Jewelry | Craft Chi

Fabric Scrap Fun

March 5th, 2010

After Blue Genie (where I was a working tornado) I found myself with a ton of fabric scraps. Most of them were misprinted fabric pieces. I was able to sort through most of the issues I was having with printing and I learned alot and refined my process, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to throw away the misprinted fabric which was unique and interesting in it’s own way and that was the result of my hardwork and effort. So, I decided I would try to use most of the fabric scraps and combine the best pieces to create interesting color combinations. This is how I set about doing it.

1. Get Organized!

Stack fabric by color and approximate size

Sort fabric by size. Then color. Then decide on the best sizes and cut in-between sizes to the next smaller size which allows for more variety in color for each size. While this process is a bit tedious, you end up with delicious stacks of fabric that can really jumpstart your imagination

Store fabric scraps together and keep them handy for projects

2. Decide on the best use for each size fabric scraps you have.

I pieced together several scraps to make this cool belt

I also made this wrist cuff that my daughter immediately swiped from me.

For larger peices, I decided I would make zipper pouches. For the smaller pieces, there are many, many options. The most common include Quilting and Applique.

I appliqued circles to this linen to make a cute tea towel

Use matching thread to accent the fabric color

For the tiniest, pieces I decided to use them as labels. Print the design using a Gocco printer or a rubber stamp and then use fusible seam tape to attach to the your projects!

I used thin short pieces to make iron-on labels

I also had some really small pieces that were too pretty to throw away and too small to make into labels so I decided to just use fusible tape and a single stitch to make this fabric ring. My daughter also tried to steal this from me but I wouldn’t give it to her. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen for a couple of days….hmmm?

This small scrap made a lovely fabric ring

I secured the wring with a single stitch

I secured the ring with a single stitch

Long, thin strips of fabric, can be turned into bias tape or be used as ribbon.

Scrap fabric strips can be used as embellishment, bias tape or ribbon

I used this long strip to create this cool ruffled ribbon embellishment

3.Have fun and get artistic!

I never would have imagined that I would be able to find uses for some of the ratty pieces of fabric I have but sometimes the combined affect of the fabric is really pretty. I used the selvedges to create a pretty display tea towel. The tea towel itself was a dye stained piece of linen that I had leftover. I used the fabric to cover up the dye stains.

I used these ratty selvedges as embellishment

Some other ideas for use of scraps included using pieces to make fabric covered buttons and key chains. I used scrap bias tape strips that I’d made for another project to make the loop.

I made this keychain and button too!

Posted in Crafts, Fabric, Jewelry, Sewing, Thrift Store Crafts | 13 Comments »

Mini Dress-Form Jewelry Stand

December 1st, 2008

Okay, so I’ve been seeing these things everywhere and have been having the urge to make one. (BTW – Sorry I’ve been away so long. The holidays are always such a hectic time of year, I figure most people are as busy as me anyway.) For this jewelry stand, I decided just to go the simple route of using spray adhesive, rather than sewing everything. This way, they are much easier and less time consuming. They are fairly inexpensive to make and would make great gifts. Here is what you need for to make your own Mini Dress-Form Jewelry Stand.

Materials:

-Inexpensive Craft Doll or Thrifted Barbie

- A thrifted candle holder. I like the kind with the rounded rims at the bottom. It gives me a place to put my rings.

- Sculpey or Fimo clay

- A versitle glue that will glue plastic to plastic and fabric to metal. I used Aileen’s Jewelry & Metal glue which smells alot like Super Glue and it worked great.

- Permanent spray adhesive

- Ribbon

- Fabric

- Batting

- Cotton/Poly Fill

- Hanger

- Aluminum Foil

Tools/Equipment:

- Heavy Duty Wire Nippers

- Pliers

- Iron

- Oven for baking Sculpey

Step 1 -Prepare the Torso

Remove head, arms and legs from doll. You just need the torso so remove everything else. Hmm, not sure what to use these for yet?

Determine the height you want the stand to be. Wad up a piece of Aluminum foil to act as an armature for the space between the torso and the candle holder.

Condition the Sculpey by kneading it until it is workable. Then flatten it out and wrap it around the foil and partially around the torso. Be sure to place pieces of sculpey around the empty legs part of the torso to stabilize it.

Remove the plastic torso and bake sculpey according to instructions on package.

Step 2 – Prepare the wire

Cut open hanger with nippers.

Straighten wire the best you can. Strip plastic coating from wire if desired/needed. Use nippers to cut wire to desired length (mine were 9 inches).

Step 3 – Attach plastic pieces

** First, stuff the plastic torso with poly or cotton fill.***

Apply glue to the plastic torso and stick it to the baked sculpey form. Apply firm pressure until the glue sets up.

