Desmond

I have a new nephew!  We are very pleased to welcome Desmond Oscar into the world.  Here are a few pictures of the booties I made him.  It is hard to knit for a spring/summer baby.

saartje's booties

a smaller version of my round and round toe up socks

Magic Slippers (pattern on Rav)

Chaussons Mignons  These were a bit too small. I was rushing to finish them in the car on the way to see him.

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Winners!

Thank you to everyone that entered.  For those who were interested, I've made a tutorial describing how I make the nail polish jewelry.  And now for the winners!

For prize number one, the winner is comment number 52, which is Bobbie!

 

The winner of prize number two is comment number 39, which is Elizabeth! (Please leave me a comment with your email so I can get in touch with you)

 

 And the winner for prize number three is comment number 6, which is Miranda!  

The winners who left their email have been notified.  If I don't hear from everyone by Friday, I will draw new names.  Thank you all again for entering and taking a peek around. 

Nail Polish Jewelry- How To

I will start out by admitting that I am not the first person to think of this.  In fact, a quick search of Etsy will reveal quite a number of sellers.   I decided to learn how to do this because, let's face it, I have a lot of nail polish.  I need something else to do with it, otherwise I would never have a reason to buy more polish.  And shiny jewelry I could match to my nail polish?  I think everyone is a winner there.

Polish is Nail-Venturous Nail Lacquer in Orange You Unique

So I searched.  Did some googling.  Spent a lot of time staring at Etsy.  I hoped to find an easy and relatively cheap way of doing this.  I will say, it is pretty easy.  But cheap, not so much.  I just wanted to make a few pieces for myself, but most of the supplies I needed weren't easily found near me.  Which is crazy because I have an AC Moore, JoAnns, Michaels and Hobby Lobby all within about 10 minutes (I know, I am lucky).  Most of the tutorials or examples I found were made with cabochons in fabulous settings, which I would have to order online (I really hate paying shipping).  Then I found some that were just the cabochons with glue on bails.  I found the bails at Michaels and they were $1 each.  Not per pack, per bail.  In my stumbling around the craft stores trying to find something I could pretend was a cabochon, I wandered into the aisle with the mosaic tiles.  Nothing there, but next to it I found the glass floral beads.  Domed glass with a flat back, Bingo!  I was also experimenting at home with making shawl pins so I had some jewelry wire.  After making a couple of small spirals for the ends of the pins I realized that I could fashion my own bail pretty easily out of wire.  And so it began.

 So here are the supplies I use.  A clear nail polish top coat (I use NYC because it is cheap), your nail polish of choice (I just used one color to demo), Jewelry wire (20 gauge), E-6000 (because it will glue anything to anything), jewelry tools, your glass beads (I talk about the sizing later).

 So if you have your bag of the floral beads, there will be some in there that are not suitable for making jewelry.  Some of the beads have a irridescent quality to them.  Those are bad, you want ones that are clear.  Make sure the back of the bead is flat and doesn't have any cracks or big wrinkles.  Make sure the glass is clear and free of bubbles.  Once you've done that, paint the back of your "cabochon" with a smooth layer of the top coat.  Make sure there aren't any bubbles.  You are doing this to provide a smooth surface to paint onto and to give something for the polish to stick to. 

Polish is Kleancolor in Bite Me

 Once the top coat has dried, paint with your  polish.  A lot of the ones I make I will do a layer of glitter or crackle.  You want to lay those down first.  You are essentially painting these backwards.  So always sparkle then nail polish.  And you want to let these try in between coats.  Don't paint it on too thick or you will end up with bubbles.  You can do as many layers of glitter and polish as you want.  Just go slow, paint thin and let try.  The same way you would paint your nails.  If you are finding that your polish is not very opaque, you can put on a coat of white or black to fix it.  Also you would be amazed at how many glitters look absolutely amazing over black.  China Glaze Prismatics and Wet N Wild Bejeweled.  Kind of meh by themselves, OMG over black (CG and I can't find WnW). 

 Once you have all the nail polish you want on there, do another coat of clear top coat.  Make sure you completely cover the color.

 To make your bail.  I cut off a piece of wire that is about an inch and a half long (I don't measure).  I use the round nose pliers to start making a little coil by pinching the end and then twisting.

 I use my favorite pliers to make the coil bigger by winding it around itself. 

 Once I'm about 2/3rds of the way up the wire, I make the other end by wrapping it around the wide bottom of the round nose pliers.

 I then go back to the coil side and keep going until it is closer to the top. 

 Once the nail polish is completely dry (I usually try to let it sit for about 24 hours after I have put on the last coat) I use E-6000 to glue.  Follow the manufacturers' instructions.  I do a little dab on the bail and a little bit on the stone.  These then have to sit for about 24 hours.  And then you are done.  I realized as I was taking these pictures that the open circle at the top of the bail actually needs to be turned 90 degrees so that it runs perpendicular to the stone so that when you run a ribbon or chain through it the stone sits flat.  ::makes a mental note to change the ones I just did when I get home::

Polish is China Glaze in Marry a Millionaire

 I've been able to find three size of the floral beads at my craft stores.  The smallest is smaller than a dime and I use them for the stud earrings.  The middle is a good bead size.  I actually have a few ideas to use them more like beads than pendants.  And the largest ones are bigger than a quarter and make good pendants by themselves. 

You could also glue them to different findings.  I have yet to find any ring settings around here and might have to resort to buying them online.  But I found these stud settings are the best of the earrings.  They are a bit heavy and the wide flat back helps them sit better in your ear.  I think I am going to try putting some bails on the smaller sizes and see if they make ok dangling earrings.  I also have a few blank hair barrettes I want to try gluing them to.  But just experiment and have fun.  If you have the nicer cabochons and settings near you (lucky people with a bead or jewelry shop) I would recommend playing with those.  You would use a very similar setup.  Paint the back of the cabochon and glue into the setting.

