CRAFT-WERK

Birds of Bling

2012-01-18T17:45:00.000Z

Christmas is sooo last season. I have set my sights on spring now. I am determined to make it as difficult as possible for the dark, grey thoughts that usually take hold of me in February. And with a stash of blingy bits and a massive creative flash taking hold of me now that my college exam is over, I set to work. Gimme some birds of ~~spring~~ bling.

Right, these birds started life as... wait for it... Christmas crackers. Yep. Miss Cheapskate here collected the torn up bits of Christmas crackers. Actually, it was even more embarrassing than that. The crackers had been used for decoration at a party hosted by friends and so I actually took the rubbish home from their party... Reason being that I was attracted by the sparkly card board, the black ribbon and the metal tie clips.

Anyway, at first I thought I might reuse this for Christmas tags, but then I realised that my drawing room was so bare after taking down the Christmas deco and I didn't want to throw out the vase of twigs. Hence the idea was born to craft some decorations for that. And instead of Christmassy shapes I eventually settled on birds - they remind me of spring time...

I downloaded a few bird templates from the internet - a simple Google Image search throws up plenty of designs - and printed them on some card and cut them out. Then I used those three templates for drawing the bird shape onto the cracker card.

The result was not quite blingy enough. But I am one of those loonies who picks up any solitary earring lost in the street and who holds on to broken bits of jewellery and "whimsies". And from that stash I spruced up the birdies...

... with heart-shaped buttons...

... with the wire ties twisted into a heart-shape...

... with a little bell...

... with a little red ribbon from my Lindt chocolate bear...

... with a heart pendant...

Some of the birds I gave wings by punching a hole into them and then just feeding the black ribbon through. He really looks as if he is soaring, doesn't he?

In any case, I am delighted with my blingy birds. They are happily hanging on the branches. Best thing: They are so light that every time someone passes by, they flutter in the air. Heck, they flutter at all times - this old house has a fine draft that comes in very handy for that.

A bit whimsical, I guess - and whim is not really something I usually like - but hey, I am waiting for spring time and they will remind me it is on its way.

Best,

I Want Snow!

2012-01-08T13:57:00.000Z

It's that time of year again. No, I am not talking of winter. I am talking of the run-up to an exam. You can always tell it is that time, because there is a flurry of activity on my blogs. Suddenly the crafting tools come out again and I cannot stop myself from making things. Some people call it creativity. I call it replacement activity - I'll do anything but study *ggg*. I am that kind of bird.

So with that in mind it was essential, no, imperative, that the Queen of Crafts got her latest post-Christmas sale bargain into crafty shape. I had picked up this garland of snowy plastic fir while over in Germany. Can you see the white specks of snow crystals on the fir? Well, I think there was much more snow on the needles when I bought this in the shop, alas, travelling in my suitcase did not do this piece of deco that good - when I took the garland out of its protective bag upon arrival at home, a handful of crystals trickled onto the kitchen table. Ah well.

Anyway, undeterred, I ploughed through the fake snow and dug out my old homemade wreath base. This thing has seen better days - and is still not a perfect circle. Ah well. It'll do.

I placed the garland on the ring and then secured it in place with some decorative wire which I had also picked up in Germany. Basically it is just some silver wire with some translucent and transparent plastic stars attached. Not too showy, not too tacky. The result you can see below:

I don't mind the easter egg shape of this, but the wreath looked a bit too irregular, so I decided to decorate it with what I had at hand.

And I always have some decorative ~~crap~~ stuff at hand. This, I decided, was finally the time to put some blingy silver ribbon to work which I must have picked up yeeeears ago.

And then there were also some styrofoam birdies that I saw in a Euro-shop (the European equivalent of a Dollar Store - ooops, or is that obvious??) before Christmas. I completely forgot about them then, because I had originally intended to decorate the advent candle wreath with them. They matched the colours of the candles perfectly. But hey, now they came out.

So here is the winter wonder snow wreath:

It's currently gracing my kitchen window - our front door would beautifully suit as a canvas, but unfortunately we live literally 5 steps up from a main thoroughfare in Central Dublin and the wreath would be snatched as soon as night falls... (I am speaking from experience - I have lost a couple of wreaths to the great God of travelling pickpockets *grumbles*)

I still want snow. Really.

Best,

A Nice End to an Old Year

2011-12-31T11:27:00.000Z

Dear readers - I haven't been a good blogger this year. At least not on Craft-Werk. I have been very active in my photoblog 2picsaweek and have also started a German language blog on my life in love-exile. There was little time for crafting in my busy life between college, computer and home.

So a happy new year from moi to you ;-).

The mug you see above was a project I did a while back. You can read about it here. I am selfishly regurgitating it because it has just been featured in Jamie's fabulous blog "Sew Rockin'". Don't be fooled by the name of the blog - there is more going on there than just sewing. Her "Sew Rock Fridays" are a great showcase of projects that other crafters have done, so swing over there and have a peek ;-).

That concludes 2011 - let's see what 2012 brings. Lots of crafty love!

Best,

Dear/Deer Candlestick

2011-12-20T10:00:00.000Z

Here comes post number three of the drawing room mantle series. Yep, sorry, but you must get through this before I go on to ~~bigger...~~ ~~better...~~ different things. The remaining crafty bit is - have you guessed - the candlestick-y arrangement on the mantlepiece. Which, upon closer inspection, turns out to be... *tada*... deer antlers...

The easiest project if there ever was one. And yet I had this coming for aaaaages. The idea was born a couple of years ago. You see, my dear better half used to have an extensive skull and bone collection as a ~~boy~~ young man. *um* No, nothing sinister about that, just a genuine interest in all living things. Except that they were dead. *eh*.

Anyhow, his collection resided in his parents' house, but when they moved out, the time had come to transfer the precious collection to our own quarters. Was I horrified? No. Am I morbid? Emphatically no!! I love the sculptural quality of skulls and have occasionally photographed them for projects like the one on the right. (That's a marmot skull by the way...).

I have also previously turned a large skull into a sculpture for the drawing room - if Damien Hirst can do it, then so can I (with the help of a little silver spray paint...). Check the old post here.

Right, but to get back to the point...

Deer antlers with their pointy points are just natural candle holders. There was only the problem of attaching the candles to the antlers. I thought about drilling holes and pushing those candle holders for wreaths into it. Then I though about simply putting nails into them to stick the candle on. And finally I realised that something from my Christmas stash would do the trick nicely - those old-fashioned clip-on candle holders for the Christmas tree:

Luckily the holders come with a little swivel headed candle tray, so you can twist them in such a way that the candle will be (roughly) upright and therefore not splash wax all over the place when lit. I am delighted with it - I like the rustic feel it gives.

Dead animal parts in the house are bad for Feng Shui???

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh!

Let's cosy up at the fire, pretend we are in an Alpine hut, fresh in from a whizz on the slopes...

Best,

PS: Promise - tomorrow you won't get a view of my mantlepiece again!!!

Back with a Splash

2011-12-20T00:37:00.000Z

Ah, it is wonderful to be welcomed back to the blogging community. I almost feel ashamed that I have been so quiet in the last while... Two of my favourite craft-bloggers have just posted my XXL star on their wonderfully resourceful sites. Thank you, Rayan from Design Confidential and Michelle from Somedaycrafts - I am more than chuffed that you found my project worth passing on...

If you don't know these sites already, then it is high time that you check them out, fellow crafters!

Design Confidential is a a great resource for anything a crafter needs. See those neat little boxes above the post? They will lead you to all kinds of projects, tutorials, links, before and afters, you name it. She covers a lot more than exclusively crafts - this is a one-stop-shop for all things design, DIY, craft etc. Go on, and spread the love ;-)

Someday Crafts on the other hand focusses on crafts. And especially on those that catch our eye. We bookmark them and decide to do them. Someday. :-) I love the do-ability and accessibility of the crafts Michelle features on her site. And you will, too. So have a little snoop-around and don't be surprised if you find yourself bookmarking half her site...

What a good start - I think I'll write another blogpost right now...

Best,

Don't forget to check this ouuuuuuuuuuut:

Best Buy

2011-12-19T12:59:00.000Z

Never in a million years would I have thought that this was going to be one of my ~~favouritest~~ most favourite deco buys of all time - a fake Christmas garland. I bought this, I remember it well, on the 23rd of December 2006 for about 20.00 Euro. And boy did I have a guilty conscience about this.

And why would anyone in their right mind get their moral knickers in a twist over a Christmas garland? Because it is artificial. *hisssss* Oh, that does not sit well with me. I love my real fir in the house for Christmas. But I have to say that the artificial garland is absolutely fabulous.

Sure, the closer you get, the more artificial it looks. But it comes out of the bag every year, virtually undamaged despite having been squished into the attic and having endured two months in close proximity to the fire.

As you can see above, I have wound some ordinary and cheap Christmas lights around the garland. I don't even bother taking them off when I put the garland back in storage in January. The little bulbs are resilient and look really cute when switched on. Heck, they even look nice when switched off (see right).

While the garland goes up in the same spot every year - namely the drawing room mantlepiece - I tend to decorate differently every year. Last year, as you can see in the image above, there were just the Christmas lights on it. This year, I decided to go a bit more blingy and added some big sparkly stars.

Best thing about the artificial garland: I can go on Christmas holiday on Wednesday and return the following week, not worrying about a heap of needles on the floor that needs brushing up upon return.
Hooray for plastic trees!

Best,

Christmas Star XXL

2011-12-18T22:37:00.000Z

If the title makes you expect to read about some X-Factor loony - either from this side of the Atlantic or the other - who is going to torture our ears endlessly with some tackily re-recorded and Cowell-ised, jingly-belled and synthesized crap, you can stop right here. This is about what you see in the picture below:

Christmas is now less than a week away. I bet everyone is done decorating. But in case you aren't, I intend to show you a few easy, quick and cost-efficient decorating ideas in the last few remaining days until the big one. The picture is my starting point for a few posts over the next week. Yes, I intend to post every day, now that I have been released from the prison called college. And contrary to what you might have assumed, I actually have had my sitting room decorated for weeks (I just have not had the time to show any of it). The picture above shows a few things I wanted to share via my blog. And let me start with my pride and joy, the wall deco.

Wall decorations have been very much in fashion for the last couple of years. And I am not talking paint effects or fancy, shiny wall papers here. Three-dimensional wall decorations are pretty in - from starburst mirrors to quilled flowers to Christmas baubles blue-tacked to the wall. With that in mind I resurrected my favourite Christmas project - and went XXL.

Previously the starting point of the Christmas star was a sheet of A4 paper from which I cut paper squares 21x21 cm size. This time I went double that - 40x40. And used slightly thicker matt black crafting paper that you can buy in A1 size sheets in craft shops. This makes you an XXL star about 120cm long when assembled. So you need a pretty large wall for that. If you want to know how to make a Christmas star, hop over to the original blog post which I wrote ~~a hundred~~ two and a half years ago.

The best thing about this wall deco: It is suitably Christmassy, yet I think it will still look well on the wall when I don't take it down in January. I intend to let this sit for a while. And I don't see why not... ;-)

Best,

Kriskindle Has Been

2011-12-17T20:36:00.000Z

The penultimate semester of college has been put to bed. And finally, after producing a 6.image-photo project, accompanying documentation, proposal and evaluation, plus getting ready for an official exhibition of the work, I am ready to enjoy Christmas 2011.

I have been longing to write some posts here, show what I have been up to in terms of Christmas decorating and crafting. There was just no time for that - between college, journalistic work and occasionally pretending to be on top of the housework, never mind spending time and looking after my children, all else fell by the wayside. Not anymore. Today I am back and I hope to get a couple of posts out before I set off to Djermaniiiiiiiiie for Christmas.

What better way to start off into Chrimbo mood than with a Kriskindle parcel that has been sitting on my kitchen dresser for a good few days now, waiting to be unwrapped. Do you know the Kriskindle idea? Essentially, in a group of people/family/club/school class you write all names on a piece of paper, put them in a hat and then everyone pulls a name out. This is the person you'll be giving a pressie to.

