Hmmm mmm.  We interrupt all this mouth-watering food talk to bring to you our first jewellery making video tutorial, via youtube.

As most of you know, I have studied jewellery design and manufacturing and I have run a jewellery business for several years. I love making jewellery.

I have included five great jewellery tutorials in my book but I haven’t included any tutorials on this site. I was just waiting for a good time to start.

For this tutorial you need:
1 pair flat-nosed pliers
1 pair round-nosed pliers
1 pair wire cutters
2 earring hoops
2 eye pins
2 large beads
2 crystal rondelles
2 small crystal beads

I hope you enjoy. If you guys want more jewellery tutorials I will make and upload more in the next few weeks.

Mia
xxx

PS We’ll be back with a great big upload in a few days time of more recipes and cooking adventures.  Until then, make a pair of earrings or two or three.

Customising denim is so much fun. We went to a thrift store and bought a pile of jeans to play around with. This made the whole exercise affordable and we weren’t too worried about the outcome – and we can always use the scraps for sewing bags and making softies.

Tips for Cutting Off Your Jeans
1. Cut them longer than you want them and then cut them inch by inch to the length you want them.
2. Always cut the bottom edge on an angle the same as the jeans are. They don’t go straight, they are longer on the inner seam and shorter on the outer seam. This will mean that your shorts sit well, especially if they are really short, they won’t ride up your butt.
3. Not only for summer time of course. If Kate Moss can wear leggins under her shorts then why not try it in winter too??

Tips for Bleaching Jeans
1. Fill the washing machine with cold water then add a bottle of bleach to it, then add the jeans. If you put the jeans in first the first place the bleach touches will be the lightest.
2. Soak the jeans for a long time if you want them quite pale.
3. When you have washed them, wash them again with washing liquid to get out the bleach.
4. After using the machine, run it again with only whites in it to get rid of the excess bleach.
5. Don’t just use the machine for bleaching. Also use a spray bottle for a splatter effect, eyedropper for blobs that look really great, a sponge, anything you like. Just don’t leave pure bleach on them for more than a few minutes.

Tips for Shredding Denim
1. Bleaching helps to weaken the fibres and makes the jeans easier to shred.
2. Take the jeans and use a cheese grater to shred them. Rub the grater back and forth until the jeans start to shred.
3. Mark out where you want the shreds to be before you do them. Shreds always look better (and non-skanky) on the front not the back of the jeans.
4. You can also try using a very rough sandpaper on the jeans to shred them.

Tips for Adding Studs to Jeans
1. Buy the studs and the tool at a leather shop. I looked everywhere for them and this was the only place I could source them.
2. You will need a hammer and a hard surface. It doesn’t work doing it on the living room carpet – concrete is best.
3. Watch out for your fingers!!!
4. Mark where you want the studs before you add them to the jeans. Make sure they are evenly spaced on the jeans, then start to bang them in.
5. It takes quite a long time to bang in the studs.

Other Stuff to Do To Jeans
1. Die them a wild colour before shredding them.
2. Add fantastic patches made from vintage fabrics to them.
3. Screenprint writing onto your jeans. Scrunch the fabric and screenprint onto it. This makes a really amazing effect.
4. Splatter them with white or any other coloured paint.

Best of all, make a day of it with your girlfriends!
Mia
xxx

The Finished Product
This is a really quick and easy project. Em and I had a spare afternoon and finished two dresses in under and hour and a half. The only fiddly part of this project was adjusting the position of the tshirt on the singlet so that it sat well. I’d love to see this project using a colourful rocker tshirt or tie-dyed shirt and a wildly coloured singlet under. Let us know what you come up with and we’ll put them up here ok.

Materials
1 singlet top to fit
1 Extra large tshirt
Sewing machine (we used double needles because it makes a great finish on knit items), thread, scissors.

Step 1
Cut the tshirt down both seams from the neckline to the sleeves.
Step 2
Fold these under and pin them. Hem the edges. We sewed around in a u-shape using double needles (not necessary though).

Step 3
Try on the singlet. Put the tshirt on over the top. Pin the front neckline of the tshirt to the front of the singlet. We pinned it about 12cm/5″ from top. Spend some time adjusting it so that it sits right and looks flattering on you. Pin the back neckline of tshirt onto the back of the singlet in the same way.

Step 4
Try the ‘dress’ on with a belt and make sure that it still falls well. Adjust the pins until you are happy with it. Make sure that the sleeves turned inside out are at the same place as pockets should be.
Step 5
Take off the dress and sew the top neckline of the tshirt onto the singlet where you have pinned it.
Step 6
Sew the back neckline of the tshirt onto the singlet where you have pinned it.
Step 7
Turn the tshirt inside out the sew the sleeve holes together to make pockets (pretty clevery huh?)

That’s it! How could it be easier to make a cute little dress? If you are making it for winter buy a long-sleeved tee instead of the singlet and do the same thing. Pair this with a cinched belt, tights, boots and a gorgeous coat. Lovely!

Enjoy!
Mia
xxx
PS Our advent calendar should be completed by tomorrow! All going well. And pompoms and still coming!

I had a spare few hours in front of the tv last night and a new camera to play with. I am in love with my new Canon EOS 500D. It was impossible not to fall in love with! So I whipped up a quick shredded tshirt and tutorial to go with it. Shredding is so easy and reminded me so much of high school, sitting on the bus shredding my new tan stockings – the more shredded your stockings were, the better back then. Well, I still love the shredded effect.

