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..°•´¨`»♥

.¸.•*(¸.•*´♥`*•.¸)`*•.