Little yellow flowers

Good evening friends!
It's almost 2 am over here but I just had to show you the skirt I made last night... I went shopping with Julia, and stumbled over the cutest fabric, dark red with tiniest yellow flowers on it and it was love at first sight...
I had an idea of what kind of skirt I wanted and I just went looking for the right tutorial and - brace yourselves! - I found the best, most understandable, easiest tutorial ever! Dana from danamadeit.com explains it so well, I believe even people who sew for the first time can get it.... I got through it without a single mistake (and usually it takes about one to three breakdowns before something is actually finished...) and it went quite quickly!
Have a look!

Trust me I have been dancing all day and made it twirl! The best thing about the tutorial is that you end up with a pattern that you can use over and over again for excessive amounts of skirts :) Which is perfect since I am obsessed with skirts, and now it looks as if I will never have to buy one ever again :)
Happy sewing and goodnight!! (I ordered some fabric on sale and now I can't wait for it to arrive so I can make more of those!!!!!)

A new lampshade

Hello lovely people!
I'm really excited to share my first home-project with you! As you might know we just moved into a new place and I have decided to make all my lampshades myself. So far we have bought the very cheap Ikea light hanging fixtures to at least have light, as obviously 4 handmade (or hand decorated) lampshades don't just craft themselves over night...
So I had to do some research and pinned quite a few lampshades that interested me. Surprise surprise, the crochet ones inspired me most and after I saw this gorgeous lampshade from Solveig in Norway I just couldn't stop thinking about it.

Source: solgrim.blogspot.de via Laetitia on Pinterest

And then we happened to find a perfect lampshade in a thrift store and I got straight on the project!
My pattern is simpler than hers because I have very basic crochet skills...(But I am working superhard to figure it out for my next lampshade!) I started it off with a round of single crochets and continued with a round of double crochets. And that's how I continued it all the way through. I started decreasing from the very beginning, always keeping it tight around the wire frame. I never decreased in the double crochet rounds, only in the single crochet ones.
Here is an in progress picture almost halfway through:

And here is a close-up so you can see the pattern. It really is very simple, these are the only two stitches I know and it worked for the whole thing.

And here we go for the finished shade!!! At first I was worried it would look a little grandma-like (and it kind of does!) but I love it!

That room feels more finished now, even though it is far from done! I really like the soft light it casts and the orange border... And I'm telling you anyone who has been crocheting for a day can make this, it really is super simple... The best thing about it is that I now have many more ideas for the next ones and I can't wait to try them all! So here we go two last pictures for you all. One down, three more to go...

Did you make any lampshades lately? Have you got much better ideas for hand crafted lampshades? Let me know!! I hope to be back with number 2 soon...

Tomorrow is today

As promised yesterday, here is a close up picture of the heart pendants I also made.

Mikko at i try DIY wrote a tutorial for how to make these! Which is really great because my tutorials still need tons of work. Also she connected it to leather cord which I think looks absolutely great. If you want pictures of how to connect the hex nuts with the jump rings I have some pictures and explanations for you in my own tutorial I wrote a while ago for hex nut earrings. The only difference between her pendant and mine is that I used bigger jump rings to get that double feel that you can see in the picture... If you make some I would love to see them!
For tonight I'm still working on my bracelet collection because obviously I have the hex nut bug and I'll let you know soon what came out of it!
(But for today it's about hearts! Hardware-store-valentine's-day here I coome!)

DIY hex nut earrings

Hello everyone!!!
Today is a very special day! First of all, it's Saturday and Saturdays are nice... :) And secondly, I'm officially posting my very first tutorial here today! Tadaaaaaa!

The style of the earrings, with the arrowhead form and the chain to make them nice and dangly, was inspired by the lovely blog at a bit of sunshine. She also has a tutorial available to make these arrowhead earrings with leather instead of hex nuts... In case you're not as crazy for hex nuts and jump rings as I am...
For all of you who like hex nuts and jump rings here's what you'll need for a pair:

12 hex nuts, brass or silver colour (I chose the M3 size which is the smallest I have seen here so far) I recommend using the smallest ones as otherwise the earrings get quite heavy
small metal curb link chain (but any small chain will work, whatever the style) I used 3 cm for each earring
22  4mm jump rings
earwires
flat nose pliers (prefereably the ones which are smooth so the jump rings won't be dented)
round nose pliers (but any pliers with which you can grip the other end of the jump ring will work)

So here we go, step one: Open the first jump ring.
Step two: Thread one hex nut onto the jump ring, then thread the second one. Close the jump ring as much as you can. As the jump rings are matched to the size of the hex nut, it will be very small so no space to grab both ends with a plier. So hold one end of the jump ring with the plier then use the hex nut to push it closed. It won't close completely that's why I added step three
Step three (photo four): Using your flat nose pliers gently push the ends of the jump ring together as close as possible.