I am obsessed with torturing textiles, i.e doing things with them to make them different. One day soon I will post more textiles treatments (or maybe save them for a lovely little book). I just love taking fabric and playing with it. There is so much you can do to it, paint it, dye it, crush it, fold it, pleat it, shred it. If only I could spend all my time just playing….

All you need to shred is a knit tee. I suppose you could shred a skirt (if you have a slip to wear under it) or a jumper, but I like the look of a tee. Next, I am going to try shredding an oversized white tee. For shredding it’s best to use a new tee so that the stitches aren’t compacted together from washing.

Step 1
Take your stitch ripper and undo the bottom hem of the tee so that it is a raw edge.

Step 2
You will notice some loose threads running parallel along the edge of tee. Pull one of these threads. Keep pulling for as long as you would like the shredded panel to be. Then start separating the stitches of the tee between your thumbs and fingers, pulling the stitches wider. This is a bit fiddly. It is easiest to shred inch-long sections of the tee. Work from the bottom to the top of the tee, separating the stitches. You can make all different sized holes. My fingers got a little bit sore doing this. Work your way one inch at a time, pulling apart the stitches until you have a panel as wide as you want. Oh yeah, before I began I make two marks with tailor’s chalk on the bottom of the shirt to mark the size of the panel I wanted.

Ta Da! Here is the finished product. It took me about two hours in front of the TV to shred this. As you are doing it, it is easy to make holes. It just seems to add to the whole torn effect that I love!
I hope you have fun shredding!
Let me know…
Mia
xxx

I love the little paper Kelly handbags from Hermes!  Visit their site to download these for free.  We have a birthday in a few months and I am definitely going to make these for the lolly bags.  So cute.   Nice to see that even the fashion houses understand the power of giving something away for free.  One of the many things I love about the Internet – the freebie. 

And, hello everyone.  Yes.  We are officially back in action.  With lots of lovely treats and projects coming your way.  We will be getting the monthly craft challenge back on track and plenty more.  There will be a site relaunch in July.  So happy to have the free time to re-connect with you all.  Thanks for the well wishes while we were so busy! 

Miaxx 

(free dress patterns from burda open source sewing.  from left to right, jonny dress, danielle dress, anda dress)

is there anything better than a new dress with a gorgeous pair of heels?  when i was a little girl mum said that if i was in a grumpy mood, all she had to do was put me in a pretty dress and all of a sudden i became a happy little princess, twirling and dancing.  and really.  nothing has changed.  i still love getting all frocked up. 

in our family we really get dressed up for christmas.  we go all out.  i know that it is an aussie tradition to have a laid-back casual christmas in your bathers and board shorts.  but not for us.  all the children in the family get a new outfit for christmas and all the adults too.  it is so fun. 

here are some free pattern links for some pretty christmas dresses for you…

• for those in the north where it is winter, i love this burda tunic pattern.  especially the tartan one with the belt around the middle.  looks comfy too which is good for a long day with lots of socialising and party hopping.
• this danielle dress is adorable and so romantic.  it is a free download as part of burdastyle.com’s ‘open source sewing’.  this is a site to completely rave about.  it is like an on-line community for designers and sewers who share sewing and styling  tips.  once a week you can download a new pattern – and they are so funky!  join.  join.  join.  in the new year i am planning to host sewing parties where all the participants download the same pattern and then sew it.  i can’t wait!
• this anda dress looks amazing.  great for a summery summer in perth but you could wear it with long socks and a thick cashmere coat for a northern christmas.  download the pattern here.
• this jonny dress is amazing and great for a colder winter.
• you may like this off-the-shoulder little dress from fitz patterns.  Fairly slinky.  Maybe more appropriate for an evening do than a family function.
• or if an aussie beach christmas is what you are doing, try this sassy little sundress.  I am loving the white chantilly lacey version.

but whatever you choose to wear, just be gorgeous and you can’t go wrong!

any more links to great free dress patterns?

have fun frocking up!

mia

xx

I have been a confirmed Francophile for many years now.  When I am getting tired of crafting ideas from the English speaking world, I look elsewhere.  France is a great place to start…….

Be inspired by….

• Clothes with huge silkscreened illustrations.  Check out Nini Wozniak.

• Very funky handmade bags (via Glamcusto)

• Stunning Necklaces (from Boutons et Dentelles)

And.  I cannot finish this without a little rave about my favourite craft magazine of all time, Marie Claire Idees.  I am wondering if anyone has any clue where I can buy back issues of this mag?  I also need to find a better place to buy my current copies than the local newsagent who orders them in and charges me $20 for them, three months after they have been issued.  One could be mistaken for thinking that I live in the middle of nowhere and it takes a camel train to deliver them here at that cost.  Any ideas?

Mia

 PS There are still spaces left in our journal swap (scroll down to the last post).  Will leave it open for the next two days then I will send you out your swap partners. 

(Image from Korean Vogue Girl, via Fashion is Spinach)

Hi all. Just when you think you may never fall in love again — I have fallen in love with the new seasons bold, bright colour combinations. They make me feel so happy and inspired. I loved these crazy colour combinations from the recent issue of Vogue Girl (above) so inspiring I just had to share. Here are more images to inspire…

(Some 80’s vintage colour from Miss Bleubird)

(and another image from Vogue Girl Korea)

Experimenting with different colour combinations is so fun. Try this random stripe generator at Kiss Your Shadow for some fun.

Have a happy old time.

Mia

xx

PS How obvious is it that I am on holiday? Very. I know. And off on a lovely little break soon.