MissAmy |

I’ve been on a headband embellishing kick.  There will be two more headband tutorials rolled out over the next couple weeks.  Anyway, instructions for this red feathered one below:

Gather supplies: headband, feather, glue gun & sticks.  The headband came in a pack of several at Walmart & the other bits can be found at Joanns or Michael’s.

I glued the first feather down with the quill pointing up.  I trimmed off the really pointy, stiff part.

Continue overlapping the feathers, cutting the stiff parts, etc…, until the headband is covered.  It can be pretty messy so go slow & be careful.

And that’s it!

A tutorial for making your own tortillas was requested so a tutorial you get:

Gather ingredients: Maseca corn flour (I found mine in Walmart), oil, water plus non-stick pan, spatula & a wide, flat dish & a small bowl

Pour a bit of the corn flour into a small bowl – I just put in a handful or so – that usually makes 3 tortillas

Add just enough water to get a play-doh consistency.  Keep dipping your hands in the flour to prevent the dough sticking to your hands.

Form a ball & smoosh flat.

Add some corn flour to the flat bowl/plate & start flattening the dough more, keeping a circular shape.  There are actually presses you can get online for this step but I don’t have one yet.

Add a tiny bit of oil to the pan & then keep flipping the tortilla (over medium heat) until it is cooked.  If you use too much oil they turn out crispy, which might be what you want.

This is what mine came out like.  I use these as a substitute for breads with meals.  They aren’t very flexible so I don’t recommend using them for enchiladas.

Close up of texture:

They really are easy.  They take a bit more time than just opening a bag of store bought tortillas, but man, are they good! 

You can also dust them with sugar & cinnamon for a dessert twist.

I’ve been inspired by the bullet jewelry I’ve been seeing around (here at botticellisniece.com & here at pipeline refinery, but most of all this bracelet.  (If you know what blog this came from please let me know so I can credit them.  I stupidly only linked to the image instead of the blog post & can’t tell from the URL.) 

Anyway, whoever you are, you & your bracelet inspired the DIY tutorial to follow.  Enjoy!

First thanks to my dear Dad for the supplies.  He was awesome to share his stash with me!  Pictured below is the final product:

My supplies: bullet casings, leather cord:

I lined them up in the pattern I wanted.  I wove the leather cord in the small hole end, out the big hole end & then into the small hole end of the next one in line in an S pattern.  I left some extra length at the beginning so I had something to attach to in the end.  It really doesn’t show well in the pictures.  If you need clarification, let me know & I will do a diagram.  That might be a simpler way to see it.  It took me a little while to figure out how to make this work.

Once I threaded my cord all the way to the end I started threading my way back to the start.  Above & below, you can see (I was on the third casing).

 
Here is after finishing the threading.  You can see that by tying the cords when they re-meet at the beginning, you end up with a handy loop on each end of the bracelet.
 

I thought about just tying it together on the wrist or adding a toggle but decided to do an elastic closure with snaps.  I only ended up using one.  I just cut it the length I needed & added snaps to form a loop.

This is what it looks like on with the elastic closure.  I suppose you could finish it even better by attaching the elasic to the loops somehow.  I ran out of patience by then.  That’s me, the ADD crafter!

Here’s some lovely links I’ve been saving up to share with you all:

DIY Marc Jacobs – Dusty Dress via Outsapop

The Balmain look for dollars – Bleach Black on The Pipeline

So freaking in love with this suitcase cat bed over at Craftzine

Another suitcase project – make an ottoman! – Craftzine again

Shoes for your Balmain look – again from Bleach Black

Hope you found something new to your in there!

This is another super simple DIY from me.  Is there any other kind?  I revel in the simplest forms of DIY.  My husband came up with a term for it – fashion demolisher.  I think it might actually fit LOL.

I had this shirt that I really liked but it pulled across the bust – not attractive.  I especially adore the softness, the butter yellow & the ruffles.

So, I give it a little makeunder, you might say.  At first, I thought I would be able to keep the armholes so it would stay in place.  Unfortunately, that didn’t work for me.  It still pulled a bit with the armholes & side fabric still there.  I really needed the fabric that hung down under the 2 ruffles to go away.  Leaving the armholes would just not work.

Soooo, I ended up cutting off the armholes & more fabric so you only see the ruffles.  I also hemmed the bottom of the button placket to make it look more finished.

I will show you tomorrow how it turned out!

Normally (for me anyway) the word ‘embellished’ conjures up mental pictures of crocheted extras & yo-yo’s & all sorts of other horrifying detritus.  I usually run in the complete opposite direction of any of that.  However, my latest favorite blogger Cocorosahas embellished a pair of tights that I find irresistible!

