So this is the first bag I have ever made. It so doesn't live up to the standards of many of the bags I've seen on here but I am pretty chuffed with it, and my sister (who I made it for) will love it (hopefully) because I made it! 

The lining has some significance, it's from a top that my sister wore basically throughout her entire pregnancy when she was expecting my nephew. She wore it out so I've repurposed it! Although it's not a type of fabric I'd buy to use as it's very stretchy jersey, and the denim was stretch too (didn't realise till I'd cut it, just found it in my fabric stash). I was probably supposed to use a denim and/or jersey needle on my machine but hey...



The daisy


One half of the fastening mechanism and the buttonhole (buttonhole! I made a buttonhole!)


The button and amazing buttonhole  OK slightly wonky buttonhole but I'm still very proud of it It's to add a bit of extra security at the top of the bag as it doesn't have a zip (that's for next time)


The top flap with lining and lobster clasp


Look, I sewed the handle on with a proper 'X' and everything!! 


One bit of the lining had little holes in it (no idea what my sister has been doing in this top!) so I made some simple pockets to cover them up for things like pens, phone, notes etc. Couldn't get a decent pic with only two hands but I hope you get the idea:


Stuffed with newspaper so you can see its shape better


And from the top


With my hand ('scuse the kitten scratches) for size reference


Please excuse the tailor's chalk marks, I've rubbed them off now. Also does anyone have any tips on how I can learn to sew in a straight line?!?! 

I am very pleased that I managed to make this, making some of it up as I went along too! It was mostly based on the wet weather bag in the book Making Handbags by Ellen Goldstein-Lynch, Sarah Mullins and Nicole Malone. With every project I make my confidence grows and I feel able to tackle something slightly more difficult. Practise makes perfect!

Thank you for reading,
Becki

Made these for an Xmas pressie for my dad's girlfriend who loves butterflies and moths and is the reason our house is currently full of cocoons...!

It was my first attempt with shrink plastic and I think they went well. My favourite is the yellow/orange butterfly cos the gradient came out really well when it shrank. I used blendable colouring pencils and some of them smudged but I think that might be more from my own clumsiness than anything else, unless anyone has any smudge prevention tips? After they'd shrunk I sprayed the back with spray fixative which seemed to work well.

I also made some matching luna moth earrings but didn't get any pics







OK, so he's not a butterfly or moth (yet) but he does have a lovely smiley face:






Next time I might cut them out with a scalpel instead of scissors...

Further to this thread, I finished my Xmas work party outfit!

I decided not to decorate the straps in the end, and wore a big puffy petticoat underneath as well as the coloured net (I'll try to find some in-actions when I'm back at work). I had a bracelet with mini Rubik's cubes dangling off it, Rubik's cube earrings, a Rubik's cube ring and a keyring attached to the zip pull on my bag

I also decided to keep all of the ruffles as a) I ran out of time and b) I didn't want to wreck the dress at the last minute by trying to do something I didn't really know how to do. Apart from a wobbly moment when I thought I'd cut the inner circle of the circle skirt too large, and many times when my sewing machine decided to give up (I got through at least two needles and needed to buy two extra reels of black cotton), this project went well and has given me confidence to try some other stuff

Anyway on to the pics! Some of them are a bit blurry... my D-SLR tries to overcomplicate things, I really need a point-and-shoot just for Craftster pics!

The original dress:


The reconstructed dress:


The ribbon 'n' Rubik's corsage (looking a bit sorry for itself after a night of partying!)


Some of the squares close up - looks like this was a white side at the start of the night


Moving one of the squares


The nets


First photo of the evening - I hate having my picture taken hence the unconvinced look - you can see my jewellery in this pic and if you look closely you can see the mini cube bits that I stuck to my right cheek!


Top half (don't know if it's the camera or the angle but I look weirdly wide in this pic, you can see the skirt puffed out


Full length (blurry) showing my blue sparkly shoes


Decided not to post this in costumes as it's more of an 'inspired by' than an 'I went as..'

Becki

Not entirely sure what to call this! It was inspired by a book from the Eighties that I found in a charity shop and they referred to it as a playmat/catchpatch I've made it for my 18-month-old nephew who loves farm animals and has a wide selection of toy cars.

It's double sided, with a plastic town on one side and a fabric farm on the other. It could probably do with being ironed on the fabric side but as it's going to be folded and wrapped for Xmas I'm not sure there's much point!

Farm:


I tried not to make the farm too 'prescriptive' so that he has to use his imagination. We're getting him some wooden farm animals to go with it as part of his present

Details of the farmhouse and yard:





Detachable wheatsheafs:




'Ploughed' field: (bad pic, and actually brown in real life)

(Why are there always loose threads in Craftster pics?!)

Veg patch:

(with different numbers of different veg for counting practise when he's a bit older)

Town, complete with river, roundabout, shops, park and houses:


Close-up:


The rope around the edge acts as a drawstring to pull the mat up into a bag for storage - and also catches any toys that were on it in the bag - easy tidying!


Also, obligatory WIP + cat pic:


The playmat contains lightweight wadding to make it nice and soft. Hopefully between my nephew and their dog it'll stay relatively clean!! This was my first major sewing project and I'm very happy with how it turned out. Will update after Xmas Day if it was well received

Thought I'd give the freezer paper thing a go - cut myself a simple stencil and ironed it onto my jersey cotton top...

