DIY Beaded Star Garland

One of the upsides of going back to graduate school in the fall is that I get to move out of the garbage-hole of an apartment I have been living in for the past two years.

The downside? I'm going from a three bedroom apartment that actually had too much space for me to even use... to a 289 square foot studio apartment. We do what we gotta do in the name of education/living within our means, right? Right? Shhh, let me believe that I'm not an idiot, okay.

I'm actually pretty okay with this major downsizing though because it gives me a chance to reassess my possessions and completely redecorate a small, cohesive space. Because of that, I'm currently working on creating just some small decorative pieces to take with me when I move so that my new apartment feels a little more personal. One of the things that I think is going to work well in my space is this cute little beaded star garland:

It didn't take that long to make, and I think it's going to work well in the more neutral color palette that I think that I'm going to go with.

Curious about how I made it? Here is what I did:

First, I gathered all of my materials: some string (I used hemp), small beads that the string can fit through, felt, a scrap of poster board, a pencil, sharpie/chalk for marking the felt, hot glue, and some scissors.

With the scrap of poster board, I started by creating the pattern for my star. I just free-handed my shape, but you could easily just print a star shape from Google and trace that if you want to be super accurate. I like to be wild and crazy and live life on the edge though.

Next, I folded a section of the felt over and traced out as many star shapes in a row that would fit. Leaving the pins in to help with the cutting, I cut a double thickness of the felt for each star.

I continued in this fashion until I had as many stars as I thought I would need. I ended up with three black stars and eight brown ones so that I could create an alternating pattern. That was it for the stars for now-- next, I tackled the garland part itself.

To create the garland string, I cut a really long length of string/hemp which was longer than I wanted the end product to end up. And by really long length, I mean like..... 10 feet. Homegirl ain't playin' around.

For each bead that I wanted to add, I started by tying a knot in the string.

After tying the knot, I would slide on a bead and tie another knot. Then I would move over an inch, tie another knot, slide on another bead, tie a knot, and continue on until I'd have five beads in a row (with alternating colors of course because why not).

After every five beads, I would leave a large gap for a star to go in until I had room enough for each of the stars that I had cut out. And that was it for the garland string. The only thing left to do was to go about adding the stars.

To add the stars, I would lay down a star, add a little hot glue to the center, stick the string down, and then sandwich another star on top.

I wanted to give the stars a little more polish, so I just whip stitched around all of the edges. Now that I'm typing this out it almost seems like this took a lot of work... but in reality this surprisingly didn't take very long. An afternoon's worth of work maybe?

However long it took, I'm pretty sold on this little creation. I can just imagine it hanging above the window in my future cardboard box of an apartment, which is kind of endearing.

For now though, I just have it hanging on this palette (that I made!) in my parent's house until I can take it to my new tiny-home. You know all those tiny home shows on HGTV? I've always wondered what it would be like to live in one, so I guess that's how I can think of my new studio apartment... Ayyyy, that's a cool thought.



Linkin' up:
x x

DIY High-Waisted Shorts

I just got back from a two week vacation overseas, and I returned home to realize that it is roughly one million degrees outside. And that's really great because I adore mega-heat and 1000% humidity (note my heavy sarcasm).

So, just like any other summer, I've taken part in my yearly ritual, which is to take some old and/or secondhand jeans and turn them into some shorts. Because ain't nobody got time for jeans in this kind of weather.

I've talked about making shorts from old jeans in the past (namely in this post, which goes into more detail about this process), and it such a simple activity that sometimes I think it hardly bears mentioning. But here I am, cause ya girl wanted to make a post on this lonely blog of hers.

The high-waisted trend has been around for a couple years now, and I've only been partaking in it for about a year and a half, but I can honestly say that I hope it sticks around. There's something about looking like a 90's soccer mom with pants up to her ribcage that I find completely endearing, and I mean that with complete honesty and affection. In the case of these shorts though, I don't think that my 90's mom self would really approve of rocking them because warning: I made mine pretty short.

I've found that the trick to making these shorts (or to even finding high waisted jeans) is to hit up your local goodwill and peruse all the sizes in the racks. I pay most attention to the size of the waistband and compare it to my own natural waist, which is different than shopping for jeans that will fit your hips, so just ignore the numbers. Mom jeans are much more forgiving in terms of sizing, I feel. Also, the easiest way to find mom jeans at a glance is to look at the zipper. Is the zipper as long as your whole hand? Then there's a good chance you'll be zipping those pants up to your eyeballs. Zipper only as long as your palm? Try again, compadre-- you're in weird mid-rise territory.