I had participated in one such scheme through my favourite internet forum, a women's forum called "Weibernest". Most of the members are based in Germany, but a few of us live all over Europe, and so I received a parcel from Slovakia. Inside were some yummy Christmas cookies (a typical German thing, culinary Christmas with a least five different types of homebaked cookies a must!!!), a hiking guide to the Tatra mountains (undoubtedly to lure me over there ;-)) and two sheets of original and therefore wonderfully retro stickers of old East German production. (I could tell because the price printed on the back was still for "0.30 Mark" - that is two currencies away from the Euro and was the currency preceding German unification in 1990!!)

Great. Now we can get down to proper Christmas. I shall show some stuff that I have done this year and hope anyone will see it.

Best,

We are off

2011-11-23T11:25:00.000Z

My favourite time of year has just started. With Rememberance Sunday (and Thanksgiving, for those of you who are living in the US) over, I can start turning Casa Craft-Werk into the Christmas Grotto I like it to be.

Well, I wish I could, but there is one little problem: Mister Craft-Werk is not into Christmas. Not one little bit. A bit of a clash of cultures here. Poor, poor Irish man - he just doesn't know what he is missing. And in any case, little do I care, Queen of Christmas Crafts - except I need him to hoist my two tons of Christmas gear down from the attic. And with cooperation not forth-coming, the Queen of Crafts had to think on her feet. Christmas deco, kitchen-style, so to speak.

My wonderful friend D___ had recently visited me from back home. And she came laden with a present that will now double up as the first bit of Christmas deco in our house. She made me and my family an advent calendar. (You probably know this bit of Christmas tradition that originated in Germany. Here is the advent calendar I made for my kids a couple of years ago.) D___'s advent calendar didn't come in a specific mode of presentation but consisted of 24 individually wrapped presents. In previous years I have attached ribbons to them and hung them on a wreath. This year, I decided to simply display them on the kitchen mantlepiece. They look colourfully Christmassy there and were the easiest bit of decorating I have ever done :-)

Oooops, just noticed that a Whiskey bottle has sneaked into the picture. Ah well, all there for Santa when he comes down the chimney. As we will start opening the pressies, one a day, and there will be more space on the mantlepiece, I will replace the empty spaces with bits and stuff from the deco boxes. But for the moment, we have this to remind us that Christmas is coming - and to remind us of the friend who so thoughtfully is spoiling us with a surprise that lasts 24 days.

Best,

She Do Use Jelly

2011-10-17T09:15:00.000+01:00

In fact, jelly is the only fruit spread she likes. No pips for me, please, I want it pure and clear. And on the spur of the moment I decided yesterday to get down to it and make some raspberry jelly.

Jam making is one of the easiest tasks in the kitchen. Now, I am a self-confessed non-cook. I really do not enjoy cooking at all (I am a baking queen, however!). But this is the one thing involving pots and pans that I *do* like doing. Once you have made your own jelly for the first time, you will never go back to mass produced, shop bought jams, I promise you!

I know, it is a little bit too late for jam making. Raspberry harvest is long over. But I cheated and bought some frozen raspberries in the supermarket. They work just as well as the hand-picked ones from your own garden. So here is what you do:

Making jelly involves one more step than jam making. You need to turn your raspberries (or any other fruit) into juice in order to get a clear, pip-less jelly in the end. So put your berries (or other fruit) into a pan and boil them up until the berries become mushy and disolve.

Hygiene is imperative when jam-making. So while your berries are bubbling away to make juice, sterilize your jam jars. I steam sterilize mine with a handy little gizmo that is still around from my kids' baby days: a microwave bottle sterilizer. You simply pour a bit of water into it, put the jars into it and the lid on and pop it for 12 minutes into the microwave.

Handy and easy - but extremely hot when coming out of the microwave, so do take care.

The best way of sterilizing the lids, by the way, is simply by boiling them in a pan. 5 minutes will do the trick nicely!

While the berries are boiling and the jars are steaming up, squeeze the juice from 2 lemons or limes. The acid of the lemons will add a nice little edge to the sweetness of the jelly! (Aside: Do you like my juicer? That head is supposed to be German chancellor/head of state Angela Merkel, a woman who is known for her cheerful countenance... ehm... I couldn't resist this wonderful kitchen implement on a trip to Berlin last year where I bought it in a shop right behind the Reichstag, Merkel's place of work... )

So here are your berries, boiling away:

Sorry, couldn't resist including this photo. Aren't the colours just gorgrous? I wish I could've recorded the smell for you *mhhhhhhh*.

Now it's time to make the juice: Take the pan off the hob and pour the whole lot through a sieve into another pan in order to separate the pips from the juice. (I know that a muslin is recommended for straining the juice, but I find a fine kitchen sieve will suffice!)

In order to make jelly, you need as much jam sugar in weight as you have juice. I only had half a packet of jam sugar left.

I carefully measured 400ml of raspberry juice and added my 400g of jam sugar to that.

Now bring this to the boil, carefully stirring all the sugar in so that there are no visible lumps of it anywhere. (Note: Deliberately artsy-fartsy blurry illustration - I just loooove how the highlights are leaving burnt out trails...)

Right, now comes the only tricky part: The juice and sugar have to boil for exactly 6 minutes (at least according to my sugar factory advice). Let it bubble vigourously for whichever amount of time it says on your packet of sugar. Then test whether the jelly is ready to set by putting a few drops of the liquid onto a clean, cold saucer. Let it sit and cool for a few seconds, then push it with your finger. If it "wrinkles", your jelly is ready to take off the hob.

I put the sterile jars on a plastic try for the next step - pouring the jelly into the jars. Do this swiftly and up to the brim. You may have to top up the jar before you put the lid on. The more jelly you get into the jar, the better the chance that it won't get mouldy of the storage time!

Make sure you get your jar airtight by turning the jar upside down after filling. Leave to set until the jar is cold enough to handle. (As I said, I didn't have much jam sugar, so I didn't produce enough jelly to fill two jars :-( )

But that's it. Your jelly is basically ready for consumption right away. The whole procedure takes less than an hour. Tastes best on freshly baked, white bread. Accompanied by a cup of milky tea. And the Sunday newspapers. In bed :-)

Best,

Happy Campers

2011-09-07T16:49:00.001+01:00

I have just packed up my tent for the winter. Yes. Outdoor season has officially ended this weekend. At least the season for sleeping outdoors (every other outdoor activity you can pretty much do any time of year in Ireland - this poor deprived country only has one season all year 'round, anyway.) My end of season marker is the great big open air music festival Electric Picnic which is on ~~in the Irish sticks~~ on a country estate in the Irish countryside the first weekend of September every year. It's a weekend of music, music, music, some art and literature, and camping. (Oh, and some MAJOR drinking for most the revellers there. Yours truly would love to, but is a responsible parent, so doesn't.)

You may remember that I mentioned the festival the other day when I showed you my rock chic outfit. It has become one if my favourite garments which I wear even when not at a festival. Hey, that's because life rocks, anyway. Especially now that it has been washed a good few times and the hem is nicely frayed. So I must say, it really rocked. Here is the reminder (right):
There were plenty of faded denim skirts out there. But none in combination with cute polka dotted wellies ;-). At some point a woman approached me and said "Hey, we are wellie twins!" Ha, wellie quintuplets, more like - I saw at least three other girls with the same wellies, but I did not have the heart to tell your woman after I had already shocked her by saying we were wellie cheapskates - considering that they were bought for € 20 at an Irish chainstore.

Anyhow, you have to bear with me today, I am still in full swing - literally - after the musical delights of the festival. I have been dancing the morning away. No kidding, dusting off the old hips in my study and rocking away to Foster the People's "Call it what you want". Click the vid and get an instant boost of energy and good mood!)

Bear with me, I am recording this for posterity. Skip the red part if you couldn't be bothered with this music stuff. We watched 22 shows. I measure their success in a) how much I danced and b) how much I remember of the gig at all. So in order:

Sinead O'Connor (grande dame of Irish rock - bit lame, actually)
Foster the People (full tent and some serious rocking go on)
Santigold (nice soulfull voice, but didn't quite hold my attention)
PJ Harvey (can only remember her odd headpiece and the rain. Gig can't have been outstanding)
Interpol (rain. Some dancing. I guess I was only just getting into it)
Bitches with Wolves (prize for the worst stage outfits - all of them. music was actually not bad)
Codes (ehm, no recollection, sorry guys)
Undertones (classic punk, really well done even without Feargal Sharkey)
Jape (hands of fire got me dancing)
Lykke Li (hm, lame - must be the stage: main stage is outside, not much of a spark)
Death in Vegas (rrrrrrrrrrrocked!! Serious dancing going on. Even converted the GG)
Arcade Fire (good show - but that almost distracted from the music, so not the full marks from me)
Trentemöller (like him better when not live - the singers were not my thing... good dancing, though)
Chemical Bros (punctuality, guys! great gig, but again the outdoor thing doesn't work for me)
The Minutes (ehm???)
Oh Land (just 15 minutes of this Danish band, nice, smooth, but banal sound)
Gemma Hayes (my surprise gig - really good, some swinging along, have to check her)
James Vincent McMorrow (packed tent, we stayed outside. as good as expected, some seriously off-key background singer though)
The Japanese Popstars (yay - fantastic, would love to see these guys playing a smaller venue, dance central!!)
Big Audio Dynamite (surprisingly good - even without much previous knowledge)
The Drums (didn't really spark for me - maybe because we stayed outside the tent and I was freezing)
White Lies (my top gig of the weekend - unexpectedly. Their rendition of Death had the packed out tent dancing and jumping in unison. a seminal gig? certainly for me!)

Will she ever get to the craft bit? Yes, she will now. My point of all this preliminary talk (apart from looooooooooving to see my own writing *hahaha*) is, that there was camping involved in the weekend. And at the beginning of the summer I sewed some handy sheetbags (guys, no joking here, I have heard them all before, really! I AM familiar with Irish slang and foreign accents...). Ok, I know, camping season has just finished - unless you are in the Southern Hemisphere. Any readers in Australia? New Zealand? Well, Fiji, anyone? Ok, maybe you don't need sheetbags there, considering the climate... But here we go, this is it:

I started off with a kingsize duvet cover.

I measured it carefully and then cut it into three parts.

Well, obviously not carefully enough, because I was unfortunately left with one rather narrow strip of material that was too small even for a skinny ten-year-old.

I took one of the strips and laid it out on a flat surface. The fact that it was one of the side bits of the duvet cover meant, I only had to sew down one side of the material to create a sheet bag.

To determine the size of the pillow I used a regular pillow case as a pattern and cut along it across one half of the material strip, leaving an inch extra for hemming in.

I first hemmed what was going to be the opening of the pillow case. Then I sewed the pillow case onto the back of the sheet.

Next I sewed another hem along the blankety bit of the sheetbag.

Lastly, I made the sheetbag by sewing down along the long side, leaving a bit of a slit at the top so that you can fold it down and wriggle yourself into the sheetbag.

These instructions are not very detailed, I know, but it is all rather self-explanatory and logical once you make this. We put them to the test on our summer holiday in the South of France - and they worked beautifully. The pillows were snug in the casing of the sheetbag and the bag itself big enough to hold an average sized adult. Apparently I have no evidence that I ever finished this project - no images do exist. And the sheetbags have already been stored away with the tents. So you'll have to do without it and believe me.

Best,

Shake it, Baby

2011-08-02T17:34:00.001+01:00

My regular readers know that I am big into photography. So much so, that I have lately channelled most of my creativity into photography and been neglecting Craft-Werk. It takes a photography-related project to get me posting again. And here it comes: salt and pepper shakers for photography enthusiasts. Check this:

Now, if you were born after 1990, chances are you have no idea what this is (apart from salt and pepper shakers, obviously). Well, sit down kids, and let Auntie Sonja tell you: Long ago, in the days before everything turned digital and swish and instant, those of us who liked to photograph had to insert a spool of light-sensitive material into a recess behind the lens of a camera. It was on that material, that the light would record what the lens caught in that split-second glimpse at the world. And those two cannisters, well, that is what the light-sensitive material, also known as "film", came in.

