Easy to Make Shabby-chic Place Names

The internet is full of amazing ideas for Place Names, we toyed with a few ideas before settling on antiqued luggage tags and keys.

For this project I used a bulk load of recycled keys, scavenged in our early Steampunk forays, and bought a stack of luggage tags online.
I also used:
Ink and Quill,
Postage Stamp and Gold stamp pad,
Pink and Gold Organza Ribbon,
Gold spray paint
and the most important ingredient ~ Tea!

I aged the tags first by laying them out on a table and dripping tea randomly. After stamping each one with a faint gold postage stamp I used the stamp pad to antique the edges even more.

The font I designed from a dozen different inspirations and practiced it until I could write free hand. The ink is a nice touch.

I used the gold spray on the keys and tied it all together with the organza. This is a simple and adaptable project that looks incredibly cute and makes a good keepsake.

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♥«´¨`•°..Luna..°•´¨`»♥

.¸.•*(¸.•*´♥`*•.¸)`*•.

Make your own Photobooth props

Everyone loves novelty photos and weddings are a perfect place to get a good selection of pictures. Props allow for a bit of humour and freedom, a fake moustache makes it much easier to pose and pout for the camera. Making your own props gives you a lot of scope, the possibilities are only as endless as your imagination.
We started with a few sheets of mounting board, thicker and stronger than cardboard with a nice even finish, (of course if you have a jigsaw and some wood they would be even stronger and last for much longer.) Google helped us find pictures of Dame Edna's glasses and nice trim moustaches for reference. To get the symmetry right we made our patterns on newspaper first, drawing half and cutting it out on a fold for accuracy. This we traced onto the mounting board and began the slow process of cutting.
Scissors are not ideal for this project, some places they are useful to take away the excess but we relied very heavily on our scalpel and the x-acto knife, (before we broke it.)

Once we had a good selection of hats, glasses, beards and other accessories we gave them all a lick of paint. Then it was time to add some sticks and a touch of bling.

We wanted to make our props stand out a bit so we selected a few embellishments, the plain black is very popular and work brilliantly but we like to do things a bit differently. We used the glue gun to affix them and then positioned the sticks (we used bamboo skewers) and there you have it. Your very own selection of personalized props, we started with a simple batch of regular shapes and patterns, but soon we will be creating knights helmets and other fantasy inspired props, perhaps some animal ears and definitely more moustaches.

What will you create?

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♥«´¨`•°..Luna..°•´¨`»♥

.¸.•*(¸.•*´♥`*•.¸)`*•.

Making mini Dreamcatchers

Step 1. tie your thread to the hoop

Traditionally you would use willow to make the basic hoop, I tend to use whatever I can find, currently its recycled curtain hoops. Bind your hoop with strips of fabric. I used a dab of hot glue to secure the ends.
The length of your thread depends on the size of your hoop and how detailed you want your web, it's best to go longer. I am making mini Dreamcatchers so I am using a hairgrip as a sort of needle to guide the thread.

Step 1. Secure your thread to the hoop and we are ready to master what is essentially a simple knot repeated over and over.

Step 2. Take your thread over the hoop and back up through the loop you just created.
Thats over, round, up and through.

Repeat Step 2. all the way around your hoop, making sure your segments are fairly evenly spaced. Try not to pull things too tight, especially if you are using a willow hoop as the tension can change the shape of your hoop, or worse your thread might snap. However keeping things as taut as possible will improve your end result. This is something you will get the hang of once you've made a few.

Over : Round : Up : Through

When you get to the end of your first round, leave about half a section to offset your web, now instead of taking each thread over the hoop you are taking the thread through the sections you created in step 2. 

Step 3. Take your thread down through the first segment

Bring it back up and through the loop you just created.

Pull taut and continue the process.

keep your knots in the centre of each segment it will create a triangle

Repeat until you reach the centre and secure with a knot. Here you can attach a bead either by threading it on before you tie off or with a dab of hot glue, which is what I have done because my Dreamcatcher is very small!

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♥«´¨`•°..Luna..°•´¨`»♥

.¸.•*(¸.•*´♥`*•.¸)`*•.

