home right now.

Hopefully I will get this sorted this weekend and I can share the result with you in my next post!

I hope you are all well.

Have a peaceful and creative day,

Karen B.

So Glad I Went

Hello my dear friends,

this past week has been so very hot outside that it was and still is unpleasant to go outside, so I don't very often. I have been working on my deck but only early in the morning and only for about 2 hours at a time and then back off inside where it is cool.

This morning my girls wanted to head out to one of the antique stores not far from where I live. At first I didn't really feel like it but in the end I gave in and off we went and in the end I am I glad we went!! I found some really neat things there today and they even had a sale on for some of the items I bought!!!

Take a look what I found...

A very pretty old brooch and some lovely vintage earrings.

Some large old brass curtain rings.

( I have something in mind for these already)

A lot of beautiful antique lace and ...

... look at these!!

Two really super neat vintage boxes by Coats!!!

I am over the moon about finding these and I know exactly what I am going to do with them!

At times when we don't feel like doing something, sometimes it ends up making us happy that we did do it in the end - like today for me - I am so glad I went! I hope this makes sense to you.

I hope you are well.

Have a peaceful and creative day,

Karen B.

I Just Couldn't Resist

Hello my dear friends,

after my last baby dress creation I just couldn't resist making another one, but different this time. I had this antique little dress in my cupboard and unfortunately it had some stains on the front so I decided I would tea stain it hoping the stains wouldn't be to obvious anymore but it didn't work for one stain. OK, I thought - I can still work with this. I just wasn't sure how yet but I was hoping it would come to me sooner or later and after not being able to do anything at all on Friday and Saturday since I hurt my right hand, I was more than willing to try anything out. (I had spent many hours in the garden and my right hand had swollen up so bad I couldn't even bend my fingers and my palm was bruised as well).

As with my the last canvas - which I covered with book pages - this time I covered this entire one with old music sheets. As I was looking through the sheets, one of the titles jump right at me and I knew then exactly what I wanted this creation to look like. All the bits and pieces I needed like ribbon, wire, pearls, lace and everything else were on hand in my craft room ~ no need to head out at all which was great since it was very hot again.

The title that inspired me was:

"The Modest Violet"

This is my finished creation!

I just love it!!

I tried to make it quite different than the last one and I think it really worked out.

This little dress was speckled with tiny stains all over the front, but it would have been such a shame to just throw it in the trash ~ it still is so beautiful ...

... and it has so much detail!

Tiny embroidered flowers ~ so delightful!

Now you know why the title of the music just spoke to me.

I used just one of my own made little violets ...

... it was the modest one!

Right now whilst I am writing this post I am looking outside my dining room window which is a very big and I can see the fireflies playing in the dark in my garden. It is such a beautiful and also peaceful sight ~ I wish you could see it too.

I hope you are all well.

Have a peaceful and creative day,

Karen B.