I don't have any fabric paint so I bought some acrylic fabric medium and mixed it with some silver acrylic paint, painted it on, let it dry, ironed it and then washed it.

It seems to have turned out OK (the scalpel I used wasn't the sharpest, hence the rough edges, and I cut the holes with an old office hole punch so they're not quite circular....)...I don't know if silver paint has a different consistency to normal colours?

I have a couple of questions:
1. Are stretch jersey tops good to do this kind of thing on?
2. How can I prevent the brushmarks?
3. It's cracking when I stretch the fabric, what can I do to prevent this (if at all)? See pic below:

OK that's three questions but there you go




Thank you for any help you can give!

Becki

Hello all,

I need some help and advice on my Xmas party outfit please

Our theme this year is 'Club Tropicana' which I've taken to mean 80s style. The dress code is anything from normal party attire to full-on fancy dress, so I've decided to buy an 80s style dress on eBay and modify it so it still passes as a normal dress but has a Rubik's Cube influence.

This is my dress:

These are Rubik's Cubes for those not in the know
Rubik's Cubes

I'm figuring I'll keep the top much as it is, but wear it so it's actually off the shoulder. As I am rather blessed in the bosom department I'm going to need to wear a bra, which I would like to hide with wide black straps, decorated Rubik's style. I saw these mirror tiles and thought they might look good painted Rubik's colours with glass paint and then attached to the straps, adding a bit of glitz?

With the skirt, I'll probably be adding another layer on the top (and probably another couple of layers of net underneath - the photo above has a petticoat under it according to the seller). I've had an amazing idea (I'm so modest ) for the top layer of the skirt - create square 'pockets' in rows around the skirt from clear plastic. Create small Rubik's coloured squares from card/plastic/fabric and insert into pockets. They'd be moveable, so people can try to solve my skirt!

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can make the skirt work, or any other suggestions? I have acquired lots of mini Rubik's cube keyrings that I can use as decoration or maybe even a corsage!

Oh and I forgot to mention I'll be wanting to make some jewellery to match, although I guess that's a question for another forum

Thanks in advance!
Becki

I made this for my colleague's birthday - she loves shoes and each has some significance to her. Apologies for the poor pictures (and the state of my windowsill), I was desperately trying to get these pics taken before I had to go to work so I didn't have much time! The shoes are dolls shoes from dolls in my local Poundland (UK equivalent of dollar store?)



The leopard print shoe is supposed to look like a Christian Louboutin leopard print high heel,

complete with trademark red sole!

We're always discussing how it would only take six months or so to save up for a real pair so I gave her a miniature version

Next up is a miniature version of a much loved pair of her shoes which had fallen apart the week before. They're Irregular Choice shoes so are a bit weird. All Irregular Choice shoes have pictures on the soles so I added a little rainbow star sticker. The stars on the main bracelet she actually rescued for me from the original shoes, and I gave them back in jewellery form


And last but not least, a rather boring pair of black shoes, based on her favourite Kurt Geiger platforms. As her initials are 'KB', quite similar to 'KG' (Kurt Geiger), I wrote them in gold on the inside of the shoe.

Everyone at work was very impressed. I only decided to make it the day before her birthday so it was a bit of a rush! The beads, other than the stars, I already had and I used an old necklace for the chain.

Hi there, this is my first challenge entry so please be gentle!

I went for the slightly easy option with my purchases and bought: 1 paper tablecloth, red paper napkins, ivory paper napkins, cake cases and strawberry laces for my edible item.





For whatever reason, the receipt image is refusing to upload - I'll keep trying! It came to approx £8.50

This is the top made from half the tablecloth, with cake cases glued to it (inspired by grenouille78's work with the coffee filters)



This is the top with strawberry lace hearts glued to it (I hate glue guns. Does anyone know how to use one without getting those horrible thready bits of glue everywhere?)

Note to self: Next time an edible item is needed, make sure it's one that you don't like or you'll end up eating half your materials



This is the skirt base made out of the other half of the tablecloth



And with layers of napkins sewn to it to make some ruffles



Sewing the ruffles



Strawberry laces zigzagged to the straps for decoration



Me in the dress, with my lovely bro taking a (rubbish!) pic of me in the dress.



2nd note to self: Consider using a model with a smaller bust next time the outfit is made from paper

Hi all, this is my very first Craftster post and I'd like to share a cake I made with you!



I had a beach/Hawaiian themed birthday party this year and wanted a cake with hibiscuses on it. The cake decoraters I called wanted near £50 for a few sugarcraft hibiscuses (not even including the cake!) and as I was working very much to a budget I decided to make them myself.

The cake is an 11inch madeira (which didn't rise as much as I'd hoped, but at least it was cooked!). This was the first time I'd iced anything since my Brownie (Girl Guide?) badge in cake decoration aged 10, so I was quite pleased with myself. It came out looking almost exactly how I'd envisioned it and all my guests were very impressed.

Trouble is, I didn't want to cut into it so a few of my early-departing guests didn't get any cake, leaving me with 2/3 of a huge cake to get through almost by myself.

I'm now on a diet

Thanks for looking!

Becki