Year: 2014

DIY Birthday Crown

Hello World,

Today is my 24th birthday! This last weekend I celebrated my birthday jointly with my friend Sam (who is two days older than me) and made us birthday crowns. I am a firm believer that age is just a number, and that you should never stifle your inner child.

When I was in junior high I remember looking at college graduates and thinking they were so old. Now that I am that age, I don’t feel like a total grown up, but junior high students do look young to me.

I decided to embrace my inner child and had a blast making birthday crowns with pipe cleaners and pom poms. Check out the very simple tutorial below:

1. Gather your supplies: pipe cleaners, pom poms, a hot glue gun, and glue sticks.

2. Start by creating the band for your crown. I used two pipe cleaners to create the base ring.

3. Wrap pipe cleaners around the base you created, forming triangle shapes.

4. I did a second tier of triangles to fill the crown out more. On my crown, I added a heart shape.

5. Glue pom poms on as your pretend gems, and enjoy!

I didn’t need booby pins to hold my crown on, even while dancing.

So stylish. 🙂

Happy Crafting!

 

Gradient Vase from a Bottle

Hello World,

My favorite craft projects involve repurposed materials. I previously showed two techniques for sprucing up vases with spray paint. Check them out here.

Last summer I found a tutorial for cutting bottles with yarn, nail polish remover, and a lighter- and failed miserably. I blogged about my Pinterest fail, and asked for suggestions to succeed next time around. I decided to give the technique another try, and actually succeeded this time!

Check out how to make your own gradient vase below:

1. Gather your supplies: spray paint and a bottle. If you want to try cutting your vase you also will need: nail polish remover, yarn, sandpaper, and a lighter.

2. Remove all labels from your bottle.

3. Wash your bottle. If you have sticker residue, let the bottle soak in sudsy hot water. Load a scrubby with soap and then have at the sticker residue. Dry your bottle.

4. If you want to cut the top of your bottle check out this tutorial. From my experience, I rotated my bottle more quickly, and for more than 30 seconds. Dull down the sharp edges with sand paper. If you don’t want to risk accidentally lighting anything on fire, skip this step.

5. In a ventilated area, spray paint your bottle. For a gradient effect, spray more towards the bottle, and quickly work your way up the bottle.

6. Allow to dry. In my last photo, I placed the top of the bottle upside down inside the vase portion to help hold my fake flower stems in place.

Ladder Fringe Necklace

Hello World,

I love a good necklace. You can wear them layered with a scarf, or by themselves to spruce up an outfit. Check out the tutorial below to see how to make your own bohemian necklace:

1. Gather your supplies: pliers, beading pins, beads, jump rings, and chain.

2. I didn’t have eye pins in my stash, so I instead made my own by bending the pin around the tip of a pair of pliers.

3. I then trimmed the flat head tip off the pin, and added my beads onto this end.

4. After adding all my beads onto a pin, I bent the other end into a loop, securing the beads.

5. Instead of closing the chain like a traditional necklace, instead line up your beads pins with each tail end of your chain.

6. Attach your beaded pins to the chain with jump rings using your pliers.

7. Create your bead fringes by adding beads onto flathead pins.

8. Attach your bead fringes to the end of your necklace with jump rings.

This is my first version. I want to create another with turquoise beads, longer pins, and a tapering fringe. (similar to my Darby Smart necklace)

Happy Crafting!