Neon Painted Vintage Rhinestone Necklace - Tutorial

Statement necklaces are what's in right now. I've seen them all over and want one badly. Color always attracts me. You must know that by now. So I was attracted to the following necklaces like a moth to light. I have dreamed about these very colorful and vibrant neon rhinestone necklaces in the Pure Essentia shop on Etsy. I wish I had $300 to drop for a necklace, but I don't. I searched the internet for tutorials on how to make them. There was this one from A Pair and a Spare that spray paints the whole necklace one color. And there was this one from Ashley Treece, that gave me my jumping off point. First I had to find a vintage rhinestone necklace. I prefer to repurpose something old. A new one would be fine too, but the vintage ones have great shapes to them. Just be careful that if it's a choker, that it's not too small. There's no way to size them larger. I scoured Ebay and found 2 that I purchased and that same day was running errands and found an Estate Sale store by my home. I'm waiting for the Ebay ones to arrive.

And there it was. Not super cheap, but $20 was fine. Be prepared to spend $20-$50 for a necklace. Ok. I had my necklace.

Next was a stop at the drug store to buy brightly colored nail polishes. Look for the $1-$2 bottles. That's all you need.

Make sure the necklace is clean and place it on a piece of white computer paper. Figure out your design with your colors and it's time to begin. The paper allows you to turn your work as you paint. Don't turn the necklace. Leave it in place and just move the paper. Paint each rhinestone carefully but plentifully. You can drop a drop of nail polish onto the stone. It's ok to cover the prongs.

You can always go back and do another coat. Get a toothpick for any miss steps with the nail polish. You can use it to wipe mistakes. Do one color at a time. I started with a yellow on the large teardrop rhinestones and then I figured out my colors from there. You don't need to have them dry between colors, but let it completely dry at the end.

I'd love to have a group get together to do painted necklaces. If people could get their necklaces, and come over, I would supply paint and work surfaces.  Maybe even some food and drinks. Let me know.

Paper Christmas Tree Tutorial

Paper is so versatile but without special cutting tools, I didn't think I could make anything. Then, I found this tutorial for these beautiful tree ornaments on a Russian blog and thought I had to make these this year. I'm showing you the steps I took and explaining them a bit more thoroughly than I saw on that site. 

What you'll need:

1. scrapbooking paper
2. scissors or a circular cutter
3. paper folding bone/tool. I just used a credit card
4. needle and string thicker than thread. I used thin cotton yarn
5. glue gun and glue sticks

Cut 4 circles: 2 inch, 3 inch, 4 inch, and 5 inch.

 Fold each in half with the design side on the outside.

 Then fold each one in half 90 degrees from the last fold with the design side on the outside.

 Turn the circles over and fold each one in half 45 degrees from the other folds. the design side should be on the inside now.

 Flip the circles so the design sides are on the outside and the fold you just made folds inward. Easy so far, right?

Now your circles all look like this.

 Take the smallest circle, thread your needle but don't cut the yarn. String the needle up from the non-design side of the circle through to the design side. Make a loop desired size and string back from the design side to the non-design side. Cut the yarn with enough length to make a little knot. cut off extra yarn.

 Turn it back so the design side is on the outside.

 You are going to start the glueing now. The circles will fit inside each other as above. Don't push them all the way in but leave the sections so that the edge of the circles flare out a bit. See finished pictures.

Place the glue dot just on one side at a time; front and then back. Add the next section and repeat until complete. That's it. You're done!

Easy Custom Lamp Shade Tutorial

Let's just say that my daughter kinda ruined a lamp I had by messing up the lamp shades. No problem I thought. I'll just go out and replace them. Yes them. 2 shades. After 4 lighting stores, several department stores and even a lamp shade outlet, no luck because of the size that they are. So leaving the last store, I thought "time to get creative". And I had just the idea.

I grabbed a vintage feed sack that I had laying around and with spray adhesive, sprayed the shade, wrapped a lampshade in the feed sack and trimmed it to size with scissors.

Then the other one. No special technique needed, just confidence. I like the way it turned out. Don't you?

Tutorial: A Wine Cork Valance

Really? A unique cork project? Yes! I've been scrubbing my brain trying to come up with a cork project that hasn't already been done. Not another corkboard. Not another trivet. But a window valance!
My ugly windows were in need of some sprucing up. First I put up an antique lace table runner as a valance. I put nails in the walls, hung the valance and then added decorative elements from the scrapbooking department of the craft store to the nail ends.  After that I set off to make my cork valance.
You want to learn too?

wine corks   

 

 eye pins

                                         

 

ball chain 

 

       ball chain connectors        

                                                                            

fun colored ribbon and lace ribbon that's firm                                            

Here's what you need:

wine corks - I used 18 but you can use more or less depending on the type of pattern you want.

eye pins - I used 25 but it will depend on the pattern you come up with. Take a cork to the hardware store and see which size you like. It needs to screw in good but not be too huge

ball chain - I started with 6 feet of small diameter ball chain and cut 10 pieces, 5 inches long

ball chain connectors with an eye at one end -20

jump rings that open -10 regular jump rings that you buy for jewelry at any craft store. Mine are silver plated.

fun ribbon - 18  3 inch pieces. You can buy cheap spools of ribbon at Michael's. My red ribbon was $1.

lace ribbon that's firm and has holes in it - I used 5 feet of antique lace, but it depends on the size of your window. This is what you will attach all of the ball chain ends to and it will hang across the window.

Tools

wire cutters

2 pair chain nose pliers

scissors

1. Lay out your corks according to the pattern that you choose. Mine was 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1

2. Attach 1 eye pin into 10 corks at one end

3. Attach eye pins into both ends of 8 corks

 So now 10 corks have eyepins in one end and 8 corks have eyepins in both ends.

4. Attach the ball chain connectors to the ball chain at both ends. Do this for all ball chain pieces.

5. attach the ball chain connectors to the eye pins of 4 corks that have an eye pin in one end with a jump ring. 

6. Attach the ball chain connectors to the eye pins of 6 corks that have an eye pin on both ends with a jump ring.

7. Lay out your cork pieces according to the pattern and tie the corks together with a knot through the eyepins. 

8. Tie the ball chains through the connector to the lace evenly spaced out.

9. You're done. Hang your lace piece with a decorative thumb tack to the wall pulled tightly.

Making My Jeans...Wearable (super simple Tutorial)

Rip...devastation. My favorite jeans ripped at the knee. It can't be. I hate buying new jeans. I hate trying on pants. I must save these. I must revive these. I must. I must use hot pink yarn! Yes.

The devastation up close

Using pink cotton yarn (Sugar 'n Cream) that you can get at any craft store and a yarn needle I did a cross stitch across. Took about a minute. Tied a knot. Then I added a little bird iron-on patch I got gratis from Polly Danger at a craft show. I like how it turned out. At least people won't be staring at my big hole. They might be staring at my questionable knee but who cares. At least I did something about the hole.

Adhere Your Man, Or Anyone Else

Here's a little Tutorial for a little fun. I was walking by the TV yesterday and in a glimpse they mentioned that Beyonce wears her man on her fingernail. I thought "and why can't I?" I was on the way to the computer anyways. So I found an image and shrunk it down. You have to play around with image size but you'll find around 30-50 px depending on the nail. and print it out. Cut it out to shape to the nail. Use clear polish under the nail and add a thick coat and apply the image right away as the polish acts like a glue. Hold it down until it sticks. Then apply 1-2 layers of clear polish on top.

I put my man on my nail so I can see him as he works long hours. I thought this would be cute with dogs, or kids too. Play around. Have fun.

Recontructed Sweater to a Shrug Tutorial

I'm going to a wedding reception next week that is in the evening and outdoors. I bought a beautiful dress, which is sleeveless, so I know I'm going to be cold. I had to come up with something that I could wear over the dress to give me some warmth. I wanted to make a little shrug, nothing with sleeves and something I could easily remove. I really enjoyed the last sweater reconstructed project I did ( http://bonnindesigns.blogspot.com/2008/11/remake-of-boring-cardigan-sweater.html ) and I really wanted to try my hand at something else. So off to the thrift store I went.

I purchased a lambswool neutral zip cardigan for $6 and went to work. When I purchased it, I realized that someone probably accidently washed the sweater and shrunk it so it was pre-felted for me. Cool, less work. Using the seam ripper, I removed the zipper and found that there were 2 strips of sweater that covered the zipper which later became the ties for the shrug. To make the shrug, the top of the sweater will be the bottom of the shrug, and the bottom of the sweater will be folded over to make a wide neck for the shrug.

I continued with the seam ripper and on the inside of the sweater, removed the stitching that held the sleeves on. I removed the sleeves and ended up with some nice holes that I could easily crochet and edging through.

I had this lambswool sweater vest since high school and it had a stain, so I felted it in the washer to tighten the stitching and began cutting circles of graduating sizes for flowers and leaf shapes.

So turning the sweater upside down and folding over what was the bottom of the sweater, which is now the neckline, I positioned and pinned my graduating size circles to make flowers and my leaves.

I stitched the leaves on using a basting stitch which I pulled tight a little to give the leaves dimension.

Next, the flowers were stitched in place using a crystal bead and hot pink sewing thread doubled onto a beading needle.

I originally used a bulky yarn to do the edging on the sweater in single crochet. I liked the yarn because it had all of the colors of the dress in it, but when I completed it, the results were to bulky and too 'hippy braidy' looking so I decided instead to use a neutral thinner yarn somewhat matching the sweater. It turned out much better.

This is the end result - with a row of double crochet and then a shell edging only in the back. I wanted to increase the back length a bit.

The sleeve part was done in single crochet. the front edging done in double crochet. The ties are the extra sweater zip portion folded over and stitched on with double thickness leaves sewn on.

I promise to show a picture of the shrug with the dress, but I was so excited to finally finish the shrug, I wanted to share it.