Ok, joking aside - chances are that you have long left your film days behind you. So have I - except I have reconnected with analog photography through college and keep a whole big stash of films in my fridge. And I have a heap of those film cannisters. I cannot believe it was only today that it occurred to me to use them as salt and pepper cellars, though. And I can believe even less that I have never seen anything like this before - neither on all my favourite photo sites, craft blogs or in novelty shops. Maybe I should have this patented...

Anyhow, here's what you do: First of all make sure you clean out your film containers thoroughly. No kidding, people. We are talking silver halides here - not something you would want on your food, photography-enthusiast or not. I put mine in the dishwasher, to be sure.

Then grab a candle and a thick sewing needle. Heat the tip of the needle in the candlelight and then push holes into the plastic cannisters. Over here in Ireland, the salt cellar has one big hole and the pepper shaker has many small ones. So I had to move the hot needle in that hole a few times to get a suitably large hole.

And there you are! This has got to be the quickest and easiest craft project I have ever done. So fast, actually, that I am not sure it qualifies as crafts at all. It took me all of five minutes to make this. And yet I am chuffed-er than chuffed about this teeny-weeny little, jokey project of mine. I am sure you well~~-endowed~~ ... ooops... -equipped crafters out there probably also have a silhouette machine that would cut out some swirly, fancy P or S to stick on the little shakers. I quite like them simple and unadorned as they are.

A word of warning, though: This project will get your needles dirty! Check the image on the right: Dirty or what?

So no sharing of needles!!

This could be an easy-peasy pressie for the photo-enthusiast in your life. Anyway, get shaking, baby - let's put a bit of salt in the soup of our lives.

make animated gifs like this at MakeAGif

Best,

Rock Chic(k)

2011-07-11T10:12:00.001+01:00

Festival season is upon us! I love the summer with all its outdoor events. The highlight of my festival season is always Ireland's "Electric Picnic", a so-called "boutique music festival" that has grown to such size over the years that it is not so "boutique" anymore. This year will be the fourth time in a row that I am attending it - tent and sleeping bags in tow - revelling in music from the likes of Arcade Fire, Pulp, The Chemical Bros, Mogwai, Death in Vegas, Big Audio Dynamite and and and...

I am so much looking forward to it all, that I am already in the middle of preparing for it. Yesterday I sewed myself my "Ready to Rock-Rock" - (sorry, the pun is only funny for anyone who can speak German. "Rock" is the German word for "skirt").

Right, I admit, it's not new. It is old. It is made from an old pair of denims of mine that have been sitting at the bottom of my wardrobe for the past two years after a worn-through patch made them too embarrassing to wear. But they are just the right kind of worn, washed out denims to be worn at a festival where you might end up in a mud-bath, anyway.

So I took the scissors to my jeans and cut off the legs at knee-height. Instead of discarding the cut offs, I cut them open at the seams. Likewise, I cut the top half of the jeans open at the seams, carefully cutting out the seam nearly all the way up to the zip.

Then I placed a piece of denim from the off-cuts into the open triangle under the bit that is to become the skirt. The length will be adjusted later.

I held the pieces together with pins. And sewed the bits together with a double seam.

Here is the preliminary result before cutting the hem of the skirt properly.

And here it is all cut at the right length. I actually decided to leave it unhemmed and go for the rugged, raggy look with bits of cotton thread eventually hanging down.

If you want slightly more detailed instructions, you can also look at my tutorial for a similar skirt I sewed some time last year.

So I am now kitted out for Electric Picnic 2011. A skirt ready to be discarded on site, if ~~dirty~~ necessary. Can't wait to put my dotty wellies on!

Ready to rock!

Best,

Next (f) Stop: T-Shirt

2011-05-28T21:27:00.002+01:00

You have guessed it: I have been engrossed in my photography studies for the last while. Projects handed up, semester over, last exam sat - I am free to dabble in crafty creativity again. But I cannot quite let go of my photography obsession, so the little project I did just now is for photo nerds, again.

I recently got myself a really cool T-shirt with a Canon eos settings dial on it. It's great, but it got me thinking that you could make one myself and save the € 20,00 I paid for the dial shirt for other things. All you need is some iron on transfer paper, a printer, an iron and an idea. So I went out and bought a cheap white shirt for € 4,00 and set about designing my t-shirt.

What I came up with is probably gobbledegook for most of you but is instantly recognisable for photographers - I simply typed the standard f-stop numbers in an OpenOffice document, chose a nice font reminiscent of the fonts seen on lens dials and then gave my design a bit of colour by highlighting the three main f-stop numbers.

I bought my iron-on transfer paper a while ago when I was making T-shirts for my kids' play-café. These transfers seem a bit pricy - mine is a pack from HP, containing 12 A4 sheets. They were € 25,85 about three years ago. You can probably find cheaper ones nowadays.

The next step is to print your design onto the transfer paper. Please be cleverer than me and think before you print. You need to flip the design horizontally before you print it in order for it to be the right way round when you have ironed it on.

So what you see here in the image on the right is wrong!!!

Cut your transfer paper to size - you don't need the whole page and you might want to use the left-over bit of transfer paper for another, smaller project. I used my guillotine for that.

The top row of this illustration on the right is what you need to have on your transfer paper - the image flipped horizontally.

Anyway, once I had rectified that mistake, I was ready to wield the iron. Just follow the instructions according to the transfer paper manufacturer. I first gave my T-shirt a proper iron to make sure there were no creases on it. Then I placed the transfer paper right where I wanted it and ironed away. It took a good 5 minutes, I think. Taking the backing paper off can be tricky. For me it worked best to whack it off in one smooth motion, rather than doing it slowly. That might depend on the manufacturer, though.

Tada, here is my photo-nerd shirt:

The shirt can be worn and washed frequently - my kids wore theirs a lot and the design did not come off for a long time. Eventually the plastic-y transfer stuff might start flaking off, but hey, that is just a sign that you should really think about designing another personal favourite.

Happy designing :-)

Best,

Crea(c)tivism

2011-02-27T23:32:00.001Z

It's already a few weeks ago that I was walking home from a day out shooting. I can never pass a skip on the street without risking a quick look inside. And this time I struck lucky. Look what I found in that skip:

No, not the chair (however much bashed to pieces that is - blame the cats!). And neither the chocolate biscuits! I am talking about that cute lamp!

Well, it didn't really look so swish when I dug it out of that skip. There was a load of builders' rubble in there, plasterboard pieces and such like. And the lamp was in a slightly sorry state when I pulled it out. Initially I only wanted to take the tall lamp - the other two table lamps were just too disgusting, I thought. But then reason kicked in: I was only five minutes away from home, so why not lug all three with me. I could always throw out the other lamps if I couldn't do anything with them. All three lamps were in horrible brown-y shades. Who would want a rust coloured lamp, I ask you??? And the shades were dusty and broken.

But nothing that a little bit of spray paint couldn't fix. I was feeling creative today, so I put on my oldest jeans today, flung over an old cardigan and headed for the garage for a bit of crea(c)tivism. I dismantled the shade (which was a bit of an effort - it had been screwed to the light fitting so tight, I had to use ~~my husband~~ rough force to loosen it) and covered the cord with some masking tape. After a little rubbing down with white spirit, I gave the lamp three coats of white spray paint. Very much unlike me, I waited impatiently to let the paint dry before spraying again.

Then it was back up for some electrifying. I had to fix a plug onto the cord and find a bulb and a new shade for this little beauty. Done in 15 minutes. And now this sweet, slender thing graces my bedroom window and will light up my reading corner.

All set up with the essentials for good reading: Light, a couple of biscuits and a steaming hot cup of tea. (Pity you can't see what it says on my mug: "I'd rather be with Colin Firth" - how very fitting for this night which happens to be Oscar night - and I expect my favourite actor, aforementioned Colin, to win for his superb performance in "The King's Speech".) I bet those builders' wives are kicking their husbands now for having thrown out this lovely lamp.

Well, two more lamps to come, soon!

Best,

Skirting the Issue

2011-01-23T21:08:00.001Z

Why, hello! Let me skirt the issue today. Here is a little crafty thing I did - and which I had been meaning to do for ages. I have lately discovered skirts. For a long time I never wore any. My confirmation way back in ~~1852~~ 1984 was probably the last time I was seen in a skirt. Ah, no, actually, it wasn't - I wore an unbelievable pleated affair to the then current boyfriend's fraternity do. (Not sure what to be more disgusted about - the frumpy skirt or the absolutely inacceptable fraternity sh*t that I put up with...) Anyhow, it's taken me yeeeeears - and several kilos of shed weight - to dare don a skirt. And now I quite like them. So much so, that I took my scissors to a pair of old trousers and made the snip.

They are not the hippest thing anymore, but you'll remember these skirts that looked like they had been fashioned from a pair of trousers. Well, they were. To get the right length of skirt, I placed my favourite shop-bought skirt on top of the trousers and then cut the legs off the trousers, leaving some extra material for the hem. The cut off bits I put aside.

Then I took the scissors to the top bit of the trousers, carefully cutting open the seams in the middle, all the way along the seam, right over the crotch.

Back to the cut off legs. I cut those along the side seams, too, receiving 2 separate pieces of material per leg. Then I placed one of those pieces inside, under the front of the top trouser bit and pinned it in place. Make sure you get it all smooth and right. (It probably would have helped if I had ironed the trousers before starting this project - the pictures would have looked better, too...)

For the next step I did not take a picture - having everything pinned into place, I sewed the skirt together. To give my skirt a bit of a jeans-y kind of look, I used thread in a contrasting colour and sewed a double seam. Bingo.

So, that is it - a new skirt from an old pair of trousers. Dead easy, took about an hour in all. And I am a fluky seamstress - but no pattern needed. Now, it's obviously not the chicest of garments, but it's alright.

Best,

A closer look

2010-12-03T10:44:00.000Z

Hehe, I am getting into the teasing game. I keep including photos in the blog that have something in the background which I will come back to in a later post. So, wanna take a closer look at what I have in my frame above the kitchen mantle? Ah, go on. You know you want to. Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on...

The frame is familiar, I know. The previous years I have always displayed a few Christmas baubles, suspended from ribbon in the frame. This year, I felt, it was time for something different. And since I had picked up this branchy heart in an online sale somewhere, I just decided to make it a bit more Christmassy.

The vichy-check ribbon stayed on. I only wound some red stars and beads on silver wire around the heart.

Presto! Easy does the trick. I love the way the shadow of the glass stars shines all red onto the wall.

Best,

A little update on my kitchen mantle

2010-12-02T15:39:00.000Z

You may have noticed my kitchen mantle in my previous post. It was rather blurry in the background. So today I proudly present a clear look at what is happening on my mantlepiece. Well, it is quite similar to last year's arrangement - I love symmetry on display because it gives the illusion of order and space, something that I am usually not associated with *haha*.

Center stage takes our beautiful Peruvian nativity. We have a family connection with Peru and this is the reminder of that, coming out of storage for a a few weeks every year. This piece of folk art is at this stage 40 years old - and is still as shiny and colourful as it was when bought all those years ago. Well, apart from the design on the doors of the nativity. They have faded away over the years - this used to be on display all year 'round in front of my mother-in-law's fireplace. I love the way the nativity scene has been transferred to Peruvian country life...

Now, how do you like them apples? *hehe* They are not necessarily Christmas decorations, but their colour fits my scheme (and my politics *haha*). Never mind they were bought really cheaply from the discount tray in a small interior design shop in the North of Germany...

The hurricane lamps are a relatively recent addition. I had cracked one of my previous two hurricanes by lazily sticking it into the dishwasher - the hot water killed it instantly *RIP*. I found these as replacements - and I love the way they only let the candlelight shine through the small cracks. I've had lots of fun "drawing with light" i.e. photographing that the other day...

So, with the nights starting early (and the days getting darker, too - it is half three in the afternoon and I have to put on the lights in my study because the heavy snowfall outside darkens the sky so much...), I look forward to lighting my candles every night now during dinner...

Best,

First of Advent

2010-11-29T15:47:00.000Z

The first of advent is through. I have slowly crept into the kitchen with my decorating efforts, but in comparison to previous years this year's decoration is much tamer. The reason is really that I am so busy - and also find it hard to get over my laziness when I do have a free second. Well, it's a process of little steps. And yesterdays steps included decorating the kitchen chandelier.

I was nearly too late to get the holly - we are snowed in. Snow in Ireland is very rare. Snow in November is nearly unheard of. Luckily there is a park across the street from me, where I was able to nick a few branches.

This is the easiest deco ever - I just weave the branches around the chandelier and then hang the baubles. Nice effect. Only problem are the holly berries which tend to drop into our food when eating at the dining table underneath the chandelier ;-). Especially once the branches have been up a few day and are drying out. But hey, a few concessions need to be made for proper Christmas atmosphere...

Best,

Christmas 2010 begins

2010-11-23T00:51:00.000Z

Finally, the day is here. Let the ~~games~~ fun begin: Today is the official opening of Christmas season 2010. At least in my books. According to tradition, Christmas decorating in Germany does not begin until after the last Sunday before Advent. The first of Advent, i.e. the first of the four Sundays before Christmas Day, is next weekend. I had been aching to get my Chrimbo decorations down from the attic, but had to wait until Mr Craft-Werk was ready to face my annual Christmas marathon. Truth is - I just love Christmas. Always have, always will. Even if others think it is phoney or overly commercialised these days. For me it is still the family celebration it was in my childhood. And I insist on giving my children the same experience of the magical time up until and on Christmas - even though I live in a country now that boasts little if any great Christmas traditions. No matter. Christmas is firmly German in our household.

Nonetheless, life is about those little compromises. And if Mr Craft-Werk doesn't care much for the occasion, I will at least not subject him to it full-on. So I started off quite lightly today and so far have only decorated a bit in the drawing room. My most coveted item of Christmas decorations is up first - the nativity - and gets centre-stage on the drawing room mantle.

While I was rooting for the nativity and stockings it occurred to me that it was a real shame that I would have to go through the boxes again once I am ready to decorate the tree shortly before Christmas. But then I thought, why not organise that now - and make the best of it by keeping my collection of baubles at hand and also display them.

Out they came out of their boxes. I simply filled them in a large glass bowl.

Some of the baubles are cheap red glass balls. The purple ones I picked up really cheaply this January in the sales. And the silver ones are antique. They came to me from my grandmother (who is now 92). According to family lore, they were bought when my grandmother was born in 1918.

So there is a bit of glamour in the drawing room now, but really just a handy way of storing the baubles in an easily accessible place until I dig them out to put on the tree.

With half the drawing room under my belt, I look forward to starting on the kitchen now. How far have you come??

Best,

Busy busy busy

2010-11-08T00:52:00.000Z

Is it really a week since I last posted? Oh dear, here we go again - college taking up a lot of my time again. Does this count as a creative project? I have made a little search story, charting the last year in my Diploma in Photography course. Graduation coming up on Thursday. Time to look back - and celebrate.

Back soon - because miraculously being in college does NOT suck all my creativity into photography, but channels some into my private, crafty pursuits.

Best,

Happy Halloween, then

2010-10-31T15:28:00.002Z

Here is my token pumpkin - didn't even get 'round to carvin one, myself. This'll do - not mad for this occasion, anyway.

Off to various kiddie entertainment occasions now.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Best,

The Gumby School of Flower Arranging Strikes Again

2010-10-30T12:09:00.005+01:00

Autumn. Darker days. A lot of rain (this is Ireland, after all). Windy season. Time to switch on the heater when I sit down at the computer at 6 am. Candle light. Soups. And lovely walks in between the showers (of rain - I don't take showers more than once a day. At least in autumn.) No wonder this season is called "fall" in American English - the falling leaves are the most descriptive characteristic. I love the colours of autumn/fall. And today I found a project to combine my degree from the Gumby School of Flower Arranging with my obsession for collecting leaves and stuff from the park.

Can you guess what I made (apart from a classic Gumby-style arrangement)? Well, I'm not sure whether you can guess it, but I made those roses from leaves. Oui, oui. I got really quite excited about this project (yeah, go on, amuse yourself by imagining this middle-aged wifey prancing around excitedly in her kitchen, brandishing leaves and twiddling with twine...). I had never seen this in craftblogland before. It actually came from a contact in an internet forum who provided me with a link to a German crafts website called Bastelelfe (sorry, no link available to tutorial). Right, a project that appealed to me - autumnal, involving a walk for gathering leaves, for free. Let me show you.

I started out with a heap of leaves from my park - plus assorted autumnal plant bits and bobs which I indiscriminately had chucked into my bag when gathering leaves. A little advice: When getting the leaves, do pick them from the tree and do not gather them from the ground. They are dirty little buggers, so to speak. I'll show you evidence later.

In order to make those roses, you need some red leaves. Mine are from a Virgina Creeper that grows on our terrace of houses. They are the most vivid shade of red, sometimes even pink. So, start off with one red leaf.

Fold the leaf in half, keeping the shiny side outside.

Roll up the leaf. It doesn't have to be particularly tight.

Now place another leaf behind your rolled one, fold the leaf backwards (shiny side out) and fold the two sides loosely around the rolled leaf.

Continue to do that until you have a "rose" in the desired size. Then secure the leaves with a bit of twine like so:

I made my roses fairly small (partly because I hadn't picked enough red leaves...) and this is what they look like:

After rolling about seven of those leaf roses, I realised it had been a bad idea to pick up the leaves from the ground. Look at my fingers:

Now, you can either just arrange your leaf roses in a bouquet or you can make a wreath - that's what I did. I found a straw wreath base that gave a bit of volume to my meagre amount of materials *grins*.

Taking leaves, roses and the other stuff in little bundles, I just placed them on the base and then secured them by wrapping florist's wire around them. I used leaves to hide the unsightly wreath base. Keep overlapping the bundles over the previous one, that way the wire is invisible.

And voila - you have a lovely autumnal wreath that can grace your door or wall or might also look nice on a table with a candle in the centre. True to Gumby style, my wreath is a bit lopsided. I like it that way!!! *ahem*.

Best,

Linking to: The Weekend Wrap-Up @ It's So Very Cheri *** Get Your Craft On with Today's Creative Blog *** The Boardwalk Bragfest @ Bobbypin's Boardwalk *** Make it Yours Day @ My Backyard Eden *** Strut Your Stuff Thursday @ somewhat simple ***

Flower Power

2010-10-26T08:20:00.001+01:00

Yeah, I am aware it is autumn and not spring. But a little flower enhances the dullest of seasons and the greyest of baskets, ey? Making them is the easiest of things. Do you want a tutorial? Ha! Resistance futile! You're gonna get one, anyway...

Easy as 1 - 2 - 3: Cut out some petal shapes. They don't need to be regular - mother nature is pretty irregular, too.

Stitch together.

Use different colour felt for a centre of the flower - I used some grey scraps from yesterday's felt basket to coordinate, just simply stitching it on with red thread.

Or make it even easier by using a button as the centre.

Yep, you've guessed it - I couldn't resist and made another felt basket. This time in brown, with felt left over from my retro cushion.

I think I may make more felt baskets with flowers. They might come in handy as Christmas pressies for assorted family members.

Best,

I am a basket-case!

2010-10-26T00:30:00.013+01:00

Last year, when I started my blog, I briefly had this idea of assigning a particular crafts material to every week and only make projects that involved the chosen material. The idea didn't last very long - I think I managed to do two "MoW"s before it morphed into a "MoM" and then went AWOL. Wow. Or rather not. AnyHOW, looks like I am in a "material of the month" phase again, as during the past month or so I have posted four projects that involved felt - the gingerbread hearts, two cushions, and a flag/banner. And now I am adding another felt project to the list. You've guessed it - I felt deeply about felt...

I actually had a rough day, today, exacerbated by the fact that my Methuselah of a laptop coughed up with a couple of viruses and then decided to forestall my attempts at going online *sighs*. After a brief moment of panic - what will I do if I don't get my daily fix of FB, not to mention being unable to access my cloud-based editorial systems for work - I realised that dear old Methuselah had just given me the greatest gift of all: Time to be creative without the web. And so I gathered my stuff, set up the sewing machine in the warmest room of my house and worked away. Here is the result.

A felt basket.

I had some 2m of grey felt on hand, recently bought as a bargain for about € 6.00. It is about 4mm thick.

To start with I decided how big I wanted my basket and cut 5 square pieces of it, roughly 18x18 cm.

I put two squares on top of each other, carefully aligning the sides, and simply sewed a straight line down close to one edge.

This way I sewed four squares together, ending up by closing the "circle" and sewing square 1 and square 4 together. The hardest bit was actually sewing in the bottom of the basket - fitting 8mm felt under the needle was hard.

Voila - a felt basket in less than an hour for about 50c. For extra stability I turned the rim down.

Although grey is big on trend at the mo, the finished object looked a bit bland. So out came the left-over red felt from the cushions and I quickly whipped up a little flower to adorn the basket.

These baskets are so easy to make. They don't require any fancy patterns - squares is all you need. The felt is easy to work with as it doesn't fray. Only your sewing machine may be a bit overpowered by the thickness of the felt layers. But you could actually hand-stitch the sides together - it would probably give a nice effect, too.

What will I put into my new basket??

Best,

Linking to: Metamorphosis Monday @ Between Naps On The Porch *** Make it for Monday @ Cottage Instincts *** The DIY Showoff Project Parade *** I Made The World Cuter @ Making The World Cuter *** Boardwalk Brag-Fest @ Bobbypins Boardwalk *** Spotlight Yourself @ It's So Very Cheri *** Strut Your Stuff Thursday @ Somewhat Simple *** Show Off Your Stuff @ Fireflies & Jellybeans *** Get Your Craft On @ Life as Lori *** Transformation Thursdays @ Shabby Chic Cottage *** Thrifty Thursday @ Tales from Bloggeritaville

Halloween Mantle

2010-10-24T00:59:00.000+01:00

Hello guys - I was out of the country for a few days and then busy settling back in, so didn't get anything crafty done. But this evening I finally managed to do what I had been meaning to do for quite a while. I was sick and tired of my jugs - and have at the same time updated my kitchen mantlepiece according to season.

Right, Halloween time it is! I dug out my nice ceramic pumpkin and set it up on my kitchen mantlepiece, flanked by those autumnal red apples. And I took down the darling jugs of January (check them in all their glory here ) and replaced them with a wreath heart.

All I did was really put a nice ribbon onto the heart, tie it and add some bells.

My blackboard-painted pebble is making an appearance again, too, this time with a Halloween "boo!"

Now that the days are getting dark again, I have put lots of candles on all mantles, whether it is in the kitchen or the drawing room. I love the warm light they give. And yet, the candle light draws some fittingly eery shadows from the frame. Almost gothic...

Happy pumpkin-carving, everyone!

Best,

My Camera Fund Gets A Home

2010-10-13T15:25:00.001+01:00

Are you good at saving? Well, I am good at cheapskating, but the money that I save usually then gets spent on other ~~unnecessary~~ must-have items. But now I have this dream of upgrading my camera kit with some truly professional gear, and that doesn't come cheap :-(. Despite wanting it very, very baaaaaaaaaaaaadly, I knew I had to give myself some extra motivation to put money aside. And so I set about making myself a money box that will be nicely and proudly displayed near my workspace, reminding me day in, day out, that I am not to buy another interior design mag, the 31st white cream jug for my collection or yet another pair of shoes.

I can't resist ~~anything but temptation~~ nice tin boxes. This one was a filled with yummy orange flavour, dark chocolate from a classy chocolate company in my home town. Design-wise not that exciting, though, but too nice to throw out. (Hehe, in the reflection you can see me taking the picture...)

So instead I took a can of spray-paint to it, in my signature red. Gave it about four coats until the black background didn't show through anymore.

And then I set about decorating the tin. As this is a treasure box, it seemed only fitting to adorn the lid with gemstones and pearls. I stuck loads of little diamond-y stickers (from scrapbook supplies) on it to hide imperfections in the coat of paint. Centrepiece is a dome-shaped bead ball. (Read more about them here.)

I really love it when the insides of things are decorated, too - you know, wallpapered cupboards, paper-lined drawers etc. Such a nice suprise when you open it up... So I quickly threw a few photography-related images together, and cut them out.

