Remarkably Domestic

Apr

2012

The Martha Craft Challenge, Project 74: Chain Bracelets

by Beth on April 16, 2012

Hi there! What’ve you been up to? I’ve been making chain bracelets with Martha. Kinda.

I will say that these are not my favorite of the jewelry projects. The good news is that they are easy to do. The bad news is that they are kind of “meh.”

The hardest part of this project, actually, is finding the chains. I went to the garment district in LA; it’s not really something that you can find in a Jo Anns, it seems. Although everything’s available on the web these days, I suppose.

Two versions, here: chain with ribbon and chain alone. Here’s a fancy photo of me wearing all four I made:

I’m wondering if you noticed how sassy I am, with my hand sitting jauntily on my hip?

To make these, you either take some chain and thread it through some ribbon and tie it on, or you take some chain and add a clasp. Like I said, really easy.

The only problem I encountered was with the ribbon ones. It’s quite difficult to get the chain to sit flat as you want it without securing it in place. I ended up using a little jewelry cement to secure the ends of the chain to the back of the ribbon. I tried sewing, but that didn’t really work well. Once I had glued the chain at the ends, it laid a little better. Another bonus was that it didn’t slide along the ribbon, either.

Practically, the ribbon bracelets pose a problem, too, which is that you will pretty much always need someone to put them on for you. I had RD husband put mine on, but I had him tie a knot instead of a bow (he was an Eagle Scout, so he’s well-versed in knot-tying). I hate being beholden to people, though. I want a bracelet I can put on myself.

So, cute idea in theory, not so much in practice, I think.

TIME INVESTED

Ribbon bracelets: About 15 minutes each

Chain bracelets: About 10 minutes each

DIFFICULTY

Easy

TOTAL COST

Ribbon bracelets:

ribbon, $1.99 a roll
chain, $4.00/yd
Jewelry Cement, $6.91/tube

Total cost = $12.90

Chain necklace:

chain $4.00/yd
clasps, $1.99

Total cost = $5.99

WAS IT WORTH IT?

Well, I don’t necessarily love them, but that might just be a taste thing. The chain-only ones I think are cuter, but depending on the chain you use they can look really cheap, like Claire’s Accessories-cheap. So I’m going to vote no on this one.

{ 3 comments }

Mar

2012

Buy or DIY: Neon Toed Shoes

by Beth on March 29, 2012

You can buy these Kate Spade neon toe shoes for $225, or you can make your own with this tutorial from Green Wedding Shoes.

Enjoy!

{ 1 comment }

Mar

2012

Make Your Own Magazine File

by Beth on March 26, 2012

Since I’ve been reorganizing my kitchen, I decided to do something about the myriad cooking magazines that I have. But I didn’t want to buy a ton of those magazine files that I like, because they are expensive!

I bought two of these at The Container Store for my bedroom, and they were $11 each. If I bought the number I needed for the kitchen, I’m out nearly $50. Crazy!

I happened to be at IKEA and I saw this:

That’s the FLYT white magazine file. Wait for it… $1.99 for FIVE. Bargain!

Although these files are self-assembly (hello, IKEA!) and they are simply made from corrugated cardboard. I thought I could gussy them up and make them a little sturdier with contact paper. Especially when I saw this:

It’s contact paper that looks like metal. Awesome.

Here’s how I covered it so it looked like it was a magazine file made from metal.

First, I cut the contact paper to a length that would cover all 4 sides of the file. Then, I laid out the assembled file, leaving about 1″ on the left side and about 2-3″ from the bottom, and traced the top of the first side.

I also traced the short edge, and then the opposite side, and cut out the pattern for the top.

This is all pretty straightforward. It gets tricky when you actually go to put the contact paper on. The easiest way to do it is in parts.

First, peel off about half of the first large side, like so:

Then, holding your contact paper as taut as possible, you will lay the side of the magazine file on the paper. Note that you want to move it down an inch or two from the edge you cut so you will have enough of a margin to fold the top over. Once you’ve laid down the box onto the paper, flip it over.

You’ll notice that it’s pretty lumpy. Here’s where you need to smooth out all the wrinkles before you peel off any more. You can use your hand and fingernails or, if you are fancy like me, a bone folder.

Here’s what it looks like once you’ve smoothed it out. Then, you can fold back the top and start peeling off the rest of the backing for this first side.

You can peel a bit at a time, sticking down as you go. It makes it much easier than peeling everything off at once and trying not to let the paper stick to itself.

Once you’ve peeled that whole side off, placed it down and smoothed it over, it looks like this (above). Now you will go back to that original 1″ flap that sits on the back edge and fold that over and smooth it.

Once you’ve got that little flap secured, it’s time to deal with the bottom. You will cut a small triangle out of the bottom at the corner, and then you can fold the flaps under the bottom of the file. Like so:

Once you’ve folded this one flap down, it’s time to move onto the front, short side. You will follow the same procedure, peeling a small amount of backing off and smoothing it down as you go. Then you can continue on to the second long, curved side.

You will then continue around the back so that all the sides are covered. At this point, you will continue cutting the triangles at each corner and folding flaps under.

Once the sides and bottom are done, you’ll have this:

Now it’s time to fold the top flaps in. Start with the front, short side, using the triangle technique from the bottom.

You’ll fold that front flap down and then move onto the first curved side. In order to fold it down, you will need to cut vertical slits at intervals so the paper can fold down smoothly, from the outside view. Note that while it looks like I cut triangles, I really just cut a slit; the way the paper folds down at different angles because of the curve makes it look like there’s more cut out than there is.