Once I found the pair pictured here, I started just like I would with any pair of pants that I would want to make into shorts. First, I tried them on and marked with a pin where I wanted my shorts to come down to. It's important to try the shorts on, rather  than just laying another pair of shorts on top of them and marking them that way, because the rise of these pants is going to affect the length of the shorts.

After trying them on and marking the length, I took them off, added an additional 1.5 inches of length so that I could cuff them, and chopped off one leg. I also cut them at a slight angle, just for funsies.

Next, I folded the shorts over and chopped the second leg off in the same fashion. I told you, this is a super easy project.

The last thing I did was to just cuff the shorts up, tack down cuffs with a few whip stitches, and call it a day. Simple, quick, and mildly tackily cute.

I actually have another pair of shorts that I still need to do this to, so I should probably get on that soon.... Guess that's my cue to go be productive!



Linking up:
x x

DIY Collar Clips

Long time no chat, eh? It's only been roughly.... 6000 years I believe.

Despite popular opinion, I have been doing things though! I've been tied up in a lot of different creative projects (but mostly just a lot of personal projects) over the last few months, so I have not had time to post anything. Excuses, excuses, I know. But hey! I do have some things at least that I plan on sharing before I disappear into another inevitable hiatus.

One of those things are these collar clips I made:

Lately I've been really loving buttoning my blouses all the way to the top. I don't know why, but it just feels more fun to have that top-button swag going on. And because of that, I felt the urge to try out the whole  collar clip idea (is that even what they're called?).

The first place I saw them in action was with Clara in the episode "The Caretaker" of season 8 of Doctor Who, and while I still want to replicate hers, I think these will suffice for now.

Source: x

Can I just state the homegirl's fashion sense is so good? She's probably one of my favorite companions in terms of fashion sense... There are some other companions who should not have been allowed to dress themselves though (coughcoughrose).

But I digress. Here is how I made mine; they were crazy easy to do for myself:

I started with materials that I already happened to have on hand: E6000 glue, pliers, and some old jewelery. The clip part of the collar clips were made with two pairs of clip-on earrings that different people had given me in the past. The faux diamond ones were my grandmas that she gave me and I was thrilled that I could finally find a use for them (I can't wear clip-on earrings due to the fact that I have too many ear piercings that I'm too lazy to take out.) The chains were just broken bracelets that I have been accumulating because I am a hoarder I knew that I could find a use for them.

The first thing I did was use the pliers to remove the clasps from the bracelets and trim the chains to the lengths I wanted.

Then, using the E6000, I glued the chains to the backs of the earrings, making sure that the chains didn't sit wonky.

After that, all I had to do was let them dry, making sure that the chains didn't slip out of place as they were drying.

And that was it. It was really that simple (though I realize now that I didn't focus these pictures very well. Shame on you, Becca).

But hey, I still think they look pretty jazzy. Now, to figure out how to make some moon clips...



Linkin up:
x x

Easy Jersey Scarf

Greetings friends :]

So I've been up to some larger sewing projects lately, as well as I finally finished a huge piece of artwork that I'm so stoked about, but in the meantime I have a little thing to whet your appetite.

I know that everyone and their mother (literally and figuratively) has seen and probably made a jersey scarf before. They're one of Pinterest's greatest lovechilds (lovechildren?) and it isn't any wonder why. They're crazy easy to make and turn out super cute. So, some time ago, I had a go and made one for myself.

Results: yes. Good.

And although I still have a mild fear of working with knit fabrics, I am happy to report that no one died in the process of making this.

Originally, I found this semi-tie-dye knit fabric in the clearance section of Joann's and I really loved the pattern and color to it. There was a little less than a yard left on the bolt, so I just bought it all. I don't really remember how much I paid for it, but I do remember that it was pretty cheap, which is always a good thing.

All I did to make the scarf was I started out by cutting off the selvage, which Kitty assisted in doing.

Then all I did was lay the fabric out, make a half twist, and sew the top edges together. Simple as that, yo.
I'll admit though that I did do the sewing by hand because I'm a big ol' baby wimp. One day I'll sew knits on my machine... but that day has not come yet....

And the end result is pretty lightweight and has just the right amount of slouch, which is v important in any scarf making venture. Trust me, I went to scarf college.


I know that this is just a silly, quick little project, but sometimes you need those kinds of things, right? Yes? Thoughts? Ah well.


