Crocheted Flower

After my... um... success (yes!! I call it success) with my crocheted cowl from the Crochet Along at Maybe Matilda, I decided to try making a crocheted flower. I had no idea how, I had no pattern, but I just tried the different stitches until I had what looked like flowers :)

The larger one looks like a doily and this is the FIRST time I made a doily that stayed flat!! Yey! I tried crochet a long time ago, back in high school. And as I keep saying, I never really learned. They taught us crochet in our Home Economics subject back then and I have no idea how I managed to get through the crochet part. I guess my mom finished my project for me helped me with my final project which was just a doily. My doilies always ended up NOT flat. 

Anyway, back to my crocheted flower. I layered them and used a brad (got them from the scrapbooking supplies section at a book store) to attach the 2 flowers together. 

 

One of these days, I will try to repeat my process and document my stitches. And then I can share my pattern. 

I wanted to use this flower as a clip and pin, and before, I just added both a clip and a pin at the back. Thing is, when my daughter uses it as a clip, she ends up playing with it and I don't want her pricking herself accidentally with a pin. For this project, I added Velcro at the back of the flower. Then I took 2 small felt pieces: on one, I hot glued a clip... and on the other, I hotglued a pin. And then I glued Velcro to the back of both felt circles.

Back of the flower, 2 pieces of felt: one with the clip and one with the pin.

Now me and my daughter can use it as a clip (safe for a toddler, no risk of pricking) and I can use it as a pin too :) And I can make more flowers and re-use my clip and pin!

I am linking up to the following parties:

Craft-O-Maniac Monday at Craft-O-Maniac | Making Monday Marvelous at C.R.A.F.T | Motivate Me Monday at Keeping it Simple | Craftastic Monday at Sew Can Do | A Round Tuit @ Creating My Way to Success | Just Something I Whipped Up at The Girl Creative | Amaze Me Monday at Dittle Dattle | A Marvelous Mess at Marvelously Messy | Think Pink Sundays at Flamingo Toes | Pink Hippo Party at Pinkapotamus | Sundae Scoop at I heart Naptime | Sunday Showcase at Under the Table and Dreaming | Not Baaad Sundays at Lamb Around | Market Yourself Monday at Sumo's Sweet Stuff | Take-A-Look Tuesdayt at Sugar Bee Crafts | Handmade Tuesday at Ladybug Blessings | Tuesday To-Do Party at The Blackberry Vine | Homemade Projects at Tip Junkie | Link Party at Running with Glitter | Get Your Craft On at Today's Creative Blog | Tuesday Confessional Link Party at Confessions of a Stay at Home Mommy | Your Whims Wednesday at My Girlish Whims | Show Me What Ya Got at Not JUST a Housewife |

"Rocker Chic" Brooch and Random Thoughts

The other day while having lunch with my friends, we got to talking about retirement.

Yes, that's right... retirement. See my stepfather tried retiring a few months ago last year, a few months before he turned 60.... got so bored so he went out of retirement and back to his old job after a month. My friend's mom just recently retired as well and so far is faring well. I think she's in church with her church group most of the time.

So this got us thinking... what do people do when they retire? I'm in my early 30's and sometimes the thought sends me into panic. The thought of day in and day out with nothing to do. But then I started thinking hey, that will give me all the time to craft! But will I still be that interested in clothes and bags then? I guess we realized that retirement does take a lot of planning :-/ I hope by the time I retire, I have grandchildren to play with and to make clothes, bags and toys for.

Anyway... on to my project. I got the idea to make this when I worked on my chunky cuff bracelet. I tried to make a brooch/pin that looks something similar. I only have green and hot pink gems left on my stash so I used pink with black and gray pearls and a gray flower. The finished product looks a little "rocker chic" to me but I like it!

Ok this is my last post for this week. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Felt flower obsession - Part 3: The "Julie" Flower

I saw this flower from Incredible Stamping while Googling for new felt flower ideas yesterday. Isn't the wool flower gorgeous? I decided to try making one last night using felt:

Lollychops also posted a tutorial for this flower here. I pretty much followed the instructions except I don't have die cutters so I created my own template following the diameters she specified.

You can copy the template and paste on Word. Re-size the image to get the size you want. For the center, I don't have a lot of buttons at hand last night so I decided to use a ceramic flower bead.

Here's a closer look.

And here's how it looks like on the back.

I have a couple more felt flowers I want to try. I really am obsessed with them lately. They look so pretty! I will be posting the other ones I tried next week.

Clips and Pins

I had a little extra time yesterday so after I finished packing for our trip, I decided to make clips for Andrea out of fabric scraps.

ITEM 1: Fabric roses from t-shirt scraps

ITEM 2: Red velvet clips with a gold rhinestone center. These are for Andrea.

ITEM 3: Need I say this is for Andrea? It's a hair clip/pin.