Once you get to the back flap, you can repeat the procedure from the front, then repeat the curved side procedure down the second side.

Put your magazines in and you are done!

Here’s what mine looks like in my new kitchen:

Sitting up there above my cookbooks. I still have three more of these to make, but first things first.

Hope you enjoyed!

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Mar

2012

Blog Planning, and How To Make an Easy Binder Bookmark

by Beth on March 15, 2012

I’ve been searching high and low for a way to get myself and my blog planning organized. I don’t know that I’ve hit on a totally acceptable solution yet, but I’m getting closer.

You may remember that I made the Post It calendar as an editorial calendar, but I wasn’t entirely satisfied with that. It was so enormous. Then, I found this great post from Beckie at Infarrantly Creative with a custom blog planner that she developed and offers as a free download on her site. Brilliant! She even has a video about how to use it. And, since she’s a creative blogger, her planner is tailored to those of us who do projects and then blog them.

To be honest, I didn’t even really understand how she put hers all together– it’s brilliant and spiral-bound and has tear-out sheets and everything. (Things are also complicated by the fact that she’s left-handed, so she made everything custom for that element.) But I loved the main idea, which was to have a monthly editorial calendar on one side and a weekly plan on the other side. That I could work with.

The weekly plan was essentially what was missing from my Post It calendar; seeing an overview is great, but when you are doing projects and blogging them, you need to know what needs to be created and what needs to be written up. And often, these aren’t the same things at the same time.

My main trouble with getting organized is juggling these different aspects of running a crafty blog. There really are at least three parts to making these posts: 1) doing the project, 2) photographing the project (and touching up these photos, which sometimes takes longer than shooting them), and 3) writing up the post. What, ideally, I’d like to be doing during any given week is writing up posts for projects I completed last week and doing the projects I will post the following week. So, it takes some juggling, and I haven’t mastered it yet.

So, I made a few changes to her pages; mostly changing font and some of the categories she has on her pages, and then I printed them out. I’ve discovered that I need to make more changes, and I’m planning on doing a screencast tutorial for how to create your own weekly planner page template in a free, online editor, if you all would be interested in that.

But, in the meantime, the other thing I found I needed was a bookmark. Or a binder mark, to be precise. I put all my stuff in a binder instead of spiral-binding (?) it. But what you end up with are half your pages facing one direction and half of them facing another, so that when you open to your current page you have a spread of two pages, one with a monthly calendar and one with the weekly planner.

So, I needed a marker so that I could open right to this double-spread. But you don’t want a simple divider, since you want to be able to see both pages simultaneously. So you need one of those see through bookmark kinda things that clip in, or something similar. And what I realized was that a ribbon would work great. And so I got to work.

Here’s what you’ll need if you want to make this project:

1/2″ ribbon
fabric stiffener
brush
hole punch

The project is so simple I hesitate to even call it a “project.” Here’s what you do:

1. Cut your ribbon to several inches longer than the height of your binder (for a standard size binder, I cut the ribbon to 14″).

2. Paint it thoroughly with fabric stiffener.

3. Let the stiffener dry for several hours.

4. Line your ribbon up under a piece of 3 hole-punch paper (or whatever kind of paper goes in your binder). Align the left edges and the bottom edges. Then, punch holes in the ribbon where the holes on the paper align.

5. Cut the top of the ribbon so that it falls an inch or two above the binder when it is inserted in the rings. You may also need to cut it on a diagonal, as I did, so that it doesn’t hit the rings tabs at the top.

And that’s it! So simple. If you have a small binder organizer or calendar, you could make one of these as well.

So, let me know if you’d be interested in learning how to make your own planning pages for free!

{ 1 comment }

Mar

2012

Sharpie-Dyed 80s Braided Ribbon Barrettes

by Beth on March 12, 2012

Since you all know I love my 80s ribbon barrettes, I thought I’d share this new technique I developed with you. You can make your own personalized ombre or striped ribbon barrettes… with Sharpies.

Some of you may have seen some tutorials online about dying with Sharpies. I saw one I can no longer find about making pillowcases by coloring the edges with Sharpies. And it inspired me to try coloring the edges of my satin ribbons for barrettes.

All you need are:

Sharpies in desired color (I bought a pack of 12 for $9.99)
light-colored satin ribbon, 1/8″ wide
Goody double bar Samantha barrettes

The pack of Sharpies I got at Staples was great:

I devised two different techniques that produced slightly different results. There are really unlimited combinations and ways you can do this, though.

I used several different colors of ribbon and markers. You really need light-colored ribbons, since the pens don’t really show up on dark ones.

For the first three ribbon designs above, I simply ran the Sharpie relatively lightly on the edges of the ribbons, from the side. This is a little tricky as the edges are wafer-thin, but if you hold the ribbon taut between two fingers, it’s easier.

Run the Sharpie all the way up and down your ribbon, either on both sides or only one. With this technique, you get a thinner, more subtle line, so it looks better, I think, with both sides dyed.

The other option you see in the fourth and fifth designs above is to color the edges from the top, instead of the side.

This will give you a bolder, thicker line. In the “orange on side” design above, you can see it bleeds more and can almost give you a single ombre kind of look. The blues on sides design created a similar ombre effect between two colors.

The last design above is on grosgrain instead of satin ribbon. The grosgrain doesn’t bleed as much, so you get an even more subtle line.

Once you have your ribbons dyed (I pre-cut them to 1 yard each for the barrettes), you can braid them. If you don’t know how to do that, check out my tutorial here.

And here’s what you get: