Week 35: Fancy Napkins and Rings

Have I mentioned it's wedding season? This week was Wedding number 3, set in a fabulous winery in Temecula.  The bridal party wore "watermelon," the bride looked AMAZING, and the groom teared up when he saw her.  It was absolutely perfect. 

I knew I wanted to make part of their gift, because she is a crafty gal.  Also, I knew it had to be classy, because she is.  I figured something that would spruce up a dinner party would be the right choice, because she's the kind of girl who could throw a great party.  

I made a set of 6 napkins using muslin, and a quilting cotton.  I cut the muslin to 12"x12" and cut a triangle off of each corner before double folding and hemming.  Then I single hemmed the decorative fabric and layered it on top. 

Sorry about the wrinkley picture.  I folded them up before I took the picture, and then was too lazy to re-iron. 

For extra class, I made a set of napkin rings. I used copper wire left over from this, orange beads, and faux-pearls.

Make sure the beads have holes big enough for the wire to go through.

I also used Alan's trusty Leatherman (my best friend).

 I started with a few feet of wire, strung on some beads (I used 2 of each), and then twisted the wire around a wine bottle neck.

I used the pliers to bend the ends of the wire into little hooks, that I hooked together and closed.  

So elegant, and pretty easy.

Ready for a party!

Congrats Smelli and Jon!  Can't wait to come over for dinner some time!

Wedding Palloza: Card Box and Bride's Maid Jewelery

The first wedding of the season kicked off today! The bride and groom are two adorably quirky kids who decided to declare not only there love for each other that day, but also their love for robots.

 

The crafty groom made these robot heads.

 

The guests signed in on colorful wood gears.

And the cake was topped with a mini robot bride and groom.

ADORABLE!

The bride asked me to decorate a box that they could store all the cards in.  She was hoping for a mini wooden chest, decorated in the theme of the day.  Luckily, I found the perfect chest in Turkey, and was able to get to work far in advance of the wedding. 

I started by sketching out some gears...

And then cutting some out to use as stencils.

Once the gears were painted on, I wrote their names and wedding dates using my most digital looking hand-writing.

And then I decorated the front of the box with pictures of the couple as robots.  Pretty accurate I'd say!

 

She also asked me to make some necklaces for all the bride's maids (8 in total).  I used fishing line and beads and pearls in her wedding colors with seed beads in between, and finished them off with some green ribbon as a tie.

Me and the gorgeous bride. And the necklace. (Beautiful earrings made by my friend Sandra.)

And the whole awesome group... (The best man was a woman, so she got a necklace too!)

We all had SO MUCH FUN at this wedding.  Maybe too much fun.  What a way to kick off the summer of weddings.  Congrats to Greg and Melinda!

Week 21: Gourd Light- Bitti!

My fingers ache... there are seed beads ALL OVER my house... and my back is sore from sitting hunched over a gourd for three days... But my lovely gourd is finished (or bitti)! 

Ohhh...

Ahhh...

That's what you were thinking right?

Now that my gourd is finished, I know why I never see them made with seed beads. 

First of all, none of them are uniform in size.  They are all slightly different, which means a bunch of slightly different sized holes.

Secondly, they aren't spherical.  Sometimes the hole is facing out, sometimes the side is facing out, and sometimes it goes in all wonky.  Makes for a rough looking surface. 

Thirdly, seed beads are SO SMALL! I probably had to use two or three times as many beads as I would have had I used the right kind of bead. And my fingers are really angry. 

The bead on the left is the approximate size of the right bead. Notice that purple bead.  This is the kind of random bead sizes I'm working with.

If I ever make another one, I'll try to use the right beads, (and drill bit). That being said, I love how it turned out.

Sunlight...

Bulb light...

Candle light...

Gourd-geous.

Bracelet Buddies

Our time in Turkey is coming to a close.  We'll be saying goodbye to many coworkers who have become good friends. Bummer. 

We hosted a dinner party for all of the Kindergarten teachers on Wednesday, and I made bracelets for each of them, as "Thank you and goodbye" gift.  

I made them out of a million different beads in every colour imaginable.
If I could fill a pool with these and dive in I would... SO LOVELY!

And I used elastic to string them. 

20 teachers...

 20 bracelets.  I love them all

But especially this Strawberry Lemonade one.

And this beachy version of Fenerbahçe team colours.

And Berry Delicious.

And Sunrise.

And "Frog Prince."

Week 20: Gourd Lights- Part 2

For Week 18, Alan and I picked up some gourds and got to work cleaning them out and designing a pattern.  "We" may not be accurate. Alan is waiting for inspiration.  

I left off with some outlines of flowers, and a plan to come back to it with a bigger drill bit to make holes the right size for beads.

Part 1

Unfortunately, our super-awesome-drill-for-19-lira only comes with one size drill bit, and none of the other manufacturers' bits fit.  Bummer.  So Alan had the great idea to just buy some screws that were the right size and use those as drill bits. Too bad he is TERRIBLE at estimating the right size of screw.  The ones we ended up with made the same size hole as our drill bit.  I was super frustrated at this point, and put the gourd on a time-out in our spare room, with all of my other crafting materials.

Two days later when I went in there to find a t-shirt, I was in a better space. And I saw that little gourd in a whole new light.  Sitting right there next to the gourd were seed beads left over from some jewelery making. And wouldn't you know it? They fit perfectly!  Now I don't even need a new drill bit, I just need to get drilling. 

Seed Beads to the rescue!

So I did!  I drilled the heck out of that little gourd.

  Filling in the flower petals...

 Adding a ton of holes to the top (to cover up an extremely unattractive flower I thought I could free-hand drill)...

And adding some tiny flowers around the bottom. 

Then I contemplated colour. I loved the natural colour of the gourd, but there were some rather nasty blemishes, so I felt like I had to paint it.  I went with a creamy base, and gold accents.  I love it even more now.

Part 3 will involve me filling each and every hole with a bead.  I've started the process, and now know why these lights are so expensive.  Parts 1 and 2 were cake. THIS ONE IS NOT. It involves re-drilling each hole to get the paint and crud out, and then maybe finding out I drilled too much, and re-adding the paint.  Grr.  Also it involves me pushing really hard on itty-bitty glass beads. A million times.  My fingers are not pleased.

  But I have a feeling it will be worth all the pain...

Week 15: Embellished Cardigans

 One of the first blogs I became obsessed with was New Dress A Day.  In case you aren't also obsessed, I'll fill you in a bit.  Marissa challenged herself to a year of crafting her own clothing, one item a day.  In the entire year she was only allowed to spend $365, or a dollar a day on these new items of clothing.  Nearly everything she made was an upcycled thrift store find, or something that she already had in her closet.  She has a gift for turning something hideously un-wearable, into something fab. She is my idol.  I want to be her. 

Anyway, her challenge is over, but I'm still inspired.  Unfortunately I am challenged by a few details: 1. I live in Turkey, where there doesn't seem to be any such thing as second hand stores. 2.  Fabric and craft stores are very limited here. 3. My sewing machine lives in America.

So.  Last spring I chopped into a few Banana Republic sweaters that I didn't love anymore,  and turned them into cardigans.  

Sorry in advance for all of the PJ pictures.  It was Sunday morning, and I didn't feel like getting dressed.  Or brushing my hair.  So I just cut my head out of everything.  

I embellished this one with some lacy trip that I found at a yarn shop. 

And I added beads to this one, in the shape of a flower.  

Close up on the flower.

Don't look too closely at anything else, because without a sewing machine, my  edges are pretty rough. 

Anyway, a few weeks ago my best Turkish buddy, Zeynep, was admiring my flowered cardigan, and asked if I would fancy up one of hers.  Heck yes.

So she brought a bag of cardis to work and told me to do whatever I wanted.  An hour later she ran into the office to clarify. "Don't change all of them.  Just one."  A few more hours passed, and she ran back in, "don't do anything too big or too noticeable. Maybe just a tiny heart."   

Seemed like Zeynep was starting to trust my creative eye a little less. 

So I sat on her bag of cardigans for a week.  Trying to figure out how to just add a tiny heart, and still make it super cute.  What's the point of that?  So I gave up, and ignored her request, promising myself I wouldn't be hurt if she wanted me to take it all off.  

Here's what we started with: Plain gray, shorty, cardigan. Super soft though.

I cut a bunch of tiny flowers out of Alan's old shirt.  (I'm getting lots of mileage out of that guy: flower wreath, birds, headbands, whale onsie.) And laid them out to get a feel for the placement. I ended up cutting out 8 each of 5-petal and 4-petal flowers.

I wanted to add some dimension to them instead of having limp flat flowers, so I folded the flowers in half and sewed a knot in the back, and then I folded them in half again and sewed another knot. 

This helped them to stand up just a bit. 

I sewed them on using seed beads left over from all of my necklacing.  

Final product.

 

Her reaction: "I love it it's perfect!... And what about the others?... Let's see the others!

Me:  You only wanted me to do one. 

Zeynep: But now you can do them all.  I changed my mind... Where did you buy these flowers?

Me: I cut them out of an old shirt. 

Zeynep:  Hmmm... We should open up a store.  In Istanbul.  People would buy these.  Think about it.

I guess she liked it. 

Stay tuned for the rest of the cardigans she gave me.