1 Craft-3 Ways: Spring Accessories

The snow has finally melted. The grass is greening up. Flowers are blooming. Winter is OVER!!Being women, what better way to celebrate spring than by adding a few new accessories to our collections?! That's what we thought, too. I've been having a bead craving lately, and thanks to Bead Style Magazine, I found the cutest free pattern. I did have to become a "member" to get the pattern I wanted, but that was also free. It took me a good while to do this project, but in the end it was totally worth it! I love working with beads and wire instead of just the stretchy bead cord or even fishing line. There are a few basic techniques to learn such as making a basic loop, a wrapped loop, different knots, etc. (Bead Style has a great how-to basics section in the back of every issue.) It didn't take long at all to learn them, and I've been amazed at all the fun new looks I can try now. -Ang

I guess I couldn't keep away from the flowers either and used polymer clay to make a keychain for me to carry around. It was made from a simple cane pinched into a petal shape and then cut into small slices and layered around a shape of my own design made of scrap clay. I baked it and glued the two halves together, leaving a small side slit to get a photo of my family in there. The photo on the right is the best representation of the true colors. Thanks Anisa for lending me a camera! Happy Spring!   

-Cami

Okay, so I'm not an accessories person.  I don't wear jewelry... I don't even wear my wedding ring.  I toiled over ideas of what to do for this craft for a long time.  Then I saw my niece with a cute headband on when she was swimming.  I thought it would be fun to wear a headband since I always put my hair up anyway.  It would give me a little bit of style.  I found a tutorial on Chocolate on my Cranium that was super easy! -Anisa

Little Clippies

I've had some requests for a little how-to on cute hair accessories. I am in no way a professional at this, but I do have lots of fun. I thought for today we'd start with the easiest-flowers and covered clips. Fun, easy and a great addition to your little (or big) girls spring wardrobe! Supplies: flowers (Petaloo-Flora Doodles) ribbon (3/8" wide American Crafts Everyday Ribbon "Wink") buttons (American Crafts Flair "Friends") alligator clips (can usually find by the beading supply section) hot glue or other strong adhesive ruler scissors music (duh!) All my cute flowers, ribbon and buttons were purchased in the scrapbooking department. To start (for 1 clip): Cut ribbon 4 1/4" long. Open alligator clip and run some hot glue along the underside of top clamp and stick your ribbon on. Continue gluing your ribbon all along the outside of the clip until you run out of ribbon. Set clip aside. For the flowers: I chose to layer different colors of flowers from a scrapbook kit. Hot glue layers together. (You could easily just use a cute flower from the floral department-just pull the backing off enough that the flower will lay flat on your clip.) Add a center-These flowers came with centers, but you could use whatever buttons you have or jewels or beads...The possibilities are endless. Glue flower piece to clip and voila! You're done!! Easy ribbon bows: Cover the clip same as the flower clip. Take another piece of ribbon (4 1/4" long) and fold the ends in (overlap them) to make a bow. Hot glue both ends down and glue seam side down to clip. Use a button, jewel, small flower, etc. for the center. Button Clip: Cover clip as before. Hot glue cute button on. How easy is that?! Now how do we care for our cute new clippies? You could make (or buy) one of those cute ribbon memo boards or you could swipe an old key ring from your hubby's key chain collection, glue some ribbon on it. Hang it on the wall and instant bow storage! Enjoy!!

Hooded Towels

A few years ago my mom bought my two oldest boys hooded towels.  One was Elmo and one was Diego.  Now that they are older, they have been fighting over the Diego towel... they're both too old for Elmo.

I was tired of all the fighting, so I went in search of a Hooded Towel Tutorial.  There were a lot of them out there on the web, but THIS tutorial on It's Sew Sweet was by far the easiest.

I bought very neutral TAN towels and made two hooded towels for $8.  I opted for no decorative trim because they are boys and wouldn't care about the decorative trim.  They were so excited that I made the towels for them and they love them!  

The only problem is that I only made two... and I have 3 boys!  I guess I need to make one more.

-Anisa