Customising rings DIY

When out shopping for materials for my work at college I came across the above heart button and thought it was very pretty; though the trouble with buying pretty buttons is they are unlikely benefit a particular item in your wardrobe because it is so hard to get the size right!

Still, I couldn't resist the sparkle and whilst pondering over a justification an idea came into my head: to make it into a ring. So in the basket it went. The store was Abakhan in Hanley in case anyone's interested, they have some really amazing stock at a really good price. Then in Webberleys Bookshop, which has a lovely art section upstairs, I noticed a tray of pom poms for15p and thought that one might make a fun piece too! Acutally, I have a whole box full of the things at home, but of course I was too distracted by their random cuteness at the time. However, it is an awesome shade of perfect pink, right?

My original plan was to use plain metal ring bases, but at home I could only find some kiddies ones from my childhood where the flower/teadybear/general-cute-thing had broken off, which were a bit small for anything other than my little finger. So I started putting my new buys with some of the plainer rings which I haven't been wearing and you can see the results above. I acutally like the fact that the bases are a little unusual.

I used the glue 'Uhu' to stick with, it's become my craft project staple during last years A Level coursework. The heart was trickier to keep in place as it is so heavy and large but with a lot of patience and mindful watching I got there in the end. The only way to lay it so that the heart wouldn't slip was to lay the heart face down, but then the glue started seeping through the holes and the ring would gradually tilt. I guess a quicker drying glue would make this a lot easier, but Uhu is the best I've found for things not falling off.
I'm thinking that in the spring I'll have a little experiment and make some more, but currently I can't wait for glove season to be over so I can start wearing them.

What do you think? Do you enjoy getting creative with customisation?

DIY bunny ears

So bunnies have been taking over the fashion world lately, particularly headwear wise with a little help from Louis Vuitton.
I was inspired by my new Hello Kitty doll to make some bunny ears all my own for Easter! So when I was shopping for art materials yesterday I picked out some felt and a basic headband. The fabric in the background is just for show. :)

So first I cut out two ear shapes in thin card and stuck them onto the cream felt.

And while that was drying I moved onto the headband base, which was a little too big to fit one piece of felt on so there's a join but I glued the edges underneath for neatness. This takes a little patience as you need to make sure it stays down before you move onto the next bit and the fabric wanted to curl back to being flat.

So after a sensibly amount of time I cut round the ears and flipped them over to stick on some more felt.

I must admit that I improvised the shapes of the pink sections but you could make them more in the shape of the cream bit, anyway I stuck them on next.

Now sticking the ears to the headband takes a lot of patience indeed as you need to hold them in place while the glue dries to make sure they stay upright. I wasn't sure if the first one was working or not so I glued an extra flap of felt on aswell to help it remain upright. When the glue was about half dry I moved onto the second ear this time joining the relavent part of the flap onto the ear first for ease. After a small while I places the headband down but put an object beneath each ear to keep them at the right level compared to the headband.

Dyeing for a little pink

No super long post today- my computer keyboard is being icky about typing, which is certainly not useful.

Can't wait to show you the results of my latest dyeing experiments!

PS: It'd be lovely if you joined my new facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Intrinsically-Florrie/441353455584 :)