Step 4 – Cover Form

First, cut a piece of batting to size. Then, spray the batting piece with adhesive and wrap tightly around the form. Cover the neck but it is not necessary to wrap batting around bottom. Trim overlap of batting away.

Next, cut a piece of fabric appx. 2×2 inches. Spray the back of the fabric with adhesive and cover the neck of the torso.

Cut fabric so that it is wide enough to wrap around the torso plus an extra half inch on top and on one side. Fold the fabric and iron half an inch on top and one side. Spray adhesive onto the back of the fabric and then wrap tightly aorund the form.

**Repeat for the bottom piece.** Except, be sure to leave an extra 1/2 inch of fabric on bottom so that you can wrap fabric under form.

Stitch in a few places to keep secure.

Step 5 – Embellish

Tie or stitch ribbons around waist and neck to help define the shape of the form a bit more. Embellish as you like. I glued the ribbon down to hide my seam and hand stitching.

Step 6 – Attach wires

Use a craft knife to cut slits in the fabric on the arm holes of the torso.

Work wires into slits. You may have to wiggle the wires to get them to go through the cotton batting.

Remove wires a little bit, apply glue and reinsert. Twist wires on both sides so that they become more stable.

Use pliers to curl wire slightly on ends. Shape wires as you like.

Step 7 – Glue form to candle holder base.

Apply glue to bottom of form and apply to base. Use firm pressure until glue sets up.

Enjoy! Just add jewelry!

Posted in Crafts, Household Crafts, Jewelry, Recycling Crafts, Storage, Thrift Store Crafts | 12 Comments »

Foam Fabric Beads

November 14th, 2007

Okay, so now, what to do with the scrap foam leftover from the laptop bag? I decided I would make foam beads that would also allow me to use up some scrap fabric. It’s not really necessary to use foam, these beads could be stuffed with polyester fill or even more scraps of fabric. Anway, here is my process:

Materials:

Scrap foam

Scrap fabric

Ribbon

Stencils – I just used an xacto knife to cut mine out of cardstock

Usual sewing supplies

Step 1

Trace stencil onto foam and cut out.

Step 2
Trace onto the wrong side of the fabric using a washable marker. Mark where you want the opening to be. You will have to handsew this part. It’s a good idea to leave the opening where you want the ribbon to be attached. If you do, skip the next step. It’s also a good idea to cut a manageable square out of the fabric at this point.

Step 3

Bundle up your ribbon inside the shape and pin in-between fabrics. A rubber band works great for bundling up the ribbon. You just want to make sure that you don’t sew the ribbon anywhere except at the connection point.

Step 4

Sew around the shape making sure to leave an opening and doubling over your sewing at the beginning and end to make sure it doesn’t come unraveled at the opening.

Step 5

After sewing, trim around the sewing with pinking shears. If you don’t have pinking shears use your scissors to cut triangles out around the shape, this helps to reduce bulk.

Step 6

Turn the shape inside out. Insert the foam shape by rolling it up. Adjust the foam inside the fabric. Then, hand sew the opening closed folding the edges in.

If you left an opening where you wanted the ribbon to go, you will have sew the ribbon in while fold the edges in.

Here’s some more foam fabric pendants.

Posted in Clothing, Crafts, Fabric, Jewelry, Recycling Crafts, Thrift Store Crafts | 2 Comments »

Hot Glue Decals

August 13th, 2007

Anyone who is familiar with image transfer probably knows that almost any adhesive can be used to make a transfer with. I’d figured out that hot glue could also be used a couple of years ago, but couldn’t solve the problem of the glue sticking to just about every surface I applied it to. So, I ended up just discarding the whole idea. Later, I discovered parchment paper, which has a silicon coating that can withstand heat and that doesn’t stick to anything. It was the perfect solution for hot glue manipulation. I found I could even iron over the surface and melt the glue to my desired thickness. These thick, flexible decals can be used to make jewelry, key chains, scrapbook embelishments or they can be ironed onto art paper as an image transfer.

To make them, gather the following materials:

- printed image – either a toner based laser-printer/copier print OR an image printed on inkjet Matte photo paper ( I used Canon Matte Photo paper)

- hot glue (clearer glue sticks make more transparent transfers)

- hot glue gun

- craft iron

- spray bottle

- parchment paper

- flat ironing surface (I use a scrap piece of wood)

Step 1 – Print image (it’s not necessary to reverse the image). Heat hot glue gun and iron (to a medium setting).

Step 2 – Place image on parchment paper. Apply hot glue randomly over the image. Fold the parchment paper over the image.

Step 3 – Iron the image to spread the glue out evenly over the image. Allow to cool before opening parchment paper folder. If there are any gaps, fill-in and re-iron.