Faux Leather Accessories

I love all of these hair accessories because they look so luxurious and stylish, and they're only made from faux leather! Click here for the tute.

Creative Hairstyles

If you, like me, have medium/long hair and only do one or two hairstyles ever, then I hope that this page will help you. It lists loads of hair style ideas for normal everyday use and for nights out, and has lots of inspiring tutorial videos.

Fabric Labels

If you want to add a professional personalized label to your cloth projects, then these fabric labels are something that you can easily make yourself using this tutorial.

Speed Creating

I have found an amazingly creative website called 'Variations on Normal' which is bursting with inspiration, and the 30 days of speed creating is an especially fab project, with my favourites being Footy Smoothie, Artifical Light, Sock Lights and Bath Fountain. Please have a look - I love it!

Faux Mercury Glass

A very pretty cracked silver effect can be added to a clear glass vase using silver foil - read about it here.

Minimalist Tote Bag

Possibly my favourite tote bag design yet - I love the simplicity, the colours, the style and the leather. It just looks fab I think, and you can find out how to make one by following this link.

Margarita Jello Shooters

These fantastic strawberry shooters have Margarita Jello inside - so fun! Go here for the recipe.

Vintage Arrows

I love this quirky idea of using handmade arrows as decor - and you can find the tutorial for them, here.

Dishtowel Apron

One of the simplest ways to make an apron is using just a dishtowel, twill tape and this method. I love the map dishtowel used in the one above especially.

Vintage Flower Necklace Tutorial

Hi! This is a tutorial written by me, and it involves using clay and flower shapes to make a necklace. I have never really worked with clay or flower shapes before so I decided to jump in the deep end and I think it turned out pretty well actually, which just shows you that newbies can make this too!

You can also view the following tutorial on this web page, if you would like to see larger photos.

You Will Need:* Vintage flowers (like from No Snow Supplies) - enough to make 5 layered flowers

* Yellow clay - I used classic golden yellow FIMO

* Wire - It doesn't matter what type it is. I used 22 gauge brass wire

* Necklace chain

* 4 Jump rings and a clasp to match your necklace chain

* A pin or needle

* Glue - I used E600

* A rolling pin or something else to flatten the clay

* A knife or similar to cut the clay

* A baking tray

* Oven

* Baking parchment

* Felt - I used black felt baize but any felt will do

* Pliers (to attach the jump rings)

* Craft knife or scissors

* Wire cutters

1) Layer the flower shapes in your favourite combinations so that you have 5 complete flowers overall.

2) Take a small amount of your FIMO clay and squash and roll in in your hands to warm it up and make it malleable, then make it into a ball.

3) Create a ball of clay for the centre of each flower, in the size you think looks the best. Make them as smooth and round as you can.

4) Take a length of wire and bend a hook in one end. The wire piece only needs to be a maximum of about 5cm long.

5) Push the hooked end into the clay ball so the hook is roughly in the centre of the ball. Smooth and reshape the clay around the wire.

6) Do this for every clay ball for every flower. You should end up with 5 clay balls with a length of wire sticking out of each one.

7) To give a bit of detail to the flower centres, take a pin or needle and make little holes on the top of each ball.

8) Carefully place the flower centres on baking parchment on a baking tray and put them in the oven for the time and temperature written on the instructions for your clay.

9) After the time is up (my FIMO took half an hour) take the baking tray out of the oven and wait for it to cool.

10) When cool, assemble the flowers and the clay centres together to check how they look. Then separate the pieces again.

11) Put a small amount of superglue on the underside of the yellow clay ball and between each flower layer. Assemble the flowers together again and press together the pieces firmly. Leave the glue to dry.

You should now have 5 flowers with wire stems. Very pretty :-)

12) Roll out a piece of clay so that it is long enough to incorporate all of the flowers, and thick enough so that it won't be fragile when baked (approx. 4mm).

13) Mould the clay to the shape you want the necklace to be and push the flower wires in where the flowers will later be positioned. Adjust the positioning until you are happy with it.

14) Use a knife or similar to cut the clay into a neat shape - I chose a shallow 'v' shape.

15) Make holes with a pin all of the way through the clay at the points where you want the flower wires to go through. Make another hole at the top corner of each side, as this is where jump rings will be attached later.

16) Make one last check that the holes are in the correct places by positioning the flowers in their places again.

17) Put the clay on the baking tray and bake as before. Try and make the clay as neat as possible before you bake (i.e. unlike mine!)

18) When the clay base has cooled, push the flower wires through their respective holes in the order you want them to be in.

19) Making sure the flowers are pushed against the clay so that they're as close as they can be, bend the wire stems onto the back of the clay base. Glue the wires in place.

20) Place the necklace (flowers side up) on top of a piece of black felt. Cut the felt to the same size as the clay section.

21) Glue this felt onto the base of the clay section, making sure you don't glue over the holes at either end which are where the jump rings are going to go through.

22) Attach 2 jump rings to the 2 holes in the clay section i.e. so there's one ring at each end. If the clay is too thick/the jump ring is too small, you may have to make your own ring out of a spare length of wire. Click here to see how to make a jump ring. Click here to see how to attach a jump ring.

