Mood Scarves

These mood scarves with embroidered designs are so cool - and so easy to make!

Digital Photography Tutorials

Click here for 27 of the best tutorials on manipulating digital images - some of the effects are fantastic!

Burger Earrings

This make involves building mini burgers in polymer clay - and they're so cute!

Teddy Bear

Click here for a template and instructions for making this cute little teddy!

Resin Pendants

Resin is a craft I really want to try (among many, many others), and this is a very useful tutorial showing you the art of embedding paper images in resin to create cabochons/pendants.

Mirror Decoration

These instructions show you how to make a square mirror decoration, which is based on a $700 design.

Letter Wreaths

I think these letter wreaths are very sweet and could be especially useful at weddings or Christmas - they could even be used to spell out a greeting on a wall garland for instance.

The tutorial is here.

Stamp Glue

Go here to find the recipe for making stamp/sticker glue - to allow you to transform all sorts of paper shapes into no-mess stickers.

Ruffle Shoes

These shoe ruffles add a bit of cuteness to your plain black flats :-)

Smocking

This page gives a detailed tutorial on how to do some quick smocking, which I think produces a very attractive effect.

Belt Cuff

This is a great idea for using old belts, and makes a groovy cuff for both guys and gals. Click here for the how-to.

Snow Globes

These whimsical snow globes are so lovely, and you can see how to make them here.

Collage Crystals

I love this technique of adding text filled paper to a glass crystal - which would add an interesting and old fashioned style to any necklace/garland/chandelier.

Faux Engraved Jewellery

This is one of the most original and effective techniques I've seen for a while. The rings above look amazing, and yet it's pretty straightforward to achieve. Find the project details here.

DIY Bounty Bar

This page provides a recipe for imitation Bounty bars so that you can make them yourself at home.

Fabric Pom-Poms

I love these ruffled pom-poms as all-year-round decorations, and the colours are divine.

The how-to can be found here.

Lightning Knit Jumpers

This project is very inspiring and makes me definitely want to transform some charity shop jumpers into snuggly lightning creations.

Faux Metal Mirror

Click here to see how you can make a mirror frame with a faux metal effect - you can keep the frame grey like above or add rust for a more realistic effect.

Tetris Block Lights

I think these lights in the shape of Tetris blocks are absolutely fantastic, and something I can imagine finding in a designer homeware store. And you can find out how to make your own by following this link.

Easy Robot

This is a super easy robot which anyone can make - it doesn't even require soldering!

It moves via vibrations from the motor, and it's pretty cool I think. Go here for the tutorial.

Exotic Necklace

I love the vibrant, exotic colours of this necklace, and the instructions are straightforward too.

Sock Gloves

This how-to shows you a really quick way of making gloves from just a pair of socks - so it's something anyone can do, yay!

Ruler Calendar

This is a very quick project and makes a different use out of a ruler - as a calendar! Just move the bead along to mark the day.

Go here for the how-to.

Comic Book Shoes

I LOVE comic book graphics, and this particular technique of adding comic book pages to your shoes has been on my to-do list for a while.

Felt Cushions

I need to get some use out of my sewing machine this year so I hope to make my first ever clothes (hopefully a fitted jacket), a messenger bag and some fabric jewellery - but to get started, I think these funky cushions would be a great introduction project, don't you?

Go here for the tute.

Clothing Darts

Click here for instructions on a new way of creating clothing darts.

Skull Cut-out Tee

I think this is a really cool idea - you cut out a skull shape in a t-shirt, and then wear a t-shirt of contrasting colour underneath - funky! The how-to can be found here.

Gift Wrap Ideas

For some truly beautiful and luxury gift wrapping ideas, have a look here - even if it is too late for Xmas wrapping!

DIY Cake Stand

Great retro-looking cake stand project for balancing party cupcakes on!

Click here for the how-to.

Chevron Wall Art

Classy wall art based around chevrons, which is pretty easy to achieve yourself - have a look here for the project, plus an interesting idea involving wrapping canvases with string:

World's Best Photos

(Found here)
I love photography so much because it can capture moments in time which will never be repeated, it can transport you to a different place, and for me, alot of photos make my heart ache because I want to be right there where the photo has been taken. Plus, it can rekindle past memories, and there are many techniques that add gorgeous artistic techniques to improve a photo or create a different effect.

