A lavender wand sachet DIY

July is a perfect time to gather some aromatic lavender and make some sachets to refresh your linen closet. You can make then in different ways, like traditional cute mini pillows, poaches and linen ornaments or you can make a lavender wand. 

The photographs below belongs to our team member, Irina from Belarus (JewelryFloren*). She got so many blooms in her garden this year that she was able to make 25 pretty lavender wands  from just 2 lavender bushes.

Here is what you need to make 1 lavender wand like hers:

25 to 30 fresh cut lavender stems

2 1/2 yards of 1/4" wide satin ribbon in color of your choice

sewing thread.

Сlean your lavender stems from the leaves and bottom flowers. Gather them together and tie the stems tight right under the flower heads with a sewing thread. Now, bend the stems to the sides to cage the flower heads inside. Run one end of the ribbon along side the flowers to poke out of the bottom of the flower cage.

Tie your pretty satin ribbon on top of sewing thread and start weaving the other loose end of the ribbon around the top of flower cage using basic under-and-over basket weaving technique. Push the sticking-out flowers back to cage with a toothpick. Keep weaving tightly (very important since the lavender will shrink as it dries) to get a bottle shape.

Tie both ribbon ends tight around the base a few times and make a pretty bow. Isn't it pretty?

Let it dry and it is ready to be used!

*Have you seen Irina's shop? It is full of pretty flowers made of cold porcelain or polymer clay. Bloom which will never fade!

Here you will find a very pretty floral jewelry, hair accessories and decoration pieces. My personal favorite is this gentle winter snowdrops caged in a sphere. What a sweet Christmas ornament!

Best wishes to you, our readers. Enjoy your summer!

By socksandmittens

Our giveaway, washcloth & eco soap nuts! #etsycraftparty

Here is another great giveaway by Nataliya (NataliyaMalik ) ! This great set of felted washcloth & eco soap nuts is all about natural materials! 

The washcloth is made of wool. The soap nuts contains saponin, a natural alternative to chemical laundry detergent and cleansers. When in contact with water, it creates mild suds, which is similar to soap.

Please do any (or all) steps below to enter. The more you do, the more chances to win!

Leave a separate comment on each entry and don't forget to leave your email address here in comments or send it to us throughconversations on Etsy so that we can contact you if you win! 

The entry period for this giveaway is from June 17 through the June 19th. The lucky winner will be announced on June 20th. This giveaway is for US residents only.

1. Visit and heart  NataliyaMalik shop, browse her collection and leave a comment here on what you like the best (1 entry)
2. Follow / subscribe Nataliya's blog (1 entry)

3. Like Nataliya's page on Facebook (1 entry)
4. Follow/ subscribe this blog (Russian Artists blog) (1 entry)
5. Share this giveaway on your social medias ( pinterest, twitter, facebook, instagram, your blog) - 2 entries

Good luck, everyone!

Felted brooch to give away! Etsy Craft Party 2016

This lovely felted brooch can be yours if you will participate in our giveaway! It is handmade by Nataliya (NataliyaMalik ) and kindly offered for our virtual Etsy craft Party.

This aqua blue and apricot brooch made of soft wool, fiber silk and cat eye beads and is approximately 8" in diameter. A lovely accessory for a coat, jacket, scarf or handbag embellishment!

The entry period for this giveaway is from June 17 through the June 19th. The lucky winner will be announced on June 20th. This giveaway is for US residents only.

Please do any (or all) steps below to enter. The more you do, the more chances to win!

Leave a separate comment on each entry and don't forget to leave your email address here in comments or send it to us through conversations on Etsy so that we can contact you if you win!

1. Visit and heart  NataliyaMalik shop, browse her collection and leave a comment here on what you like the best (1 entry)
2. Follow / subscribe Nataliya's blog (1 entry)

3. Like Nataliya's page on Facebook (1 entry)
4. Follow/ subscribe Russian Artists blog (1 entry)
5. Share this giveaway on your social medias ( pinterest, twitter, facebook, instagram, your blog) - 2 entries

Good luck, everyone!