For ITEM 1, I pretty much followed the instructions from Trey and Lucy except for the dimensions and the type of material. I used scraps from t-shirts I cut up. The gray one is about 3 inches in diameter and the smaller one is around 2 inches in diameter.

ITEM 2 is very simple. I used:

• 2 3-inch strips of red velvet
• 2 rhinestones
• 2 clips
• glue gun
• needle and thread

Overlap the edges of one of the red velvet strips and sew. You should end up with a loop or velvet ribbon. Flatten, make sure the overlapped sewn edge is at the center. Gather the center and sew. Sew in the rhinestone. Attach to the clip using hot glue. Ta-dah! You're done.

ITEM 3: It's a hair clip/brooch for Andrea. This one is also very easy and perfect for dressing up hats, shirts, bags... anything you can think of that needs a blast of color.

You will need:

• Ribbon, around 8 inches
• Colorful satin flowers (I got mine from the scrap booking supplies section)
• rhinestone 
• brooch pin
• hair clip
• needle and thread
• circular piece of felt with diameter around the same size as your fabric flowers

Sew the ribbon around the edges of the felt circle. Create small folds in the ribbon as you sew to create ruffles. Layer your fabric flowers and sew. Sew the rhinestone at the center. Attach the clip and pin at the back using hot glue. And you're done!

I hope my instructions made sense. I will post pictures of Andrea wearing these soon. Happy crafting!

EDITED 1/6/2011:
I posted this at Tea Rose Home's Link Party!

Pearl Bow Pin

Last Friday, I went "window-shopping" with a friend after we had lunch at the mall (I say "window-shopping" because I ended up buying a few things... which I really think are necessary by the way!). I saw this pearl-encrusted bow pin (sorry, wasn't able to take a photo) which I found really pretty but didn't want to buy it at that price because I felt I can make one myself. So I ended up buying pair of earrings from that store instead, and started planning the bow pin in my head.

It was a long weekend for us last weekend, no work yesterday (Monday) so I was able to finish it. Ta-dah!!

Pretty! It's about 3.5 inches wide. The original I saw at the store used pink ribbon at the center of the bow but no matter how many times I tried when I was making mine, I couldn't get it to look right so I decided to use an oval-shaped pearl bead instead.  Total time for me to make this was around 2 hours, spread across 3 days (that's how little free time I have... *sniff*).

Here's a simple how to:

You will need:

• Small pearl beads (I used what I had on hand... I have a lot of pearl beads left over from when I had my bead jewelry business a few years ago)
• Felt (use a color to match the color of the pearl beads you are using)
• Needle and thread (color to match the color of the felt you are using).
• 1 oval shaped bead (same color as your small pearl beads or a coordinating color).
• Brooch pin.
• A template for the bow, see below for the template I used.

STEP 1: Draw the shape of the bow you want your pin to look like. I free-handed mine, but I did a rough rendering and you can just download my template below.

To download the template, click on the image to enlarge. Copy and paste to a Word file. Resize to the size you want your pin to be, and then print.

Bow Template

STEP 2: Cut your drawing/printout and use as pattern to cut the felt. You will need 2 pieces of Part A and 1 piece of Part B.

STEP 3: Sew the small pearl beads into a piece of Part A. I started from center, then moving to the edges of one side of the bow. The illustration below shows how I filled out one side of the bow.

As you get to the center, make sure the beads look evenly spaced and there is no big empty spot. Repeat for the other side of the bow.

STEP 4: Sew the center bead or whatever you plan to use for the center of the ribbon.

STEP 5: Sew beads on to Part B.Sew below the dotted line (see illustration below).

STEP 6: Use glue to attach the part ABOVE the dotted line of Part B to the back of Part A.

STEP 7: Glue the 2nd piece of Part A to the back of the combined pieces of Parts A and B.

STEP 8: Glue the pin to the back. Cut a small piece of felt and glue it across the pin to secure it.

And you're done!

Mine ended up a little heavy... I don't know why. Maybe because it's a little big and the pearl beads I used are bigger than the ones I saw on the pin at the store. After I was done, I started thinking what to do with it. See, I'm not really the pin/brooch-wearing type. I initially wanted it for Andrea... but it's so pretty I want to use it!

(EDITED 12/1/2010)
Here's me wearing it to dress up my plain black shirt:

I think I can also use it on a purse, we'll see. If you decide to make one, I hope you can share it with me. Have fun with your pearl bow pin!

(Edited again! 12/2/2010)
and again and again :)

I joined the following link parties:

Tea Rose Home --> my first link party ever! :) | Get Your Brag On at Gluesticks | CraftOManiac  | Lovely Crafty Home | Along for the Ride | The Girl Creative | Not JUST a Housewife | Blue Cricket Design | Somewhat Simple | C.R.A.F.T. | Flamingo Toes |