I'm a bit addicted to Flickr photos at the moment (but it does make me so jealous and desperate to travel!), and I've come across this site which allows you to search through the 'world's best photos' for a particular subject - and it will keep you occupied for a while, that's for sure :-)

Flickriver also has some amazing photos to browse at your leisure.

Fashionable Owl Bag

This is a fab tutorial showing you how to adorn a bag in a style inspired by the Sherwood Owl bag design by Kate Spade.

Interesting Effects

Here are some inspirational photography pages and different technique how-to's, including my very favourite technique, bokeh:

Zoom Effect

Inspirational Images

7 Photography Projects

Create Your Own Bokeh

Photograph Christmas Lights

Christmas Light Bokeh

Best Flickr Photos '09

Log Buttons

Super cute natural wood buttons - great for adorning all kinds of things! Go here for the tute.

My Flickr

I've added some more snow photos to my Flickr photostream today - all of which were taken in my garden, and include my igloo attempt. We had some MORE snow yesterday - this must be a record!

If you want to look, please click here.

Hope you like them :-)

I Said Snow, Snow, Snow...

Earlier last year I mentioned that we never get snow around my area in England, but guess what?! 2 days in a row of snow! Must be some kind of record, plus the advantage of being older and still regressing to being a child in snow is that you are far more adventurous in your building efforts.

Which is why, this year, me and my brother made 3 snowmen (I did the snow-woman in the photo), plus even attempted an igloo (I'll post the photo of that soon :-))

It was so much fun - I LOVE snow!

House-On-A-Mug

This is so, so cute - It's a gingerbread house designed to attach to your mug of hot chocolate! It's such an original idea, and if you want to have a go yourself, click here.

Homemade Home

The Homemade Home is a fabulous UK shop selling realistic biscuit brooches (including custard creams!) and the most amazing felt duck craft kit, which I've actually just bought because I could not resist - I mean what could be better than kitsch AND crafty?!

Butterfly Scatter

This is a really pretty wall decoration, and has butterflies made from magazine/decorative paper pages, which are attached at different levels for a 3D effect.

Have a look here for the tutorial and photos.

Origami Crane Ornaments

I love this idea so much - you make paper shapes and then cover with Plastidip, which is a waterproof plastic coating, so that they last a long time. I'm definitely going to buy some Pastidip and do some experiments - it looks so fun!

Go here for the how-to.

Happy New Year!

I've been watching a lot of montages and reviews of 2009 and the entire last decade, and it's quite amazing what can happen and change in 10 years - I mean I was 12 a decade ago! There's the recession, 9/11, Barrack Obama, the Olympics to name a few few, plus some amazing new TV shows (I'm a bit of a TV junkie) including several series of my favourite shows Strictly Come Dancing and The Apprentice, plus so many inventions like iphones and broadband.

11 years ago, I got internet for the first time, plus my Nokia 3210 mobile phone with 'Snake' was considered cool! Hard to believe really, and now I can't wait to see what is new in the next 10 years - I'm personally holding out for a teleporter and personal jetpack, but I'd settle for a realistic games console and lightning quick internet :-)

It turns out I only fulfilled about 1.5 out of 4 new years resolutions from last year (including opening my own business), but I'm quite pleased really. This year my goals are:

a) Get upto 300 blog followers

b) Make my business successful, make a living from it, and save enough to have a 3 month dream holiday in New Zealand next year (and enough for a tattoo too).

c) Learn new jewellery techniques and establish a set line of jewellery pieces.

d) Learn to sketch, draw and watercolour paint, especially people (I can currently do only stick people!) Keep a journal and draw at least 5 pages a week, every week. This is so I will be able to find it easier to keep a journal when I go travelling. I must remember to keep lot of paper ephemera too.

e) Learn tatting, weaving, crochet, screenprinting, embroidery plus other crafts I like the look of :-)

f) Dress better, and take some outfit photos.

g) Focus on photography - of my jewellery, plus of travels, and also learn techniques such as TtV and bokeh.

h) Lose a stone in weight by getting fitter - before April.

i) Plan the plot for a book.

j) Buy the art supplies and books I have on my wish list.

k) Learn to sew clothes from patterns, and learn to re-line jackets. Sew a bag.

l) Create my own pattern for a sewing kit, or template for a card mechanism.

m) Make about 25 more t-shirt designs for my Cafepress shop.

n) Follow some tutorials on Crafterholic which are on my to-do list, including wire sculptures and paper mache boats and cute mobiles.

And I'll review what I actually do at the end of the year lol

So what are your resolutions? Did you keep your resolutions from last year?