How to make a felted ghost for Halloween

Some of us will most probably decorate our homes for Halloween. I would like to share an idea of a DIY project of making felted ghosts for Halloween.



We will need white and black felting wool, a glass to use as a form, soap, water and a piece of bubbled wrap paper.



On a piece of bubbled wrap paper put an empty glass upside down. Slowly start to cover it with white wool. It makes sense to water the surface of the glass beforehand so that our pieces of wool could stick to it. Once the glass is all covered with wool it's time to wet our wool with soapy water. It makes sense to water it slowly so that our wool doesn't fall off the glass and stays there covering it nicely. Once white wool is wet we can start making our ghost's "face".



With a piece of black wool make an eye and attach it to our white ghost. It's much fun to experiment with sized and eye position as our ghost's face expression will change dramatically depending on what shape and size ghost's eyes will be.

Once all the wool pieces are at place we can start the felting process. Carefully wrap bubbled paper around our glass and start rubbing it. Be gentle so that our wool doesn't fall off the glass. Once wool fibers become inseparable and our white form turns into a firm piece of felted wool it's time to rinse it.

To dry it well I let it sit on a glass overnight. Thus, the original form of the glass will be preserved and whet our ghost is nice and dry it will stay firm and round. I've attached a thread on top of it so that I could hang it anywhere in my room or outside. My little white ghost turned out to be not scary at all. But it's all in your own hands. Designing the ghosts face is the most creative part of the whole process!


Story By Tonya (CityCrochet)

Children crochet leg warmers free pattern Molika

The temperature is going down so it's time to get warm! Get your bulky wool yarn and crochet hook and you will make these pretty legwarmers over the weekend so your child's little legs could stay warmer this fall and winter.

This free pattern is courtesy of Adina from  А&А Cotton Creations. Check out her matching cowl pattern, too! 

Children crochet leg warmers free pattern Molika

Skill level: easy

FINISHED MEASUREMENTS:

8” x 11” (20 cm x 28cm) unstretched for 1 to 4 years old child

9” x 13” (23 cm x 33 cm) unstretched for 5 years old to pre-teen

MATERIALS:

·Loop&Threads Cozy Wool yarn. Super Bulky, Yardage/Meterage: 90 yds/82 m, ball weight:4.5 oz/127g.

·Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick Yarn. Super Bulky, Yardage/ Meterage: 108 yds/98 m, ball weight: 6 oz /170 grams

- or any other blend of similar yardage yarn. You will need 1 skein for toddler size and a little more for children size.

Crochet hook  M/N – 9 mm or size to obtain correct gauge.

Buttons (optional), tape measure.

GAUGE

7 hdc x 6 row = 4” (10 cm) square.

Make sure to check your tension before starting to crochet. The width is more important to get right than the height. You can change hook size to bigger or smaller to get right tension.

ABBREVIATIONS:

This pattern in written in US terminology.

ch – chain,
sl st – slip stitch, h
dc – half double crochet, 
sc – single crochet.


NOTES:

The legwarmers are worked in rounds.

CROCHET LEG WARMERS:

For a child 1 to 4 years old:

Start: ch14, join with sl st in first ch to form a ring. (Make sure chain does not get twisted when you join.)
Note: Check the circumference of the ring, it should be stretched out to 9”(22cm). If it’s bigger or smaller change the size of hook or crochet by a different size.

Rnd1-15: Ch2, hdc in all sts around, join with sl st to top of beg ch2 = 15 hdc.

Repeat rnd 15 if you want your legwarmers longer.


Fasten off. Finish off loose ends.

For 5 years old to pre-teen:

Start: ch16, join with sl st in first ch to form a ring. (Make sure chain does not get twisted when you join.)
Note: Check the circumference of the ring, it should be stretched out to 10”(25cm). If it’s bigger or smaller change the size of hook or crochet by a different size.

Rnd1-18: Ch2, hdc in all sts around, join with sl st to top of beg ch2 = 17 hdc. Repeat rnd 16 if you want your legwarmers longer. Fasten off. Finish off loose ends.

 

Decorate your legwarmers with buttons or crochet flowers if you'd like or leave them as is. They are pretty either way!