I hope you enjoy and let me know if you have any questions

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day!

Winners posted here!

I love Sew, Mama, Sew's Giveaway Day.  I spend the day entering contests and finding new blogs to read.  This year I decided to participate, but I didn't know what to giveaway.  A bag, stitch markers, some jewelry?  So I decided to not decide! So here is what we are doing.  I will be giving away three prizes. 




Prize 1- Notions bag and stitch markers

 A cute little pouch to hold change or crafting notions.  Fabric choice will be coordinated with the winner.

 Small ring stitch markers.  Prize will be the actual stitch markers shown.

Prize 1- Business card holder and paper bead earrings

A business card holder.  Fabric choice will be coordinated with the winner.

Paper bead earrings.  The beads for these earrings are made from the pages of crafting catalogs such as Knit Picks or Webs.  Prize will be actual earrings show, but I will work with you if you need different findings.

Prize 3- Nail Polish Jewelry set

I make these by painting the back of glass beads with nail polish and sealing them. The prize is a set of a pendant and stud style earrings.  I will work with the winner to pick out colors they like.  (since people seem intrigued, I will work on a post of how I did this.  Also it is one color from Nail-Venturous Lacquers called Orange You Unique, which I hate to tell anyone about because it is already practically impossible to get her polishes.  lol)

And now the important question, how do you enter?  Please leave a comment telling me which prize you would prefer.  Pretty simple.  I will leave the giveaway open until May 25 at 8 p.m. EST.  I will then randomly select 3 winners and let you know by May 27th.  While you are here, take a look around the blog, look at my patterns and check out my Etsy store.  Thanks for stopping by! 

Happy Mother's Day

To all of my moms.  I love you all. 

To Elisa:
You get a combined mother's day/birthday present this year.  you know why.

Guild Retreat

Guild retreat was the last weekend in March.  It was so much fun.  As it normally is.  So many shiny new things.  I totally forgot to take a big group picture of everything I came home with.  So you get some highlights. 

 First off were my nails for the weekend.  They were a huge hit.  Sheep!  Many of the ladies were disappointed I didn't bring the stuff to do everyone's nails.  But I was worried the fumes would affect the people who usually attend that have lung problems.  Even in a different room.  If everyone has freshly painted nails, that smell tends to get overwhelming. 

Some lovely yarn from Bloomin' Acre Farms.  I beleive it is an icelandic/mohair mix.  I didn't get skeins with tags.  This is getitng dyed and turned into a color affection shawl. 

A beautiful skein of Sundara Yarn. 

A felted picture by our guild's very own Ann Grimes.  This is already hanging in my craft room.

I got this amazing Namaste bag in their peacock color.  It is now my purse. The best part, the lining has hedgehogs on it ::dies:: I love this thing so much. 

Llama yarn from Annie.  It is a total of 8 oz of fiber and each ball is about 1 oz.  As you can see from the picture, it forms a bit of a gradient.  Jess (who is my creative director now) suggested spinning it all up in order and then plying it with a solid/kettle dyed bright color.  OMG! right!

And I actually got some things finished a guild.  I finished spinning up some fiber I had gotten last year.  But it went to live with Cathy in exchange for that awesome bag up there.  The best part, it is going to be part of a latch hook? project she is working on.  It is nice to know my yarn will live on in something so beautiful.  And I finished the shawl.  I made it with some Noro Taiyo Sock and I used the Plumeria Frill pattern.  I had enough yarn to do (maybe 2) extra rows at the end. 

I also got several other things, but not much in the way of pictures.
Seam Clips from Susan's Spinning Bunny
Soak Heel Cream from Kanawha City Yarn Company (love this stuff)
A nice natural brown blend of wool from Marie Safreed of Log House Llamas
Persia Color Yarn from Skacel
A set of Greener Shades Dyes from Still River Mill

April Stitch Along

So I'm starting this post in a fairly timely manner.  I did the Feeling Stitchy April Stitch-A-Long and actually got it finished.  In April! 

I think my favorite parts of this project.  My awesome satin stitched slobber.  The sprinkles, which are my first attempts at a bullion stitch.  And that smirk on the mad scientist cherry, who is obviously running the whole operation. 

Other projects.

Multiples Swap

Honestly, I think the multiples swap I do on Ravelry is one of my favorites, ever. The idea is that everyone makes X-1 number of items, where X is the number of participants. You send them all to the coordinator. Then she repackages them so each person gets a box full of different things, one from each person in the swap. I ended up with so many amazing things!

First, we will start with what I sent.  I made glass nail polish pendants.  I painted the back of glass beads with nail polish and then wrapped them with jewelry wire to make them into pendants.  I do hope everyone liked them. 

My favorite part is that I always forget to take group shots before everything has run off to new homes.  I had to go dig the project bags out of my knitting bag to include them in the picture.

I swear whenever we do this swap it is like they fill it with all the things I love.  So much awesome.  Lots of project bags.  Which is great because no matter how many I have, I always need more.  Another pillowcase from Marie.  I have three now.  One more and I will have an excellent set for the spare bedroom.  :)  Notecards, bookmarks, stamps.  A beautiful shawl pin from Anna.  I love her stitch markers.  Delicious noms.  A hotpad that is already in rotation in our kitchen.  And the perfect little notion-y things that all knitters need. 

Thank you everyone again.  I have to say it was an amazingly successful swap.  I can't wait to do it again.