Linkin' up:
x x x

DIY Hi-Lo Circle Skirt

Some time ago, while I was perusing ye' olde Joann's, I came across something truly magical. I was walking down that random aisle of just.. things and junk where half of it is miscellaneous sale stuff and the other half is just... uncategorized  craft items? You know that aisle? And something caught my eye:

First thought: Is that plaid I spy?
Second thought: WAIT IS THAT FLANNEL??

Good news, self. It both.

They were just these 3 yard rolls of flannel that were only 5 bucks each, so I got two of them. Fast forward to present day and I finally made a thing:

I thought about making just another regular circle skirt because let's be real- you can never have enough of those. Or at least that's just what I keep telling myself so that I can sleep better at night. This time though, I decided to try out a hi-lo style and I'm per' excited about the result. So here is how it went!

I started off by rolling out my fabric just to see the dimensions and I made a paper pattern. For how to make the paper pattern and do your measurements, you can refer to my post about making circle skirts.

I then [with the help of Kitty] cut out just one quarter of my skirt. How I did this was instead of folding my fabric at all, I laid my quarter-skirt pattern out on just one layer of fabric and cut it out. No folding or anything required.

After cutting out the one quarter, I proceeded to flip and lay my pattern down again and cut out a second quarter. These two regular pieces are what I used for the high front of the skirt.

For the back of my skirt, the "lo" part of the hi-lo equation, I started out by tracing out my quarter-pattern twice right next to each other, flipping halfway through the process so that I traced out a half circle instead of just the quarter circles like I did for the front of the skirt. Now, instead of cutting the exact shape of my pattern, I cut it so that the back angled down further, so that it would create a low effect.

I forgot to photograph this part, but I assembled the skirt by just sewing my two front quarters together and then sewing them to the back half.

With my remaining fabric, I cut out a waistband that was about four inches wide by my waist+2 inches [actually, I think I only did it about an inch and a half bigger than my waist, but two inches is a safe bet if you're worried about it not fitting].

Like with all my waistbands, I folded the fabric in half and ironed it down.

I then opened it back up and folded the edges halfway to my center crease.

I attached the waistband to the skirt by encasing the top of the skirt fabric inside the little refolded waistband and running two lines of straight stitches around the whole deal. I should also note that I cut a line for the zipper in the middle back of the skirt before I attached the waistband.

To finish the skirt off, all I did was insert a zipper, make a matching bandanna for Kitty, and just like that we are matching wonder babies.

Now here, have a baby bird pose. Because we all needed that.

And some sweet hi-lo action. I should really stop taking photos at awful times of day when there is no light left. Shame on you Becca. Stop bringing dishonor to your family.

But anyway, there we have it! This skirt was pretty simple to make, and nothing beats the feeling of being a girly lumberjack child [if you've never tried that aesthetic, I highly recommend it.].


Linkin' up:
x x

DIY Pom-Pom Garland

It's amazing how Kitty thinks that every single thing I make, I make for him. Like this project for example:

I mean, according to him, this just screams, "hey, this is a cat toy, right?"
Yes Kitty. You are correct.

I've been living in my new apartment for about six months now, but I haven't done a whole lot of decorating. Sure, there are a lot of rocks and a few creepy paintings here and there, but I'm starting to do a few more things here and there. A little while ago, I decided to use up some scrap yarn and ended up making a cute garland of sorts. And it was actually really simple and quick to make--

I started by making around two dozen little pom poms. All I did to make these was wrap some yarn around my fingers 30-40 times before cutting off the extra yarn.

I slipped the yarn off my fingers and tied the bundle together with another piece of yarn.

Once everything was tied together, I cut all the little loops apart on each side.

 Then fluffed it up and repeated.

To make the garland-y part, all I did was crochet a mega-long string of chain stitches, which I measured against my wall to get the final length.

Finally, I laid the whole string out on the ground,laid out my poms where I thought they would look good, and tied them all on with separate little strings.Of course, Kitty appeared to lend his expertise, and I was ever so grateful. If you are a crafter and do not have a helper cat, you should really consider adopting one :]

And although it IS a very tempting cat toy, it's still hanging up on my wall! Succeeeeessss~

At first, I thought, "hey, this is almost Christmas-y" but then I realized that the colors go quite nicely with the magnificent throne of a patterned chair that you see here, so that is really quite satisfying.

And it was really just as simple as that! I'm slowly decorating the rest of my apartment, which mean there are a million things in progress, but nothing is done. I'll be sure to share whenever (if ever?) they get finished!

I'm also trying to figure out how else I can use up all of my odds and ends of yarn that I've accumulated. So if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Linkin' up:
x x