So grow, camera fund, grow... still a couple of grand to go.

Best,

1 is such a lonely number

2010-10-11T00:48:00.006+01:00

I have a tendency to get obsessed. If I get interested in something, I immerse myself in it from tip to toe. Luckily my attention span is short, so it never develops into an unhealthy long obsession. This applies to crafting, too, where this week I wouldn't rest until I had made another cushion.

You can't have just one cushion on a sofa. And textured cushions are a big thing at the mo. I had in fact collected a number of ideas recently from magazines. Do you also have that habit? I cut out little snippets from my mags and then duly forget about them and design my own thing. I may still copy one of them - here are the inspirations:

And since another inlet cushion was at hand and I still had some red felt left over, I set about thinking up another cushion design. Does this come across slightly Christmas-sy? Looks like a pressie, doesn't it? Well, that is intentional, because I used some red satin ribbon for decoration. Like the Retro-Style Cushion from a few days ago, this is a really quick and easy sewing projects for beginners. Didn't take more than an hour to complete.

First of all I cut my material to size again. Then I sewed the ribbon onto the felt. I didn't even bother pinning it onto the fabric - it was much easier bunching it up as I went along. You can see in the picture on the right how I did it.

I sewed on two lengths of ribbon in a cross-shape across the fabric. Make sure you sew the ribbon no closer than 1cm to the edge.

Just for the fun of it I let the ends of the ribbon hang over the sides a bit. Hm, do they look like snake tongues?

Then it was time to make the actual cushion. Folding the material right-on-right, I pinned the two opposite open sides together. I also had to pin the snake tongues back onto the ribbon loops, just to make sure I didn't sew them into the cushion.

I sewed round three sides, leaving one side open to slide the inlet in.

Just like the retro cushion, I closed the cushion by folding in the remaining open side and then sewing across it and around the cushion edge to create a piping effect.

So there we are - another red cushion for the red sofa. Another one for cuddling up in front of the fire with.

I still have some red felt left over. Another red cushion? Or should I break the cycle and use some chocolate brown felt instead? In any case, I am hooked...

Best,

Linking to: Metamorphosis Monday @ Between Naps on the Porch Make it 4 Monday @ Cottage Instincts
Craft Link Party @ Polly Want a Crafter

Well Cushioned

2010-10-06T21:30:00.009+01:00

I am well-cushioned. Always have been, always will be. I have made my peace with that. And now I have a beautiful new cushion. No, I didn't gain another stone (6,35 kilograms for those of us who do not live in the British Empire anymore...), but I just completed a little home decor project: a bright, red retro cushion.

This is one of the easiest sewing projects ever. Just the right kind of project for ~~messy, lazy~~ impatient crafters like yours truly. Honestly, this is so mind-blowingly simple, you'll get this finished quicker than the time it takes to choose and buy a fancy cushion in the shops. Here's what I did:

I started out measuring my inlet cushion which I had picked up in the Ikea bargain corner for a mere € 1.40 (price tag still visible in shot... um).
Lazy craftress that I am, I chose some red felt as the material for my cushion. The reason: Felt does not fray, therefore you can create all those little circles without having to hem them (unless you like the frayed look and therefore deliberately choose proper fabric...)

Next I cut my red felt to size. Again making it easiest for myself, I cut it in rectangular shape so that the material could be folded in half and I would only have to sew along three sides... (Maybe I should have ironed the material, but hey... will get creases anyway...)

Then came the most time-consuming part: Cutting out the shapes that will give texture and interest to the cushion. I decided on felt circles in three sizes. I simply used three different size glasses to trace the shapes from. Liqueur glass, whiskey glass, pint glass (- please note: no alcohol was consumed during the making of this cushion...)

In total I cut out 60 circles for my cushion - and in the process permanently damaged my right index finger. It is still completely devoid of feeling... *eek*

Some of the circles I cut from brown felt, just to add some extra interest to the design and create a retro feel. Then I played around with the arrangement on the fabric.

I didn't bother to pin the circles onto the felt. Ok, my excuse was that I didn't want holes from the pins in the felt, but really, I was just a lazy ~~bum~~ seamstress. And since laziness is a recurring theme in this ~~blog~~ post, I also didn't take pictures of the sewing of the cushion. It is pretty obvious anyway: I sewed straight lines across the centre of the circles.

Then I folded the material over, right on right and sewed down the two opposite, open sides. After turning the bag-shaped cover over, I pushed the cushion inside. Then I sewed along the remaining open side to close the cushion.

That, of course, left a visible seam, so I continued to sew along the edge of the other three sides, just to give it the illusion of piping. Et voilá, that's it.

Added cost of this cushion: about € 5.00 including inlet. It has already got a new fan who likes cuddling up next to it... And I'll probably make a couple more to "dress" my couch.

Best,

Linking to:

Make your Own Business Cards

2010-10-05T09:48:00.010+01:00

My crafty enterprises are not a business but a hobby. And yet I had great fun making some business cards for me the other day.

Yep, you can have them printed very cheaply. But you can also have the fun of designing them yourself. Plenty of templates available in MS Publisher or any other desktop publishing programme. Ok, yeah, takes a bit of time to print and cut, but at least it is fully to your own specifications.

I even printed a nice design on the back of the card - not my own, of course, but a downloaded Chiyogami design from Canon Creative Park.

Happy designing, everyone!

Best,

A First Commission

2010-10-04T09:46:00.000+01:00

Over the weekend I worked on a project - my first commissioned piece. The friend who is selling pretzels on the market here in Dublin and for whom I produced loads of gingerbread heart pins (see the how to here and more pics here) challenged me with a request for a sign/flag for her stall. Now, I am not the most gifted seamstress ever. I am good at straight lines; appliquéing usually ends in desaster. But I was willing to give it a go. And I was surprised by the relative presentable-ness of the outcome.

I started out with an old promotional flag that is based around the colours of the Bavarian flag. I cut off one third off the bottom, dissembled the dowel from the top and sewed a new insert for the dowel at the top of my offcut.

Next I free-handed a pretzel on some newspaper to create a template and cut it out.

Then I put my template on some brown felt and traced around it with chalk to transfer it to the fabric. (Mental note: Should really invest in some taylor's chalk - I had to fall back on my left-over chalk sticks from my days as a teacher... Yes - that was aeons ago, quite clearly in the days before interactive whiteboards, when teachers still used such archaic means of communications as blackboards and chalk *LOL*)

Here is the pretzel on felt:

Before I sewed the pretzel cut-out onto the flag, I used some left-over fluffy paint to create the little salt crystals that adorn pretzels.This demanded letting the paint dry for about six hours, during which I attended a pub quiz, met with friends and drank a couple of G&Ts (sorry, illustration for latter had to be censored...)

Next morning, after fluffing the paint in the oven, came the difficult bit: Sewing the pretzel onto the flag. I am notoriously lazy - and since I didn't want to go upstairs to get more pins, I messed up my first attempt at fixing the pretzel onto the fabric. What's the proverb: "A stitch in time saves nine"? Yeah, very true! After sewing around half the pretzel, the fabric underneath was all wrinkly and scrunched because I had not used enough pins to fix the felt onto the flag and it had moved all over the place. So I had to re-do it and pin it on properly...

I found it worked best to start sewing around the inside bits first and then finally going around the outside of the pretzel shape. The machine didn't even mind sewing over the paint blobs.

Finally, I reassembled the dowel, fixed the string, and ready. So here is the pretzel flag which will now hopefully grace the pretzel stall at the Oktoberfest:

I am quite happy with that for a start.

Best,

100 is such a lovely number!

2010-09-30T10:05:00.001+01:00

Why, hello! What do I suddenly notice? I have gained two subscribers in the last day and now have 100 followers!!! Wow - that is a milestone for me. So let me take the opportunity and say hello to all the recent new followers who signed up for this blog - while I was absent and living it up... Sorry that I haven't said hi to all of you. I usually make an effort and visit my new followers' blogs to thank them for joining - and to check whether there are any new blogs out there that I need to add to my own blogroll. However, over the summer, when I was relaxing after a stressful end of term, I let it all rest. So be welcomed to my blog, all of you. Keep the comments coming - they motivate me to go on and they make my day.

As regards the future: I have just started my second year in my photography BA. Experience tells me that things will get hectic before Christmas. Well, I better get some projects in before that, then, because I intend to keep the blog up and running and not slip back into oblivion.

Hope to hear from you all.

Only 3 Months to Chrimbo...

2010-09-29T10:03:00.002+01:00

Ok, Christmas sweeties are already in the shops here. I know, nothing new, happens everywhere. And yet every year I am surprised when I bump into gingerbread stars, Christmas puddings and chocolate Santa Clauses at the end of September. Frankly, I think it is sick!

However, today I am appealing to you to do some of your Christmas shopping early. My excuse is that I want to highlight an extremely good cause. I have just come across the etsy Europe for Charity store.

There is a large variety of beautiful, hand-crafted, totally individual items for sale in this shop, that the talented crafters have donated for charity. All the proceeds from the sales go to the flood victims in Pakistan.

Just at first glance I saw some must-have items for sale there, for instance the beautiful porcelain button by Annemiek from TwoTreesBelgium (whom I incidentally happen to know personoally and who is making the most amazing, delicate, yet cute porcelain pieces. She also keeps a blog where you can learn more about how she creates her pieces of art: Two Trees.) Or these lovely spherical earrings which would cheer up my day every time I put them on. Or the most stylish sewing kit EVER. Seriously, you can get your Christmas shopping done in a matter of seconds AND you are supporting a fantastic cause.

Also: There is another way of doing good. Chances are that you, dear readers, are gifted crafters, too. Have you thought about donating a piece of your work to the charity initiatives on etsy? It had passed me by that this was happening now, but a few months ago I took part in the Craft Hope for Haiti charity sale and within hours my flower corsage was sold.

Maybe I'll find something hand-made which I can contribute to the sale. Otherwise: Go buy and help!

Oh, and if any of you readers decide to put something up for sale in the Charity shops - please let me know. I would love to highlight the cause, the shop and of course you and your blog!

Best,

Industrious

2010-09-28T12:21:00.004+01:00

While I am practicing a bit of absenteeism from my blog, I have nonetheless been quite industrious. Making those gingerbread hearts has become a bit of an obsession, and over the last week I have made about 50 of them.

To see how they are made, click HERE. The more you make, the better you get at writing with that awkward bottle of puffy paint.

And finally I have also got my hands on a real gingerbread heart. I received a parcel today from my colleagues who are based in Munich, home of the Oktoberfest. As I am missing the ~~mess~~ fun that is the beerfest, they put a gingerbread heart and some yummy chocolates in a box to lighten up my beerfest-free autumn in Ireland. So you can see, my little brooches are a fair enough-copy of the real thing. (Disregard what it says on the heart - this one is actually an advertising gimmick, handed out by a company. It says "Dialogue connects" - *umm*, well...)

I will hopefully sell some of these through a friend who has a stall on the Dublin Oktoberfest. As my gingerbread hearts are quite large, I made a few small ones as well - too small to write a witty slogan on it, but big enough for a cute flower. Sorry, bad picture quality - here I am sporting one of my hearts.

As a post-scriptum I have taken a picture of the back of the brooches - I simply hot-glued the needles onto the felt and they are attached firmly.

Anyway - I had a couple of comments on my brooch yesterday and continue wearing it. If nothing sells, my daughter and her friends will be very happy :-).

I leave you with the thought of the day:

Best,

Linking to "Get your Craft on" at TODAY'S CREATIVE BLOG and...

It's Oktoberfest-Time

2010-09-23T11:53:00.000+01:00

I know, it is still September, but right now the well-known annual beerfest in Munich is on again. In German it is called "Oktoberfest" - despite always happening in the month of September. Very unlike the usually pedantically correct Germans to misnome their festivals... (There is an explanation for that, of course - the first Oktoberfest occurred on the 12th October 1810 on the occasion of the wedding of King Ludwig I. of Bavaria to his wife Theresia. It became an annual event - which was eventually moved into September because the weather is nicer then. If you want more info on it, check this site: Oktoberfest.de/)

Anyhow, no German fun fair without the traditional gingerbread hearts. They come in all sizes - depending on how much you love the person you intend to buy it for. And they usually have corny slogans written on them, such as "Darling" or "Kiss me" or "Beer God". You can eat them, too, but they are mass-produced, cheap gingerbread decorated with sickly sweet icing - I usually ~~let them collect dust for a while~~ put them on display, and then discreetly dispose of them uneaten.

They are kind of sweet, though, and to make them last longer, here is a little crafty idea: With a little bit of felt and some puff paint, you can make them yourself. Nice decoration - and no calories *grins*. I started out by creating a heart template in Word. You can download it here in Scribd, if you want it.
Hearts Template

Having printed my template on a piece of card and then cut it out, I traced around it on my background material. The material is 3mm thick felt - nice and sturdy, just the right colour for gingerbread. I used a golden gel pen to trace onto the felt - it came out very faint, which makes it hard to cut around it later. White pencil works better, I found out later. You need a good, sturdy pair of scissors to cut through the thick material! (My index finger still feels numb after cutting out 20 hearts last night... *ouch*)

Now for the fun bit. I had ordered some puffy paint for this project. This is the first time I have used the paint - and it is not quite as easy as eating a gingerbread heart. Ok, the paints come in a nozzled bottle with which you directly paint or write on the surface. But the difficulty is that you have to squeeze the bottle while writing - resulting in rather squiggly lines. Ah well, first try.

Once you are happy with your design, you let the paint dry for at least six hours. After that you puff up the paint by placing the hearts in the oven at 150°C. The instructions say that the paint only needs 10 to 60 seconds to puff up, however, I found with my gas-oven, that it needed much longer than that. But well, that could be my temperamental oven... You can also use a hairdryer and fluff the paint with that.

I didn't take any pictures of the last step - hot glue a brooch needle onto the back of the heart, and off you go, celebrating Oktoberfest.

I'll be making many more of these in the next few days as I have been asked to supply some crafts for a stall at the local Oktoberfest. Hopefully I will master the art of squeezing the bottle and create a few sleeker hearts.

Best,

Spooky Silhouettes

2010-09-16T17:56:00.008+01:00

Mid-September and I see many blogs already busy with Halloween decorating. *umph* not really my type of thing, I have to admit, even though the whole Halloween thing-a-ma-jig originates in my host country, Ireland. But well, my latest project happens to fit the season pretty well...

If you are a regular reader, you know by now that I am quite ~~concerned~~ obsessed with recycling. That is partly due to the fact that I once had a summer job working on a rubbish dump. (Don't ask!) The amount of trash that goes into landfill is just mindblowing! I won't bore you with statistics, but I can see from our household alone that 21st century human beings generate more rubbish than ever. While we recycle as much rubbish as possible, it still bugs me that there is so much plastic material being thrown away. Hence my interest in reusing packaging materials.

With one two-litre-bottle of milk every day, I had built up quite a stash of plastic to work with. I had great plans for a project - which unfortunately didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. I had to find a way of using the cut up pieces of plastic - and this is what I came up with: a simple spooky silhouette to stick into your flower pots.

Here's what I did: First of all I cut my milk bottle to get a flat piece of plastic.

Catering for the Halloween theme, I decided on a spooky tree shape. A tree is pretty easy to cut, so I basically free-handed it. But you could always print out a tree shape from cliparts, transfer it to the plastic and then cut it out.

Note that I cut a zigzag at the bottom of the tree - that's for easier sticking the silhouette into the flower pot.

I actually quite like the silhouettes white and without further decoration. I have a beautiful shop-bought one of a little fawn that creates a beautiful shadow on the chimneybreast when the sunlight catches it on my kitchen mantlepiece. The silhouette itself pretty much blends into the white background, but the shadow it creates against the wall is really surprising and lovely.

But to make it a bit more fun and stand out a bit more for illustration purposes, I cut out an owl from black paper and stuck him onto the tree.

I also tried my hand at a ghost. Whoa, this looks like a curvy bombshell of a she-ghost *lol*. Dancing lambada or something... Ola!!! Again, I cut her free-hand and then used a punch to make her eyes.

Sorry, there was no bright sunlight in my kitchen this afternoon, so the silhouette and shadow do not stand out as much as they should. I guess you could always give the silhouettes a coat of black spray paint to make it fit the dark and spooky Halloween theme. But anyway, there you are - using rubbish to ~~prettify~~ scarify your home.

I am positively fawning over the silhouettes...

Best,

Linking to:

Housekeeping

2010-09-14T08:41:00.000+01:00

While making over my blog the other day, somehow the new template I used ignored my previous geeky additions. And so I discovered with dismay, that my pride and joy- the favicon - had vanished. Oh no! So I had to do a bit of housekeeping and re-launch my little badge of geekiness. Took me a little bit of time and effort to restore the scissors into the code, but I managed - not least with the help of my own post on the topic *haha*. Click HERE if you want to learn how to distinguish your blog with a favicon.

And while I am at it, there is another little housekeeping item. I am happy to announce that my modest little project on lavender wardrobe fresheners was featured on Stephanie's Under the Table and Dreaming blog. *yay* Another button for my list on the left proudly displayed.

If you haven't yet discovered Under the Table and Dreaming, then take the opportunity and check the blog now. Stephanie hosts a blog linking party every Sunday - a treasure trove of cute and original ideas.

Ok, off now to think up some new ideas...

Best,

Getting into Autumnal Mood

2010-09-12T17:06:00.000+01:00

I really don't want to let go of summer. But slowly autumn is creeping in... The days are so much shorter already. When I get up at 6 am, it is dark outside. And by 8 pm it is night again. Although we have had some sunshine recently, temperatures have dropped to 15 to 18°C. And the virginia creeper on the terrace of houses next to us has already turned dark red. So it is time to face the facts - autumn is upon us.

Today I picked the last flowers from the garden. And they seemed to have put their last bit of energy into their blooms. The mombretias were bigger than ever.

I cut a few of them and teamed them with those lovely Japanese daisies.

(A little exercise with shallow dof - can't resist photo experiments, sorry...).

So the drawing room is getting autumnified.

Have a nice Sunday!

Best,

That was then, but this is NOW!

2010-09-11T08:00:00.005+01:00

Not only did I ignore my blog for a few months, it also passed me by that I had my one-year blogoversary in June!!! I started this platform for ~~showing off~~ sharing craft and recycling ideas on the 15th of June 2009, not realising that I would get sucked into a whole new world that I had no idea it existed. My first post was a modest little button number (Click HERE to go back down memory lane with me...) Sweet. While I only posted intermittently at the beginning, quickly my ambition got piqued and I began to post on a regular basis.

Ok, so I missed the blogoversary. Nonetheless today I spontaneously felt that it was time for a blog make-over. Somehow the black background of the old Craft-Werk might have played a part in not attracting me back to my blog. So out with the old and in with the new!

This was then:

But this is now!

Ahhhhhhhhhh, feeling a revived interest already. I hope you like the fresher, friendlier, lighter look of Craft-Werk and will get used to it. By the way - the header image is a close-up of one of my earlier creations. Decorative, practical - yet total superfluous *hahaha*. Check my little pins from July 2009...

While I was at it, I also updated the "featured" buttons to their current versions. Looks like other blog owners are much better at re-designing and refreshening their looks. I will have to scan blogland and see what else is now the tech-wise must-have.

Crafty Greetings and Best,

Freshen up your Wardrobe

2010-09-10T11:24:00.003+01:00

If I haven't been very crafty recently, then at least my daughter - the princess of crafts ;-) - has kept up the spirit. She recently came home with a little pressie for me that was incredibly simple, but decorative - and practical. She had picked some fresh lavender and then turned them into wardrobe fresheners. I wish I could somehow transmit the lovely scent the lavender passes on... Ahhhh, the last scent of summer... If it isn't too late for fresh lavender, you might want to try this, too.

I haven't got a proper how-to for this project, but it is pretty self-explanatory when you look at the pictures. All you need is a handful of lavender (with stalks) and some ribbon.

Make sure you pick long stalks. Bunch them up in your hand, arranging them in such a way that you get about 14 cm/6 inches of lavender buds at the top. Then simply bend the stalks back underneath the lowest of your lavender buds. The stalks should form a little "cage" around the buds.

Take some thin ribbon again about 14 cm/ 6" in length, and tie it with a simple knot on the break point of one of the lavender stalks. Now weave the ribbon in and out of the stalk "cage", spiralling up to the ends of the stalks. Tie them at the top. Fasten a nice little bow and a piece of ribbon, from which to hang you lavender bunch, to the top. Presto.

I think this is really cute and it certainly freshens up my wardrobe. If I had more of them, I would display a whole bunch of them somewhere. They would look nice in a rustic kitchen, or even bunched together in an apothecary jar...

Best,

Linking to:

Chunky Necklace - Recycled from Unloved Bracelets

2010-09-08T16:56:00.002+01:00

Ok, I suppose I won't get away with a post that ignores the fact that Craft-Werk had been languishing for nearly four month's??? Well, I'll keep it short - (I may not have any readers anymore who interested in my ramblings, anyway.) What happened was that I had to sit my finals for my Diploma in Photography in May. I passed (with distinction, she brags) and I partied. I took a break from crafting to just enjoy life for a bit without the pressure of being creative. Then I went on holiday to Germany and Poland. And the longer I put off writing a new entry for the blog, the more difficult it became to find an excuse for my long absence - in turn putting me off to get back into blogging. On top of that the irrational pressure that I had to come back to blogging with a "bang", i.e. a total stunner of a project. Rubbish, all of it - instead I decided to follow the marketing-effective advice of a well-known sports equipment manufacturer, and just did it. So without further ado, back into the flow...

I love costume jewellery, particularly bracelets. Recently I discovered that I hardly wear my bracelets anymore, though, because they annoy me when I am typing at my laptop. I don't want to give them away, however, and so I had to think of a way of reusing them. Currently you see a lot of layered necklaces in the shops - and they were my inspiration for this:

This is one of the easiest re-using projects I have ever done. Here is my material:

1 chunky, long silver necklace

4 bracelets of little monetary but huge sentimental value, i.e. the dangling, antique Silver coins, collected by my father-in-law in Peru for his wife and then attached to a chain; an enamelled bracelet bought in the 1940s in Norway by my grandfather for my granny; a sweet little silver heart (which came from a kids magazine) and a shiny metal bracelet from China.

No tools necessary as I all I did was put the hoops of the bracelets through the clasp of the necklace - and attach the clasps of the bracelets to the hoop of the necklace.

A bit fiddly, I admit, but done in all but 5 minutes!

Chunky and folksy jewellery is still in fashion, I believe - so here is my updated, recycled look:

Right - that's it for now. Hope you'll like it!

Best,

Posted to:

Finally - I am back!!!

2010-05-19T17:00:00.000+01:00

Hello. Do you remember me? For the past two months I have been more of a photographer than a crafter. But - alas - all assignments have been handed in, the exams have been sat, my semester is over, and a laaaaaaaaaarge gap has opened in my life, only to be filled with crafting... Yes, it's time again...

Like my kitchen clock? Hehe, like it or not, I am easing myself back into craft mode by showing you this as one of the last projects I completed before I went AWOL: My Spot (the Difference) Clock. It was featured a good while ago on Cassity's blog Remodelaholic, but I am taking the opportunity to post instructions for this neat little ~~rip-off~~ copy here on Craft-Werk, too.

It all started with a simple wall clock that I was given by a friend who used to work in a healthfood shop. The clock was a promotional item that the shop had been given. It was rather non-descript – and marred by the company logos on the clock face. My first solution was just to paint black marker over the logos and keep the clock otherwise unchanged. It graced my kitchen wall for a year or two.

And then I came across the Damien Hirst Spot Clock in my favourite interior design magazine, Living etc. Can you believe that they charge 285 English Pounds/460 Dollars for this beautiful but simple design? (Please click on link for image - I do not include images from external, commercial sources for copyright reasons... photographer's oath)

Hang on, I can create that for less! My kitchen clock has the same simple surround – and is cheap enough to be tampered with. So out came the spray paint and the circle punch.

And this is how I did it:

Dissemble the clock, take out the glass and the clock face.

Protect the clock hands with straws – unless you can dissemble the clockwork.

Spray the clock frame and the clock face with white gloss.

Print out 12 colours of your choice on a piece of paper and punch out circles with a circle punch. Stick them evenly on the clock face with spray adhesive. Make sure you mark the top of the clock where the hanger sits.

Re-assemble all components and hang your new Damien Hirst Spot Clock rip-off. (Oh dear, what a big crack on the wall... guess I have to do some painting, soon...)

So that's it. Quick, cheap and easy.

Right - hope to be back with more, soon! Thanks for waiting, reading and encouraging me!

Best,

Apologies - I am taking a break from Craft-Werk

2010-05-09T12:53:00.000+01:00

Dear readers,

today I received a message via the blog, and that reminded me that I do actually have readers who might be coming back every once in a while to check what is going on on Craft-Werk (hello Rayan!!!). As you know, not much has been going on here lately. I feel, I owe you at least a little apology and explanation why... I have not become bored with crafting - I never would - but I am currently in the last phase of my studies for a Diploma in Photography. Hence I have been channeling my creative energies in my projects and assignments lately. There are two exams to get through in the coming week - and after that I shall be free again ;-).

I do hope I will be back with lots of ideas and projects and stuff, soon. I miss it, as I do reading all those great blogs out there which used to be my daily indulgence.

I have a couple of projects already up my sleeve, and there are also two other bloggers I want to introduce to you at some stage. And with my one-year-blogoversary coming up soon, that also demands celebration, a give-away and a general blog-makeover.

So please bear with me, esteemed readers. Blogging would not be half as fun without you.

Back soon!

Best,

Contributing Today over at Remodelaholic

2010-04-07T23:11:00.000+01:00

Geeeeez, I am so busy these days, I nearly missed the fact that I contributed today to Cassity's fantastic blog Remodelaholic.

She has come up with the idea of getting regular contributions to her crafty, beautiful and original blog. Not that she needs it really - I am totally amazed by the incredible remodels Cassity has shown so far on Remodelaholic. Truly professional. And what is even nicer is that she always shares tutorials how she made the projects she publishes. Honestly - Remodelaholic is definitely a site worth visiting. And it makes it even sweeter for me to have the opportunity to show one of my little projects among all the amazing ideas over there. Is your ~~mouth watering~~ craft-hand itching? Here is another little teaser - this is what I made:

Want to find out how I came up with this lovely little spot clock? Head on over to Remodelaholic where a step-by-step how-to is posted, complete with photos and a little bit of background. And if you are crafty - Cassity is looking for a few more regular contributors to her blog. Check out her site - it's worth it!!!

Best,

Plastic Milkbottle Recycling

2010-03-30T21:00:00.005+01:00

Yoohooooo, I am back. Even if only for a little break between another set of visitors. I was sad to see my last visitors go home, but I used the time to do a little crafts project. This had been sitting at the back of my mind for quite a while, and I am kinda happy with the outcome. - How many bottles of milk do you go through with your family? We drink about 2 litres per day - I find that quite a lot, actually... The milk comes in these translucent 2 litre-plastic bottles in Ireland. So go through seven of them per week. Of course we put them into the recycling waste, but I would much rather make something from them... And I finally came up with a nifty little idea.

Can you see properly what I made? Yes, it is a plastic basket with little handles. But the cool thing is that the handle is big enough to put a plug through and attach it that way against the socket. So this is really a little mobile phone charging station. And here is how I made it:

Take a plastic milk bottle - or other plastic container that is reasonable easy to cut with scissors. A bottle with a rectangular-shape bottom is easiest to use for this project.

First cut the bottle in half. Make sure you have enough of the bottle left, though, to cut out little handles.

Next determine the size of your plug. The Irish plugs are really strange - hehe, I think so, having grown up with different types of plugs in Germany. They have three bits sticking out, arranged in a sort of triangular shape. Mark the shape of your handles on the plastic, either making a template or freehanding it.

Now cut out the handles and the rim of the basket. Our bottles are fairly thin plastic, so it was very easy to do that with ordinary kitchen scissors.

Bingo - that's it. You can now push the plug of your mobile phonecharger from the inside of the basket through the handle and plug it into the socket. The handle will keep the basket hanging securely against the wall/socket. Plastic is non-electroconductive, so it is safe to attach it that way. Place your mobile in the charging station, plugged into the charger.

I glammed up my simple charging station with a length of colourful plastic ribbon which I stuck around the rim with glue dots. A matching pink bow and a little heart complete the cute look. The whole thing cost nothing and was done in a few minutes. How much better can it get???

And while I was at it I made another one, trying out the wavy scissors. I just cut the bottle in half and then tied a little ribbon around it. With some Easter grass it is a cute little nest, home to a Lindt chocolate bunny which I am saving for when Lent is over and I am eating chocolate again. Can't wait...

Where do you keep your mobile phone? Have trouble finding it in the morning? Well, no more hunting for your mobile. Even when not charging it, this is a handy place to keep your phone! Make one for each member of the family, personalize the charging station with embellishments, initials, ribbons... Can you think of other uses for a milkbottle basket?

Best,

Linking to:

The Star on Saturday #3

2010-03-27T14:40:00.000Z

Hello... I'll give it another try and see whether my link widget works this time.

As I did not craft anything this week, I can't link my own favourite post of the week. But what about you? Anything that stood out this week? I'd love it if you had something to share with all the other insatiable crafters out there...

Please link up below. And remember the rules:

The project has to be yours. (But it doesn't matter whether it was posted on your blog or you posted it as a guest post somewhere else.)
Only one link per week.
You need to link back to the party via link or button.
Anything vaguely crafty goes: Projects, re-dos, before and afters, recipes, how tos, also blogging tips.
By taking part you agree to Craft-Werk using an image from your post to include in the "Feature" post on Sunday.

Best,

Apologies...

2010-03-26T18:56:00.001Z

Another "oooops" from me - I am totally snowed under with college work and visitors at the mo. No time for crafting or for writing :-(. I hope I will have a little more time soon. In the meantime, I am resuscitating an old project that I posted in the early days of my blog. In fact, it was this project that initially made me think I should really start a blog and share my ideas with interested crafters. However, I didn't really have much of an audience back then, so I hope that some of you have not seen this project of mine before...

This is my designer lampshade. It has just been featured by The Frugal Designer Rayan on her fantastic website which contains a huge resource library for crafty projects, remodels, decorations, ideas and inspiration. Please pop over to her site and check it out for yourself. Submit your own projects and help build the library if you like.

The lampshade is really easy to make - you only need some cardstock and staples to make it. It is assembled from 12 pieces which look like this:

I describe how to make these here. Don't get thrown off by the fact that they are meant to make a Christmas star *hehe*. The lampshades look really nice in my sitting room. See for yourself:

(I can't tell you how much it bugs me that the lamp on the left was not sitting straight when I took the photo *ugh*.) Please check my original post.

Right, back to work and visitors... I hope I'll be able to schedule the blog linking party for tomorrow. AND that it works properly, this time...

Best,

Oooops...

2010-03-22T12:32:00.000Z

Hello everyone, something went wrong with the link party on Saturday. Apparently the widget didn't quite work. :-( And worse - I didn't notice it because I was busy all weekend, photographing and looking after guests.

Big apology to everyone who tried to link up. I hope I get this thing working next week! Off to visit all comments and new followers now. But do stay and have a scone, please - they are freshly baked ;-)

Best,

Second Star on Saturday

2010-03-19T21:22:00.002Z

Did you write and craft much this last week? Well, I got two little projects done - and wish I could have done more. But alas - life doesn't always let me do what I want to do. I am pretty busy with my college course at the mo, and then there is also family duties and a string of visitors who are staying with us.

A big thank you, by the way, to all the nice people who took the time to leave a comment on one of my posts. I do try and return the visit, but it's entirely possible that I sometimes miss someone. Ooops. Not intentional! I know how GREAT it is to receive feedback. ANY kind of feedback - even just a one-word-post like "cool" can make my day.

How about making somebody else's day next? Do you have a favourite project that you posted on your blog this last week? I'd love to see it. Please do post it here on "The Star on Saturday" linking party. And then visit the other participants' sites and leave a comment for them.

The rules:

The project has to be yours. (But it doesn't matter whether it was posted on your blog or you posted it as a guest post somewhere else.)
Only one link per week.
You need to link back to the party via link or button.
Anything vaguely crafty goes: Projects, re-dos, before and afters, recipes, how tos, also blogging tips.

If I were to add a link, it would be my Easter Eggorations... they were my favourite post this week, because it was such an easy craft and yet turned out really nice.

What is your favourite post of the week? Please link up!!!

Best,

Mod Podged Pendant

2010-03-17T09:16:00.002Z

Ever since I started in blogland a few months ago, I kept hearing the magic words "modge podge" everywhere. Decoupage is probably a little bit too fiddly for an impatient crafter like me, but I was amazed by the versatility of Mod Podge (yes, I know how it is spelled correctly ;-)). Alas, it is an American product and I had never seen it anywhere in Europe. So no mod podging for Craft-Werk, it seemed :-(. But imagine my surprise when I came across a bottle of the magic stuff a few weeks ago in a Dublin craft store. I had to buy it - the funky psychedelic logo and colours drew me in, too... So it had been sitting around in my craft supplies for a while - and yesterday I finally found a way of trying it out.

I mod podged a rather non-descript pendant into something colourful and cute. The pendant came with a neck hoop I had bought a while ago. I didn't like the metal teardrop - I just wanted the hoop to put my bead balls on it. At the same time, I hate waste, and so the teardrop pendant had to be used. Here we go:

For a change I had some genuine origami paper in my stash which was both red and cute.

I traced around the pendant.

Then I cut out the outline with my craft scissors. A smaller scissors would have done a better job, but I was impatient...

I applied a coat of Mod Podge to the pendant and placed the outline on it.

After letting it dry for 15 minutes I covered it with a top coat to seal.

Tada! That was it. I let it dry for a good while. To give it a bit more interest, I added a bead and this cute little silver heart to the neck hoop.

Oh, I much like the outcome - a bit of spring feeling with the little flowers. Much needed, I can tell you! Can't wait to wear this with my favourite red outfit. And the mod podging was easy-peasy - I loved it. I wonder what I can mod podge next...

Best,

Linking to

Easy Easter Eggorations

2010-03-15T07:49:00.016Z

Ooops, decorations I mean... I am already preoccupied with eggs, as you can see. I like to have a little seasonal mantlepiece arrangement in my sitting room. In Germany - as in most places - we would hang painted eggs on branches which are placed in a vase. I actually have a collection of beautiful Czech hand-painted Easter eggs which I have amassed over the years. But they are predominantly red and white - and therefore will get pride of place in my red-and-white kitchen. So something else had to be found for the sitting room mantle. As this our first Easter with the new sitting room I hadn't yet got any extra deco and was wrecking my brain what to use there. And then my daughter came home from school with a beautiful paper decoration that she had made there. Bingo - easy to copy and yet looking really intricate and lovely.

These are very simply made, just by cutting out the egg shape, cutting slits into it, and then folding over the resulting triangles. You don't even have to be particularly exact with the cutting and folding - it will always turn out nice. That's why this is actually a craft you could involve your kids in. Depending on their age you could do the cutting for them. The little ones could actually colour the paper for you and you would cut and fold. My daughter coloured, cut and folded a stack of them herself and we put a vase with twigs into her room, too. Everyone happy ;-).

But here is a little step-by-step tute. As I didn't have doublesided scrapbook paper at hand, I quickly printed out some nice designs from Canon Creative Park.

Then I quickly made a template with two sizes of egg shapes in MS Word. I printed the template on top of the scrapbook paper. (I'll put the template at the end of the tute for you to download.) The lines are very thin so they don't stand out too much and distract from the finished design.

First of all I cut out all the egg shapes from the paper.

Fold one shape in half length-wise along the line.

Cut along the short lines, creating lots of little slits in the paper. Make the cuts as long as suggested in the template.

You end up with a sort of leaf-design when you open the shape up again.

Now comes the folding. Start off with the smallest slit which is making a triangular shape. Fold it up to the top.

