I love colourful winter accessories, I somehow need them to cheer me up in cold and grey weather. This winter scarf I crocheted with wool I spun on my spinning wheel. I started spinning when we moved to the UK 8 years ago. Someone sold me her spinning wheel and I’ve used it every winter since.
I always look for a bit different fabric when I want to make a pair of trousers, so I was happy to find this really beautiful, slightly shiny, denim fabric with tiny dots. Although it’s not organic, it’s oeko-tex certified meaning that the fabric was tested for harmful substances and produced in an environmentally friendly and socially acceptable way.
There are other designs available (flowers, squares, bigger dots). The pants pattern is from Sew U: The Built by Wendy Guide to Making Your Own Wardrobe, which has detailed instructions on all the steps involved in creating the trousers. The smallest size XS fits my 12-year-old daughter. I made summer linen trousers with this pattern, have a look here. The denim fabric is from Dots N Stripes.
Here I made a leather wrap bracelet decorated with the batik technique. The bracelet itself is easy to make, I used quite thick leather (2.4mm) and cut it with a strap cutter about 1cm wide. The bracelet is 62 cm long, I can wrap it around my wrist three times. It’s fastened with 2 Sam brown studs.
Making shoes is one of my favourite crafts. Twice a year when the seasons change I make new ones for my children, either winter or summer shoes. They outgrow them so fast!
These I made for my daughter in autumn colours, using brick-red, ochre mixed with cream pearl and cranberry for heel covers (see below where to find them). The edges I impressed with leather stamps to give them something extra.
The lining is thin leather, I had only bits of different colours left, as you might notice in the photo above. Looks kind of funny, but then who will notice.
Here I made a turquoise clay bead necklace with beads that resemble turquoise semi-precious stones using a technique called antiquing.
I used polymer clay to make the beads, it’s a wonderful medium – easy to work with and doesn’t need a lot of equipment. You can create so much with it, my kids and I often sit for hours shaping figures, food, and animals that we then use as charms for necklaces and bracelets.
Polymer clay is hardened by baking in the oven and once baked in can last for a long time.
Here I stencil printed a design onto fabric with an airbrush gun. Spraying with an airbrush gun is like instant screen printing, the process is so much faster and easier too. I used createx airbrush paint pearl gold and for the upper wings, gold mixed with a few drops of red transparent.
If you don’t have an airbrush gun, you could use a recycled or new spray bottle with manually adjustable nozzles.
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At the moment I feel like reusing and recycling as much as I can. So here I made a cardboard shoulder bag which is surprisingly sturdy and cost me very little to make.
I waxed the card and varnished the paper for protection, so hopefully, I can use it for a some time.
I threaded it with paper string to stay with the theme. The lining is from my spray painting tank tops projects, I wrote about them here and here. The bag won first price in the cardboard contest on instructable.com, so exciting.
I didn’t know how beautiful leather rings look on your fingers until I made a few. Once again I was looking at stuff floating around in my craft room trying to come up with ideas of what to make with things I’ve already got.
Batik leather wallet, frontI love working with leather and exploring ways to decorate it. Here I chose the ancient technique of batik using wax and dye to make a colourful leather wallet.
Batik Leather Wallet, back
Here is another sneak peek into my now really soon to be available e-book “How To Make Unique Leather Sandals”.
The above sandals are the first project of the book, they are easy to make as there are no straps to cut or buckles to attach, and they offer lots of space for decoration….
Here are sneak peeks 1 and 2 of the sandal making book.
The e-book How To Make Leather Sandals is available now!
