A lenient twist on the "item a day" craft challenge

The "item a day" craft challenge has always intrigued me. But it's a huge commitment! Lots of crafters have work, families, and other obligations that may prevent them from crafting every single day. So I decided to see if I could make 7 things a week. Let's see how long I can keep this up.
Showing posts with label choker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label choker. Show all posts

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Week 12: Fab Fabrics

This week I decided to work with a medium that I don't use nearly enough.  Both fabric and ribbon are versatile, cheap, and usually utterly ignored by me in my crafting endeavors.  While digging through my old goodwill finds box I pulled out a really pretty (yet irreparably stained) silk skirt that I've been meaning to turn into something else.  Then while cleaning I uncovered my sorely neglected ribbon stash.  That was what got this week started.  Anyway, on to the projects!

Nobody can loose their keys in their purse quite like I can.  So I made myself this ribbon key fob to help me identify my key ring in the vast depths of my purse.
Hairflower from remnants.
Bib necklace from old T-shirt.  This was super easy; I just cut the shirt around the rosettes, which happened to be at the neck of the shirt.  That meant I could run a thin cord through the seam and boom!  Five minute necklace.
Earrings made from lace remnants and old iron-on style denim patches.  I just cut four of the teardrop shapes, then used my trusty rolling mill to punch out the circles in the center.  I cut the lace to fit, then sandwiched it between the two layers of denim and ironed it.  The heat activated adhesive took care of binding all the elements together.  Hurray!
This choker is made from some funky yarn that was like a rolled up net.  It was nice to trot out my old friendship bracelet making skills on this project!
Fabric bead earrings!  Everybody is super into paper beads right now so I thought I would go ahead and try making some in the same style, but with some scrap fabric I had laying around.  I'm pretty pleased with the results!
And last but not least, the reincarnation of the silk skirt!  I cut strips off where there were seams, then wrapped those strips around some wooden bangles I've been meaning to do something with forever.  These are so totally not my style but I love them dearly anyway.
I'm super into using the denim iron on patches to make jewelry now.  It was so fun and super easy!  Thanks for looking, and I'll see you next week.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Week 1: Life's a Drag

This week's craft adventure involved making accessories for my friend Millie's first foray into the fabulous world of drag.  She wasn't performing, but she was going to a drag show in drag.  After we gathered all the gowns, undergarments, and padding that we needed I set about making some accessories to complete her look.  She was going with a blue / ice bitch thing, and these were my results:

Button rings
A hair clip with feathers

The button earrings were easy to make; I used my largest wire cutters to nip the shanks off the back of the buttons, then filed down the remaining stubs so they were level with the back of the button.  Then I just glued them to ring bases!


Clip on earrings (my first!)
A simple bracelet
I did the same thing for the clip on earrings.  The hair clip was simply gluing feathers and a rhinestone to a circle of felt, then gluing that to an alligator clip.  And the bracelet simply a bracelet.  I put beads on a wire.

Cameo and lace choker

Millie didn't want to be the only person in the audience in drag, so I decided to faux-queen up and go with her. I ended up making myself a couple of accessories to go with my outfit.


 

 The choker took the most work; I started with two rectangular pieces of ivory felt and two lengths of white ribbon.  On one piece of felt  I used Fabri-Tac to attach both the ribbons, and then used more Fabri-Tac to cover them with the second piece of felt so they were sandwiched inbetween.  Then I added a layer of black lace, which I had to cut down the middle into two strips to get it to not be clown-collar large.  Fabri-tacked those bad boys right on and sealed the ends with a lighter to prevent fraying.  I did the same with the white lace overlay.  Finally, I added the cameo charm (purchased from Michael's); it came with a pinback so I just pinned that sucker right on there.  I figured it would cover up my distinct lack of Adam's Apple.

The earrings were also simple; I got a set of two flowers from Michael's that had metal backings with two holes.  I connected an ear wire to the top of each flower.  Then I got into my stash and found some black tassels that I had gotten from Joann's upholstery department and never used, slid a jump ring through the "knot" at the top of the tassel, and connected those to the bottom ring of the earring.  Those things were HUGE.

So, this brings my total to six.  SOOOO CLOSE.  Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the necklace I made for Millie.  But I did make it, I swear!  You can kind of see it in this picture of the two of us at the end of the night.

It's half covered by her hair, but it's a large blue rhinestone pendant from Michael's that I strung onto three different layers of antiqued chain.
For a first week's attempt, not so shabby!  Especially because I spent most of my free time this week running around wig/dress/shoe/padding shopping.  I think I whipped up the entire accessory batch on the hectic, long Thursday night before the Friday show.

I do have some goals for next week that involve doing more than just basic "glue crap to other crap" type crafting.  Don't get me wrong!  It's my FAVORITE type of crafting.  But not super challenging at the moment.  So I'll endeavor to do something a bit more complex in the coming seven days.  I also think I need to work on improving my picture taking skills, though.  I think a good place to start would be to find somewhere to shoot the pictures other than in my apartment building's hallway.  high hopes!  We'll see what happens.