Origami Shirt Card

The shirt pictured is made using a Klutz Origami kit, Mrs. Grossman’s stickers, card stock, and sequins.

What you will need:

Tools – Crimp pliers, Needle or chain nose pliers, Small wire cutters
Flexible beading wire such as Soft Flex, Accu Flex, or Tigertail
Findings- Crimp beads, Jewelry clasps, Jump rings (for handing pendants)
Beads – any colors, any shapes, but large enough to fit over the wire you’ve chosen
Work surface – a beading board or cloth will help your beads not roll away.

All these supplies can be found at a general crafts store such as Michael’s Craft or JoAnn’s Fabrics, or online at bead retailers like Firemountain Gems and Beads and Fusion Beads.

One of the most enjoyable parts of stringing is picking out the beads. When you enter a bead shop or a craft store, you may be overwhelmed by all the varieties and tempted to buy them all. Who can resist? But you need to try or your wallet will be left with lint. Try to focus on one project at a time and buy beads that seem to coordinate with one another in color or shape. That way you’ll be more likely to use them, Many beads are sold in 16-inch strands, and one or two strands should be enough for a necklace when you are mixing them with other miscellaneous beads.

Consider including some metal beads to act as spacers between your other beads and break up the color, or try mixing some smaller beads like 4mm ones with larger ones (such as 12mm) to act as spacers and give your design some breathing room.

The basic process for stringing a necklace is to start with a crimp bead on your wire, then add your clasp and bend the wire so it forms a loop by putting it back through the crimp bead. Then use your crimp pliers to close the crimp and hold the loop and the clasp in place. Firemountain Gems and Beads has a great online guide for using crimp pliers. The important thing to remember with crimps it to buy pliers and crimps that go together. Some crimps are smaller than others and require a smaller (micro) set of pliers to bend them properly.

After you have the clasp on one end of your wire, measure out about 24 inches of wire if you are planning a 16 to 20-inch necklace and cut the other end of the wire with your wire cutters. Now you’re ready to string.

A beading board can be very useful at this stage because you can lay out all your beads in the order you want to string them and adjust the pattern if you need to. Some beading boards, such as the model shown below, also have measurements on them to help you see how many beads you need to make a certain length necklace.

Once you know the order of the beads, start from one end of your design and string them on your wire. When your necklace is the length you need it, string another crimp bead, then your clasp and create the loop to hold the clasp and crimp as you did to start. Trim any excess wire from the edge of the crimp bead with your wire cutters. If you don’t like the look of crimp beads, bead covers are available that you can place over the crimp bead to hide it. The covers looks like small metal beads after you close them.

The links provide additional information you may find helpful and I’ve also listed some books about stringing that you may enjoy.

JEMLibrary.com: Beading Wire and Tigertail for Jewelry Making

Bella Online: Jewelry Making Techniques – Bead Stringing & Beadwork

How to Make Beaded Jewelry: How to String Beads

Yet something still drew me to knitting and it became like a yearning. Something I had to learn how to do. I liked the smooth texture of the knitted fabric; I loved all the beautiful sweaters I saw in magazines and wanted to make them. Crochet creates beautiful things too, but I found very few crochet sweaters that I liked.

So once again I picked up the knitting needles and my trusty copy of The All New Teach Yourself To Knit by Evie Rosen (Leisure Arts) and forced myself to learn. Third time’s a charm they say and this time more of the craft stuck with me. My determination to conquer it after all these years probably had a lot to do with it. After all, I was using the same instruction book, the same needles. Not much else had changed. I even managed to knit a few things that looked okay. Yay for me.

But the problem was that compared to crochet, where I could just grab a skein of yarn and a hook and casually make magic while watching TV, barely even paying attention to what my hands were doing, knitting stressed the heck out of me. I was a complete ball of tension every time I sat down to knit. Every muscle felt clenched; my palms were practically sweating. Why? Because of my fear of screwing it up.

You see, I learned how to make the knit stitches following the diagrams in the instruction book, but I didn’t really “understand” what I was doing. I couldn’t recognize and identify the stitches I was making the way I could with crochet. I didn’t know anything about why the stitches were on the needle in a certain direction, and I completely panicked if a stitch slipped off the needle.

But that was then.

A few years later, I have conquered my knitting fears (well, most of them!) and found a calmness, a confidence, a sense of “this is fun!” that I’m sure experienced knitters must feel when they work on a project. The secret? Learning to understand what knitting is (how it works physically on the needle), learning to interpret what I see on the needles (and allowing the stitches tell me what comes next), and exposing myself to enough new techniques that unfamiliar patterns no longer seem like a foreign language.