 

Happy Crocheting!

Nautical style decoupage box DIY

Handmade is always a great gift from the heart. Today Stella from ShimmerPlace will show us how to turn an ordinary unfinished wooden box into something special. The box Stella is decorating is ocean themed but you can always use some other image to suit your  occasion.

Materials:

* Unfinished wooden box with a lock

* Scissors

* Brushes

* Glue

* Hair spray

* Sponge

* Acrylic paints of different shades of blue

* Glitters (optional)

* Varnish

* Printed picture that you will put on your box. A picture can be cut from the decoupage cards or downloaded from the Internet and printed.

 

How to do it:

Step 1: Remove the lock from the box and place aside to keep it clean.

Step 2: Paint your box using brushes, sponge and acrylic paints. Stella also created a waved texture looks on her box by using some paint and sponge.

Let it dry.

Step 3: Cut out your picture and glue it to the lid. If you use the image printed on your home printer, spray it with a hair spray and let it dry.

Step 4: If you'd like, decorate your box some more. Use some colorful glitters to add  some details or draw some more images on your box. Stella drew some star fishes on the sides and the bottom of the box to match the top. Let the glitter dry completely.

Step 5: Paint your box inside in the color of your choice and let it dry completely.

Step 6:  Apply a thin layer of varnish on the box. Let it dry and attach the lock.

 

Stella's cute ocean theme box is ready! A lovely piece to decorate a house or to give as a gift.

If you like this box but don't want to make it yourself stop by by the Stella's shop, there are so many pretty boxes to see! Or ask her for a custom order!

Machine knitting, seamless sweater

Fall is here and we are all getting ready for the holiday seasons. If you love to knit and have a knitting machine, this knitted sweater might be exactly what you need to make for someone you love. Lyudmila from woolsolution made one for her shop and shared how to make it with us.

This article is NOT a pattern description and is intended to help knitters with some experience to save time and speed up knitting process.  This technique is suitable for some adult knitwear and works great for children’s sweaters, cardigans and vests. As a result the garment is seamless and provides comfortable fit.

If you have a knitting machine with a ribber attachment check the manual for tubular knitting.

Before starting the project knit a swatch and do all necessary calculations. Set up the carriage to knit fabric clockwise and use a waste yarn to cast on EON (Every Other Needle).

You will knit front when carriage  moves from right to left and back of the garment when carriage moves from left to right. Keep in mind that a row counter at the end should show required number of rows times fore for mock ribbing and times two for the rest part.  When you reach  required depth of mock rib  (Number of Rows times 4) bring all needles into work and continue knit clockwise to reach required rows for front/back.

Sleeves
With all mentioned above considerations  work each sleeve at a time increasing one stitch in every 8-10th row on one side.

Machine part is over. Now combine stitches on a circular needles skipping 8 or 10 (4-5 sts on both sides of the imaginary seams)  stitches in under arm area on sleeves and the body of the future sweater. Continue knitting forming raglan or round yoke and bind off at neck line.

This color schema includes stitches decrease instructions. Before start yoke make sure your number of stitches is dividable by 8 in order to get whole number of the given motif.

Recycled coasters DIY

Coasters are a great way to protect your furniture from scratches or those ugly water rings made by drink glasses and coffee mugs. Use leftover materials you used for some other projects and you will make one more step to saving the planet!

These double sided coasters were made by Albina (GoodWeather) from an old sweater which was previously washed and felted. The main part of sweater was used to make the protective covers for electronic gadgets and the rest of it got a new purpose now!

To make coasters like these you will need:

- Felted pieces not smaller than 5" across
- Scissors
- Sewing machine with thread
- Steam iron

1. Cut out circles with your scissors, 4" in diameter. Make twice more circles than coasters needed (i.e. for 6 coasters cut out 12 circles):

2. Arrange circles in pairs putting one on top of another:

3. You may want to pin the circles in place. Using either simple or zigzag stitch, sew the edges together:

4. Using zigzag or another decorative stitch, sew through the center:

5. If you desire, make another stitch perpendicular to the previous stitch:

6. Your coaster may look a little"wavy" like this:

 7. Steam iron your coasters so they look nice and flat.

Happy crafting!