23) Attach 2 equal lengths of chain to the jump rings (1 each end) - the length depends on how long you want your necklace to be - and then, using another jump ring, attach a clasp to one chain end and just a single jump ring on the other.

24) Your necklace should now be complete :-)

Hope you liked my 2nd ever tutorial!

Fruity Napkins

Follow this link for a how-to on creating cute button embellishments on napkins. I think these look really lovely.

Fall Felt Leaves

This great looking tutorial shows you how to create felt Autumn leaves which can then be used to make garlands, mobiles and many other decorations.

Ice Time Bomb

Click here for a great idea involving ice and dye - it's so creative and fun, I'm sure you'll love it!

Fabric Fox Lamp

This is one of my favourite tutorials this year because it's unlike anything I've seen before plus it looks so professional and awesome when finished!

It makes use of fabric stiffener and you can find out how to make this fabulous project here.

Ninjabread Men

Click here for instructions on how to make cookie cutters in any shape you like, such as ninjas!

Peacock Embroidery

These peacock feather stitches are super pretty and you can find out how to do them, here.

Etsy Shop Giveaway!

Just a quick note to let you know that I have a $15 giveaway for my shop going on over at Sadie's Wardrobe if you'd like to enter :-)

Map Envelope

There is a fab website called Map Envelope which lets you customize and print your own envelopes with a chosen location shown within, and a message too. This would be great for a letter from your hols or maybe a party invitation - cool, no?!

70's String Art

I have tried string art before and although it doesn't look very exciting it is fun and can produce some great effects as shown at the end of the video - and you can relieve some stress by hammering the many nails in too!

Making Kites

If you want to learn how to make fabulous kites likes this one - or make one with your kids - then have a look at this great tutorial.

DIY Skeleton Leaves

It never occurred to me that you could make skeleton leaves yourself - but you can! It looks like a fun experiment too...go here to see how it's done.

Things To Do When You're Bored

I've put together a webpage which lists loads of random fun web links to look at to amuse yourself, plus some ideas I think crafters will appreciate such as replicating yourself in Sellotape, making a kite and doing towel origami!

Go here to have a look.

Modern Number Coasters

Easy to make coasters using stencilling to add the funky number prints. Click here for the how-to.

That Artist Woman

If you haven't visited yet, be sure to head over to That Artist Woman, which is a very inspiring website full of brilliant art ideas.

Lift-The-Flap Book

This awesome custom made photo book has a flap on every page that you can lift to find a surprise - how fun is that!?

This would make a great gift. Click here for the how-to.

Piece-By-Piece Art

LOVE this idea for a gift to a friend: painting a piece of wall art, cutting it up into pieces and then letting the recipient build it up themselves like a jigsaw! Find the how-to here.

How to Make Your Own Pizza

This guide from ManMade tells you how to make 'amazing pizza at home', which I'm building up to - I managed to make fresh pasta from scratch last week so that's a start!

Portable Fire Pit

This fire pit would make a stunning focal point inside or out, and you can find the project instructions here.

Monogram Stationery Set

This is a beautiful stationery set and you can find out how to make your own personalised monogram rubber stamp by following this link.

Embroidered Bag

Not only does this tutorial tell you how to make the bag from scratch, but also how to add the gorgeous yarn embroidered decoration on the front.

Pyramid Painting

This really effective wall painting looks professional but is actually easy to do - and just uses potatoes to print the triangles! Click here for the tute.

Switcharoo!

I've changed the banner and switched around my blog - I hope you like it, please let me know what you think!

Book Apron

Sometimes I despair with myself because the number of times I've been doing baking and had to balance my cookery book somewhere to stop flour getting on it, and I never thought of this genius idea - a book apron! It protects your book and bookmarks the page too.

Go here for the how-to.

DIY Heart Tights

These heart tights are so cute, and you can go crazy with the design you add - perhaps you could cover all of the fabric with a swirly design?! Go here for the how-to.

Letter Light

This is one of my favourite project ideas because it reminds me of the Las Vegas Sign Graveyard which I really want to visit. If you'd like to make one yourself, click here.

Leather CD Case

You can make a very sleek and professional looking CD case by following these instructions.

What I Made

'What I Made' is a brilliant website I've recently added to my blog roll and I think you should check it out. It's got fun little how-tos like the fun pencil and paperclip fly shown above!

Gilded Acorns

Lovely luxury gilded wooden acorns, which can then be attached to necklace chains, keyrings etc for the perfect Autumn accessory. Click here for the tutorial.

Shoe Refashion

To find out how to make your shoes more fashionable with pretty flowers and ruffles have a look here.

Autumn Leaf Garland

This garland is a great way to make use of the pretty Autumn leaves which are around at the moment, and it also preserves the leaves by encasing them in waxed paper - clever! Go here for the how-to.

Fun Monster Caps

Click here for instructions on how you can decorate red and blue caps to turn them into funny Cookie Monster and Elmo hats!

My Trip to Campania

Hello! You may or may not be aware that a week last Friday I came back from Italy after a fab week-long tour. We went to the Amalfi coast (on my birthday no less!), the top of Mount Vesuvius, Naples, Sorrento and the Isle of Capri, and I've managed to narrow my photos down to a mere 126 this time :-), so if you'd like to have a look, you can see them here.