Leave the next slit untouched and instead fold up the one after that. Then push it under the bit of paper you left untouched.

Again leave the next bit of paper untouched and fold up the one after and push it under. Continue to the end and you come up with this:

If you turn it over, it looks like this:

Finished! All that's left to do, is attach a bit of string to hang the decoration from. I also pushed a couple of beads in complimentary colours onto the string to give the decorations a tiny bit more weight.

And now hang on your branches.

You can play around with the folding and sliding under and make different patterns. No two of the decorations are the same. They look intricately woven and yet are just very simple affairs.

Right, here is the template for you to download. I hope it works for you - otherwise just use it as a base from which you create your own template.

Paper Easter Eggs

Happy Easter everyone!!

Best,

PS: This project was...

Linking to

Highlights of the First Star on Saturday

2010-03-14T17:54:00.002Z

My very own little linking party "The Star on Saturday" took place for the first time yesterday. Many thanks to those select few who took part!!! I hope we can grow this together to a bigger event. Nonetheless it was great fun for me to see who would link up.

As announced, part of the linking party is a little highlights-post the following day. It falls to me to pick a few projects that I subjectively present as the highlights today. The decision what to display was very difficult, because I loved all projects. I seriously did! So here goes...

As a confirmed bookworm, I completely adore Patrice's Book Art. Seriously, isn't this the most ingenious idea?

Check the how-to at Lemon Tree Creations.

Next I loved the seriously glamourous headboard that Jan created. Isn't this the most professional finish?

Jan wrote a step-by-step tutorial on how to glam up your bed on Bobbypins Boardwalk.

What about glamming up yourself for spring? Jerri has just the right thing for you - pretty, pastelly spring earrings.

There are more to see on her blog Simply Sweet Home.

Right - those are today's picks. I hope next week will see lots more nice projects that are stars in their own right... For now I can say that all projects certainly get 5 stars from me...

Thanks for taking part, guys!!!

Best,

The Star on Saturday

2010-03-13T12:09:00.001Z

I love linking parties. My God, how many nice, inspiring, interesting, unbelievable ideas have I discovered through linking parties... I had no idea these things existed when I started blogging last June. And I remember totally not copping the concept when I joined my first link party at DIY Show Off. I just left my link - but didn't realize I had to leave a link to the party in my own post... Actually, I think that happened several times, so Roeshel (who is the woman behind DIY Show Off) must have had to remove my links more than once. Apologies... ;-)

Can there ever be too many linking parties? Noooo - and that is why I have decided to give it a go and start one myself. You see, I have noticed that most linking parties seem to happen during the week. That's all very well, of course. But I would love to see more stuff happening on a Saturday cos that's when I get a bit of time to play with my blog...

I like it when blog parties have a particular slant - whether it is a theme like Michelle's from Someday Crafts recently started Categorically Crafting. Michelle sets a theme for the week and the linked projects have to reflect that. Or even once-off events like Beth's at The Stories from A to Z. She is hosting a "Show me your shoes Party" soon. Ok, that's not necessarily crafty, but you get the drift.

Sooooooooooooooo, to come to the point: I am starting a "Best Post of the Week"-Party. The reason behind it: I have noticed there are a lot of crafty people out there who post more than just one ingenious project per week. I try to be one of them (but have lately been sucked into my college work again...). However, there is usually one post in any one week which I particularly loved or am especially proud of. And my new link party The Star on Saturday is meant to be a platform for those star projects that you want to highlight especially. In my case, for instance, this week I particularly liked my silhouette mugs. If you only wrote one post the previous week - doesn't matter, it is automatically your star post and you can link up!

The rules are:

The project has to be yours. (But it doesn't matter whether it was posted on your blog or you posted it as a guest post somewhere else.)
Only one link per week.
You need to link back to the party via link or button.
Anything vaguely crafty goes: Projects, re-dos, before and afters, recipes, how tos, also blogging tips.

I know this is an experiment - I need to get the word out that there is a new party on the ~~block~~ blog. It would be great if this took off. The plan is to have the party open for links on Saturday and then I pick some highlights for Sunday.

So, let's just give it a go - please take part, link your (own!!!) star post of the past week, stick a reference to the party in your post (either with the button or by link back) and spread the word.

Best,

From Ugly Mug to High-Profile Mug

2010-03-12T11:57:00.012Z

In one of my former lives I used to work for a large internet company, popularly associated with the colour purple. Guess who it was? Yahoo! You've got it... One of the superficial little perks of working for a large American corporation such as Yahoo! was the bits of merchandising that were continually thrown our way. I haven't really counted, but during my 3,5 year stint there, I came away with two jackets, about eight T-Shirts, two bags, two USB-computer lights, several baseball caps, a desk clock, other miscellaneous stuff and three mugs. Now that I am no longer associated with my former employer, I might as well pretty up those mugs.

One of my favourite crafty helpers is blackboard spray. In the past I have created blackboard labels on storage tins and on jam jar lids, a sweet little blackboard and my memory pebble. Then the other day I came across this great re-vamp via the link party at A Soft Place to Land. Jennifer Juniper at Hope Studios used blackboard paint to paint over the logo-ed mugs and create a writable blackboard label on them. I loved the idea - and have adapted it with my own little twist: A blackboard label in the shape of a classic, black silhouette.

Here is how I did it: First of all I printed a photo of myself in profile onto the back of a peelable, clear sticky film. (What do you call that stuff - you know, that film you can cover books in...). Make sure your silhouette is big enough to cover the logo on your mug! Also, unlike my illustration left, make sure you have enough space around the edges of the profile! (I forgot to take a pic of the second attempt at printing it on the film...)

Then I cut out my profile. This is a bit tricky - use nail scissors so you can negotiate the delicate line of the profile. Start by cutting a little slit in the middle of the "head" and then cut outwards to the profile line and cut out the shape. (*ahem* I prettied myself up a bit there, getting rid of my double chin...) Discard the middle bit and you are left with the template.

Peel off the backing paper and place your template on the mug. Make sure it covers up the logo completely - you do not want to have a big purple exclamation mark to peek out next to your profile... Push along the edges of the film with your fingernail so no paint bleeds under it. Cover the rest of the mug with paper so you don't get any paint drops anywhere else.

Now spray over the template. You should give it at least two coats of paint, to make sure you have covered it completely. Let it dry for at least half an hour in between coats (or whatever your brand of blackboard spray recommends).

After drying, carefully peel off the sticky film. And you are done! Chances are, that the spray paint has bled a little bit under the film. No panic - take a craft knife and slowly and carefully scratch off any bumpy bits from your silhouette - you don't want to end up with a blobby big wart on your elegant nose *hehe*.

What do you think? Hm, it may seem a little bit egocentric to have a mug with your own pretty "mug" (Irish slang for "face" *hehe*) on it. So make a few more for all the family members. Write a little witty slogan on it and personalise your breakfast table ;-)

Now, I have no idea how well these fare in the dishwasher. I suspect it may rub off in there. So this might be a precious mug for those special occasions. Ah well, form cannot always follow function. Nonetheless, they are an improvement from an advertising gizmo to a personal piece of crockery!

Best,

Linking to

Charity Cake Stand

2010-03-08T18:09:00.007Z

Right, I promised that I wouldn't turn this into a photography blog - and here is the proof: My latest project. Last week I went into a few charity shops, just checking if there was anything cheap and cheerful there to transform. I came home with a little candleholder that I snapped up for € 1. I knew I was going to try and turn it into a cake stand, so I hunted for an old plate in our garden (which is where a lot of our stuff ends up - in the kids' garden house). The result is this little, romantic beauty:

Here is how I started out:

1. I cleaned the plate and candleholder thoroughly.

2. Then I gave them both a coat of red spray paint.

3. While out, charity-shop hunting, I also picked up a can of crickle paint. I always wanted to try that out - and here was the opportunity. So I applied a coat of crickle paint on the dried red spray paint. And the crickle stuff did what it said on the tin - it started crickling pretty much straight away.

4. I applied a coat of matt spray varnish to the plate and candlestick - just in case...

5. Lastly I used some silicone glue to stick the plate to the candlestick.

That was it - a rather romantic, shabby chic cake stand. I don't know, pink doesn't really feature in my decor very much, so I was not quite that happy with the outcome. If you use crickle spray, keep in mind that the cracks will show the colour you applied underneath the crickle spray - in my case red. Ah well... What do you think?

Best,

Linking to

Cool Collages

2010-03-08T12:43:00.003Z

Can you read this:

Yay - Craft-Werk!!! If I didn't already have a banner that I am quite happy with, this is what I would use. If you look closely you can see that the images in the collage are all the projects I have presented here on the blog since I started nine months ago (go on, take out that magnifying glass, I dare ya!)

Yep, I have turned into a geek, I know. But it's just so easy to do, I couldn't resist. And while I was at it, I finally also got into the swing and turned all my green photos into a collage for St. Patrick's Day.Strictly speaking it is not created by me - but I thought I'd show you my find because you might want to create a nice little collage for Paddy's Day or any other upcoming event in your busy lives...

No, I did not painstakingly print and cut out every photo and stick it in a shamrock shape - Shape Collage did that for me. It's really cool - you download their application for free, then you drag and drop all your chosen image into the tool, determine the shape you want it arranged in and click "create". Bang, there it is. There are tons of shapes to choose from - or you can (freehand) draw your own shape. I love it - photo collages made easy. Give it a shot...

Best,

PS: Ok, yes, I promise this is not turning into a photography blog. This will - probably - be the last photo post in a while. And: I am not getting paid to promote this site... unfortunately!

Shout Out: Someday Crafts

2010-03-08T00:14:00.000Z

Chances are you already know Michelle's brilliant and several times daily-updated blog Someday Crafts!?

Well, if you don't, now is the time to check her site out. I love it - there are beautiful, practical, easy, inspiring craft projects on her site every day. And today I am getting a mention with my bottle bottoms creations. Remember them? I cut off the bottoms of old fizzy drinks bottles and made flower decorations from them. I still have a few unfinished ones lying around on my desk, and tonight they came in very handy as bead trays while I was making some of my bead ball objects. So versatile *haha*...

Anyway, go on over there and leave her a comment - tell her I said hi ;-)...

I have a couple of projects in the pipeline here. I am working on a charity shop find... Not really sure whether I like the outcome, but I will show it in due course. Meanwhile I have also (re-)activated my etsy shop. If you scroll down you can find the widget at the end of this blog page. - Etsy is dangerous, though - I have just shopped around there and ordered a few bits and pieces for crafting. Hehe, and then my Paypal somehow closed on me, and I couldn't go through with the second order... Well, maybe it is better this way.

Best,

CRAFT-WERK

Birds of Bling

I Want Snow!

A Nice End to an Old Year

Dear/Deer Candlestick

Back with a Splash

Best Buy

Christmas Star XXL

Kriskindle Has Been

We are off

She *Do* Use Jelly

Happy Campers

Shake it, Baby

Rock Chic(k)

Next (f) Stop: T-Shirt

Crea(c)tivism

Skirting the Issue

A closer look

A little update on my kitchen mantle

First of Advent

Christmas 2010 begins

Busy busy busy

Happy Halloween, then

The Gumby School of Flower Arranging Strikes Again

Flower Power

I am a basket-case!

Halloween Mantle

My Camera Fund Gets A Home

1 is such a lonely number

Well Cushioned

Make your Own Business Cards

A First Commission

100 is such a lovely number!

Only 3 Months to Chrimbo...

Industrious

It's Oktoberfest-Time

Spooky Silhouettes

Housekeeping

Getting into Autumnal Mood

That was then, but this is NOW!

Freshen up your Wardrobe

Chunky Necklace - Recycled from Unloved Bracelets

Finally - I am back!!!

Apologies - I am taking a break from Craft-Werk

Contributing Today over at Remodelaholic

Plastic Milkbottle Recycling

The Star on Saturday #3

Apologies...

Oooops...

Second Star on Saturday

Mod Podged Pendant

Easy Easter Eggorations

Highlights of the First Star on Saturday

The Star on Saturday

From Ugly Mug to High-Profile Mug

Charity Cake Stand

Cool Collages

Shout Out: Someday Crafts

She Do Use Jelly