They seem like something spun by those mythical fairies.  Fairies have impeccable taste you know!  And apparently great fashion sense as well.  Though, I have to give Cocorosa total credit for styling these beyond properly.  I wish I could even begin to look so magical!  Click here for her embellished tights tutorial.

As an apology that I haven’t been up to any new DIY projects to share with you, I’ve dug this post out of the archives.  This was useful for me when I made a simple curtain for my bathroom window, but I’m sure there are endless uses for this technique.  Enjoy!

Here is how to make nice & neat mitered corners:

2. Iron your hemlines to create a corner, using your manilla folder as a guide. Fold one hem, iron, fold the opposing hem, iron. Now you have a point but with overlapping fabric. How can we make this neater? Note: If you want to double fold your hem you would do that here. The rest of the tutorial would work the same. I just did a single fold for simplicity.

3. Mark your corner with your pins as shown – they go through only the top part of the fold so you can open them up in the next step. You want them to cross & to mark the edges of you hemlines.
4. Open your fold and then turn it inside out so that the pins line up. Your landmarks for sewing are where your pins line up & the corner mark that shows on the fabric from your pressing.

5. Position the corner on your machine. I usually start at the corner since it’s a little harder to see than the pins. Line it up & sew a straight line from corner to where the pins line up.

6. Turn it inside right now & check to be sure it looks great! Then, if it looks good, turn it inside out again, snip off the extra fabric & turn it inside right again for the last time. Note: I will make an excuse at this time that I was working with a looser woven fabric grabbed from the scrap bin. If you’re working with a tighter cotton, you shouldn’t get the waves that are showing on mine LOL. It should be nice & flat & straight. Good luck!

Carbon Couture has a great tutorial on her site on DIYing an LV necklace.  Check it out!

[Photo courtesy of Carbon Couture]

Also, The Glamorai had an interesting take on the “cool girls crafting ” phenomenom that has overtaken the web.  Be sure to read her post which, incidentally, references the LV chain necklaces as well.

Here is a new DIY, actually done by ME if you can believe that.  I was inspired by this little spot in Lucky magazine that highlighted zippers used as decoration on clothing & accessories.  The bracelet was what I looked at & thought, “I can do that.”  My version is a much simplified homage to the original (which you can purchase at KateCusack.com, price is $230 according to Lucky).

My finished version – I’m thinking it’s pretty darn cool.

And the how-to begins:

Supplies: snaps & snap tools, zippers, I was going to use a velvet ribbon but nixed that idea quickly. 
I started with a denim tube I had sewn from some fabric I had from when I hemmed my jeans. 
It’s just a tube turned inside out – I didn’t even finish the other end. 
I used denim & doubled the thickness so it would be a stiff enough base for the zippers. 
You could use any fabric but you may want to use stiff interfacing in between your layers.

 
 I attached the snaps to either end of the tube, creating a bracelet shape, which is the base that I attached the zippers to.
The only tricky thing with the snaps – find a very hard surface to use when pounding them on.
I found that the pergo floor in my office was not hard enough & ended up using my husbands metal vice.
Once I used that as my surface, they were no problem.

You’ll notice I used the finished end for the top, the unfinish end gets tucked under when I snap it closed.

 
Then I played with the zippers until I was sure what pattern/look I wanted.
I pinned the first one down so I could sew it.

 
I sewed the zipper in place.  You will notice below that I left the zipper long to cover over the snaps.
 

Then I pinned down the rest of the zippers & sewed them down.

I left the end long, so the snaps wouldn’t show on the finished bracelet.
When I was done sewing, I evened up the ends by cutting the zippers straight across at the end of the bracelet.

Lastly, I hand stitched the edges/end where the sewing machine wouldn’t get to, so the zippers weren’t flopping everywhere.

The end result, showing the closure.  I think next time I will put the snaps closer to the ends of the bracelet.
It pops up a little bit & I wanted it to lay totally flat.
But, you know, trial & error, that’s how we learn.

If you have any questions about the steps, email me at amy at amycarriere.com.  I may end up doing a tutorial on adding snaps or even creating the tube that I used as a base.  Not sure if anyone would need any of that, so let me know if you’d like to see it.

Atlantis Home is an awesome blog.  I thought I would let you know, just in case you are unaware.

Exhibit A: 

This is a DIY from over there.  It’s a jacket dressed up with a graphic tee.  Loves!

Not only is she a DIY artist, she also has an online vintage shop (Atlantis Vintage) & is one of my sartorial icons.

More epic DIY’s from Atlantis Home here.