Paper Wishing Star Clusters

This is more of an idea than a tutorial, I wanted to make lots of tiny wishing stars, as they are simple and fun. I considered filling up a jar full of them but then this idea threw itself at me. For this project I used tiger tail wire, we bought loads last year accidently and couldn't think of a good use as it doesn't hold it's shape like jewellery wire and is probably best used to string beads on. I made the stars out of shiny gold wrapping paper (using my guillotine to cut into strips.) I kept my lengths of wire nice and varied and simply added a dab of hot glue to one end which was then gently inserted into one of the seams on the stars and repeated until all my stars hung from individual strands. I then took a bundle of about seven and glued them together at the very base (I encased the raw and somewhat spikey edges in a bead and hot glued it in place) the result you see here is three clusters of seven. They fall prettily and reflect light very nicely.

I have not included a tutorial for the wishing stars as Google have plenty of result if you search "origami wishing star"

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♥«´¨`•°..Luna..°•´¨`»♥

.¸.•*(¸.•*´♥`*•.¸)`*•.

How to make simple Paper Roses

Once again there are hundreds of tutorials across the internet for various styles of paper and fabric flowers and roses. This idea was by far the simplest and most effective.

You can use any kind of paper, I used magazines choosing only the pages with the right colours (pink, gold and white) and of course you can paint, draw add glitter to your petals to make them a bit different. The only other things you need for this project are: scissors, glue, hot glue gun and some sort of template (with six petal shapes!)        

step 1, make a template and draw round it.

I found it easier to draw and cut all my flowers before I moved onto the next stage, I found a good film and knuckled down for an hour or so. You will need three flowers for each rose. 

I marked the centre points as I went along and made sure I had a good variety of colour. At this point you may wish to strengthen your paper, PVA glue will do a good enough job and add a nice gloss. 

Step 2, cut each flower down to the centre point

Select three flowers for each rose and cut each down to the centre point from any of the outer corners. Cut two petals from your first flower, and one from the next, the last one just needs the incision. You will be left with five pieces, which will all be used. 

Step 3, Apply glue to the petal next to your cut.

overlap the two petals either side of the cut and stick down.

Repeat the overlapping process with each of your larger segments, they will form coned flower shapes. 

wrap each of the smaller petals around a pencil to shape it into a cone and stick down.

All we need to do now is assemble! Use a piece of card as your base, this will be useful for attaching them at a later date. Trim the bottom points of each cone for a flat surface, and add a little curl to each petal using a pencil.

Now it's time for the glue gun, each flower is attached in size order, hold it in place until the glue dries, make sure you offset each flower to add depth. I added a touch of glitter to the edges of my petals et voila! 

The end result, pretty little roses all in a row.

I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial, once again, other than the hot glue this didn't cost a penny and still looks pretty elegant. Please feel free to share pictures of your roses. 

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♥«´¨`•°..Luna..°•´¨`»♥

.¸.•*(¸.•*´♥`*•.¸)`*•.

Make your own Jewellery Bouquet

I gathered together an abundance of shiny things to make a bouquet for my sister. I used a selection of white, gold and pink to match the rest of the colour scheme.

Jewellery Bouquet 

There are quiet a few tutorials on this, which will probably all be better than mine. Most of them will say to attach brooches to florists wire. I used a piece of felt for my base and hot glued my shinies straight onto it, this I then curved around a box and added a few flowers around the edge. 

For the handle I used an unexplained cone of plastic from the scrap store, (unexplained because I have no idea what it was for before it was scrap.) which I wrapped in ribbon and a string of seed beads. I plan to add a few more dangling details but I am very conscious of weight, I don't want to be knocking anyone out. It's surprisingly sturdy and has survived some rigorous testing already. 

This is really easy and effective, and other than the hot glue, didn't cost me a penny! :)

´*•.¸(*•.¸♥¸.•*´)¸.•*´

♥«´¨`•°..Luna..°•´¨`»♥

.¸.•*(¸.•*´♥`*•.¸)`*•.