Spring Rainbow Earrings Tutorial

Today, we would like to share how to make simple beautiful earrings. The great step-by-step DIY tutorial is shared by Lena who runs SFBeads store on Etsy

 You will need:

• Jump rings 6mm (OD), 18ga multicolored (8 different colors, 6 rings of each color)
• 2 silver ear wire
• Jumpring tool, opener and closer
• 2 chain nose pliers

1). Get two ear wires. Then, get 6 rings of each color and put the same color in one row, as shown in the picture. (Photo1)
2). Pick up one ear wire, and open the loop connected to the bottom of the ear wire. Put 3 red rings on the loop, and then close the loop. (Photo2)
3). Take the middle red ring and open it. Put 3 pink rings on to the middle red one, and then close the red ring. (Photo3)
4). Take the middle pink ring and open it up. Put 3 gold rings into the opened pink ring and then close the pink ring. (Photo4)

5). Take the middle gold ring and open it. Put 3 yellow rings into the opened gold one, and then close the gold one (Photo5)
6). Take the yellow middle ring and open it. Put 3 green rings into the opened yellow one, and then close the yellow one. (Photo6)
7). Take the middle green ring and open it. Take 3 dark green rings and put them into the green one, and then close the green ring. (Photo7)
8). Take the middle dark green ring and open it. Put 3 blue rings into the opened dark green ring, and then close the dark green ring. (Photo8)

9). Take the middle blue ring and open it. Put 3 purple rings into the opened blue ring, and then close the blue ring. You have just finished an earring! (Photo 9)
 10). Repeat steps 2-9 to make your second earring! (Photo10)

Using this technique and different materials you can create different earrings.

Good Luck!

Tutorial by Lena (SFBeads)

Tutorial how to color dye felting wool with KoolAid

A great way to color or dye felting wool is with KoolAid. It comes in a wide variety of colors that could be mixed up to create even more colors. It doesn’t wash away and is as natural as a food coloring could be. Another great thing about KoolAid is that it can be found in any grocery store in US.

I suggest we start with a few bright colors like red for cherry flavored KoolAid, yellow for Lemon and orange for Orange and a few felted beads of medium size. To read more about the process of creating felted wool acorns please refer to my post on How to make felted wool acorns.

I first made colored water. To make it I added powder from KoolAid packs to the water in a few small plastic containers. As a result I’ve got five containers with brightly colored water. I added approximately a tea spoon of powder to each of the containers. Then I put each of my five beads into a separate container and let the beads suck in the colored water.

One can vary the quantity of powder dispensed in the water to make the solution more or less saturated. As a result beads can turn out of either pale and pastel hues or bright and vivid colors. It makes sense to heat containers with solution and beads in a microwave up to the boiling point for color to fully penetrate the beads. However be careful as beads will be super hot! I usually cool them off in cold water afterwards.

The result is pretty impressive. All of my five beads turned out to be colored differently. The most intensive, bright and beautiful color turned out to be orange. Yellow bead was not that intensely colored but I really like the light lemon color of the bead. They smell of oranges, lemons and cherries! Yummy!

All those brightly colored beads could be turned into acorns or into an acorn wind chime.

This post describes my personal experience with a particular product.
Please be careful trying to replicate the experiment!!!

Tutorial by TonyaUtkina

Patchwork pillow tutorial

Today Katrin from Katrinshine will describe the steps to make a decorative sofa pillow cover in Patchwork "Spiral" style.

You will need fabric scraps, fabric for base, fabric for backing and a zipper of suitable length (I used a 40 cm long zipper).


The images below show the steps in making patchwork detail:


The finished project has to be somewhat similar to the picture below showing the resulting patchwork design:


Cut out the backing of the pillow. Place it together with the front patchwork detail. Pin them and sew together leaving one side open for the zipper.


Invert and press the seams, then baste the zipper and sew it using a special foot.


The pillow-case is finished!


Tutorial by Katrin (Katrinshine)
Translated by Anastasia (Lightkeeping)