Now you know how to connect the hex nuts with the help of jump rings. It can be a bit tricky at first when it won't bend around the nut as you want to, but you'll get the hang of it...
Step four: Open another jump ring and thread a hex nut on it. (Don't thread the two hex nuts that you already connected first, because then the weight will pull the new one where you don't want it to be) Then once the hex nut is on the ring, connect it to the other two. Then you'll have two hex nuts which are both connected to one main one. Use another jump ring to connect the two hex nuts which are not connected yet. The end result should look like the picture below. They are all connected to each other, none is hanging loose :)

Step five: Open another jump ring and thread one hex nut on it. Connect it to the other three. The important thing is to connect it in the middle, not on the side. Because when you start from the middle it is easier to connect the others than when you start from the outside of the triangle. In the second picture below you can see how the hex nut is connected to only one other hex nut. You will have to add another ring to it again to connect it with the other one next to it.

Step six: As I just said in step five, use another jump ring to connect the loose hex nut to the other one next to it. Then as before open another jump ring, thread a hex nut on and connect it to the outside of your row just like the others. Again it will only be connected to one other hex nut, so you will use another jump ring to connect it with the hex nut right beside it. You can see it on the bottom pictures.

Your fingers are sore? You have enough of the jump rings not going where you want them to? You're almost done! And I promise now that you know the second one will go twice as fast!
Step seven: Open another jump ring and thread your sixth hex nut onto it. Connect it to the corner to form a triangle. Again you have to use another jump ring to secure it to the hex nut next to it as seen on the pictures below.
Step eight: Guess what?? Open another jump ring!! Grab the end of your tiny chain and thread it on the jump ring.

Step nine: Then take your now finished hex nut triangle and thread the jump ring with the chain on it through a corner hex nut. Close your jump ring as shown on the picture.
Step ten: Take an ear wire and thread the little chain through its hole.
Step eleven: Open one last jump ring and thread it through the last link on your tiny chain, then thread it through the other corner hex nut.

Step twelve: CLOSE YOUR LAST JUMP RING!!!

And you are DONE!!!! (Ahem I mean with the first one!) Well done! I'm so proud of you! Feel free to jump and shout yippieeeh! ........................................
Ok enough yippieh! Now make the second one exactly as you did the first.
And now you are in the proud possession of supercool hex nut earrings which you made yourself!

Now go and rock them on the street, in the shop, at home, in church, in the club, at a wedding or where- and whenever you want!!!!
If you make them and have a blog, I'd love to see your pair! And by the way now that you know how to connect them you can make any shape you want......obviously :)
As this is my first ever tutorial, I'll gladly take your advice on making it better, or explaining better. If you're stuck don't hesitate to ask me as I'm a newbie to all of this!!! I'd greatly appreciate any advice or criticisms!!!

PS. For those of you who don't want to make them, they will be available in my shop very soon! I'll link to it as soon as they are available.
And one last thing. The awesome pictures were taken by my photographer father, you can check out his website right HERE.

Feeling geometric

Good evening!
My hex nut jewellery has been neglected in the past few days, even weeks, but now I got back to it. I decided to make a very basic geometric form:

9 small brass hex nuts which are held together by small gold plated jump rings. It looks quite massive n the picture, but because it's the smallest size of hex nuts, it is actually quite discreet.
Here is another front view:

I'm planning to add a little geometric collection to the shop, so maybe also some triangles and I'll see what else I can come up with. (Did I mention I was a catastrophe at maths in school? So I might have to google more geometric forms :D)
Also a few days ago I mentioned a little work in progress. Because even when I do hex nuts, I am still crazy addicted to my crocheting - more colour possibilities you know :) - so I crocheted around these halfrounds of wood. First I was thinking of gluing them to ear studs and to clips but they turned out quite big and chunky. So I made some fridge magnets instead. Easy peasy: just bought some plain magnets from the hardware store and hot glued them to the back:

Aren't they just cute? I plan on making some more and test running them in the shop to see if people like them. That was it already from me, I have 4 commissioned necklaces to make so my little free time consists of mad crocheting right now... Which is great. :)

Christmas competition

Good evening everyone!
I made it! I've entered my products into the Christmas competition and I'm really excited about it! As you know from my previous post there were some parameters: First there was "Modern Christmas" with the limitations that it had to be sleek, modern, minimalistic, and so on. So I did some thinking and remembered my "Hardware-store-collection" which is Jewellery I make from hex nuts and jump rings. (I don't know why, it just makes me happy!) and I came up with these two pendants:

For the modern Theme I also made my first ever (and probably never again - these things are a lot of work!!!) Charm Bracelet which is supposed to remind you of Santa Claus hats... I hope it does otherwise I completely and utterly failed.... Anyway. Here we go:

The other topic I decided to make something for is "White Christmas". You don't get a lot of choice with the colour here so the exciting part was picking the right beads and getting a lot of texture in there. I chose white and light grey crochet beads, faux pearls, little silver-plated spacer beads, faceted glass crystals, and beautiful Howlite nuggets. And I will definitely use these Howlite nuggets again, they are wonderful to work with! They are white and the structure looks like turquoise structure, with dark veins and a wonderfully smooth surface. Here is the necklace I made. It's another first: my first ever double-strand!

Now all that's left is waiting for people to vote. If you think what I made is great and you decide to support me (or if you just want to see bigger and more pictures of the products) just click on the pictures, each will take you to the shop entry for the competition. If you want to, you can "heart" my product, on the far right is a little heart symbol that you can click on. The contribution with the most hearts wins.
Also, the competition is still open until the 14th of November so if you want to join just read through the instructions on the DaWanda-Blog and make up your own contribution! It could be anything! I would love to see what you would make!