And I did it with the help of Fearless Knitting Workbook: The Step-by-Step Guide to Knitting Confidence by Jennifer E. Seiffert. This book builds your confidence and your skills in small increments from the very first page. It shows you how to knit, but then continues the instruction so you understand what you’re doing beyond making a knit stitch or a purl stitch. You learn to see a larger picture through studying what the needles and yarn are doing and how the stitches combine to form fabric.

The lessons in the book start with something very simple (but versatile), like ribbing, and slowly build on that, teaching you how to read chart, work cables and more. A whole new world of possibilities has opened up to me now that I can “read my knitting.” I feel more in control of my knitting and and more confident that I won’t lose my place or screw it up. And I enjoy it. It is a relaxing craft once you know what you’re doing. And dropping a stitch? While not exactly something I look forward to, it’s no longer a reason for a minor heart attack. And if I do drop a stitch, I get to use my favorite tool to rescue it–my crochet hook!

Don’t let your fears hold you back. You can do this!

Happy knitting, everyone!

Photo credit: ©iStockphoto.com/felinda

Vellum Poem Note Card

The idea is simple: select a poem you love during National Poetry Month then carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, and friends. (aka it’s a great day to share your paper craft skills, too!)

To celebrate, I crafted simple Vellum Poem Note Cards (pictured) to share with family and friends. A few brads, card stock, vellum paper, stickers, and an ink jet printer = viola! Easy card craft way to share your love of poems.

If you are looking for more ideas on how to celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day, visit http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/406

http://simplystated.realsimple.com/simplystated/2010/03/organize-with-handmade-bins.html

Take a day for poetry in April and join the Academy of American Poets in celebrating the third national Poem in Your Pocket Day, during National Poetry Month.

The idea is simple: you select a poem, pocket it, carry it, and then share it with family, friends, and coworkers throughout the day.

Here’s where we can get super-crafty… wouldn’t it be cool to create poetry cards for our friends to share too? Ooh… the ideas are flowing! I’m thinking of using the printer to create a vellum paper rendition of a favorite poem, then simply attaching it to a nice cardstock with brads or ribbon.

What are your ideas?

If you don’t want to go the “craft” route, you can still easily partake in this fun day by printing or emailing poems from a selection on Poets.org

For more ideas and pocket poems, visit poets.org/pocket

Rose Stamp and Rolled Corrugated Cardboard Stamp

After dabbling on scrap paper for a bit, I finally settled on a pattern and carried it out on cardstock (as pictured.) Not my all-time best design, but a pleasing effect for a spring-like notecard.

And since I still have plenty of corrugated cardboard to play with, I cut out a small piece and attached it upper center of the card with double-sided tape. I then used the rose stamp to create a single impression, cut it out, and attached it with double-sided tape to the cardboard. Viola!- instant pop out!

Flower Stamp and Corrugated Cardboard Stamp Design

I’m continuing with card creations for now, though, and next week will see what I can come up with just using the corrugated cardboard and craft paper. Join me for some more cardboard recycling fun!

It seemed to me that if you get bored and lose enthusiasm after knitting one sock, the same probably happens after you knit one mitten. For myself, I could see that that would be true. I tend to like to move on to new projects quickly and don’t enjoy assembly line crafting where I’m making the same thing over and over. So, I thought why not give it a try? And you know what? It worked great!

The first pair of mittens, pictured in progress above, were a very simple pair where the fronts and back were identical so you didn’t have to worry about which was the left mitten and which was the right. I used two balls of yarn, one of each mitten and simply knit them on the same needle one next the other.

The next pair of mittens I tried were a little more complicated because the front of each has a cable and there is a definite difference in shaping between right and left. But the technique still works. I marked one mitten to I’d know it was the left one, and then simply did the specified stitches for the right mitten in the opposite order for the left mitten (except the cable, I left that as is).

You may notice in the photo that I used a circular needle for the cable mittens, but that was simply because I LOVE my new Harmony wood circular needles I got for Christmas and couldn’t wait to use them. I’m using the circular needle as straight needles here.

So, if you’re the type to get bored after that first mitten, give this technique try and you’ll have a pair of mittens done at the same time, in no time at all.

Until next time…

Happy crafting!

Embroidered Tote or Pillow Many of us have boxes and stacks of artwork our children bring home from school that we cherish and want to save. My sons are fully grown and I still of boxes of their primary school drawings. Here’s an idea for preserving those memories, and if your children are still young, this would be a great way to highlight their work.

This is an idea I thought was so adorable, and so special I just had to share it.