Yarn Ends Jewelry

How about one more fast diy for Mother’s Day?
Having made quite the collection of yarn ends objects already (more here), I thought it would be interesting to experiment a bit further with my trusted paste and colorful ends, and make something different.
I loved how my experiment turned out, hence my sharing this quick little project with you here.

First you make the paste that will glue all your yarn ends into the desired shape (tutorial in English here, in Dutch here). As soon as this is cooled off, get out your baking sheet, baking paper, cookie cutters and yarn ends.
Cutters that do not have too many corners and angles work best – the hearts were a good choice.                                    

Make sure all yarn ends are “pasted” well, put a not too thick layer into the cookie cutter, verify that it’s totally filled. Carefully remove the cookie cutter – if necessary, this is the time to make little adjustments to your brooch-to-be. Also, if you want to make a necklace, you’ll want to punch a little hole into your yarn ends heart now.Let everything dry overnight/24 hrs. Remove carefully from the baking paper, glue the brooch pin back to the back of your yarn ends brooch (I used my glue gun). I’ve varnished my first batch of brooches, using an acrylic varnish  (the kind painters use). It worked really well, but it took days before the distinct varnish-smell was gone….. So, for my second batch I simply used nail polish, and that work perfect too – and way less of a nasty smell;)
I even found old&inexpensive nail polish that had some glitter: did the job as well!Happy crafting!
Love,
Marianne xx

PS: a nice way to gift your lovely brooches: my other Mother’s Day diy, the treasure boxes :)

KreaDoe – Yarn Ends Bowl

From October 28 – November 1, 2015 the biggest annual craft & hobby fair in The Netherlands is going to be held again in “De Jaarbeurshallen” in Utrecht: KreaDoe.
Whether you love to crochet, knit, sew, make cards, design jewellery, or bake cakes, well basically ànything creative: you’ll find it there. A true paradise for any creative person!

It’s not the kind of fair that you visit to only wátch beautiful stuff (which is fun in itself, of course), no: there’s a wealth of workshops and activities, meet&greets going on as well – now, that’s what we really love, don’t we?

And the coolest thing happened: I was asked to blog for KreaDoe, together with some other bloggers, like JipbyJan, DraadenPraat, Dendennis, LotteHaakt, ConfettiLab, all of us sharing a couple of our favorite diy’s, that are now nicely being gathered in one place.
I’m sure you’ll all be inspired by just the beautiful photos of these pretty do-it-yourself projects – just a little note for you non-Dutch readers: you will have to turn Google Translate on.

My very first blog post for KreaDoe was published last week, and it’s a personal favorite: how to make a yarn ends bowl.
I think I’ve made 3 big ones and 4 smaller ones so far (plus a lamp, hearts, votives, you can read about that here) and I still love making them. As a matter of fact, the container that holds my yarn ends is filled to the brim, so there’s some more yarn ends play in my foreseeable future.

To make the bowl, you can find the English diy here, and the Dutch version here. Thanks to KreaDoe the tutorial is available in both languages now! Have fun!

I’m working on my second blog post for KreaDoe right this moment, and will let you know here as soon as it’s published. I’ll have a little giveaway (well, actually two) ready for you then as well …..

On top of all this: me blogging for KreaDoe means there’s something in it for you too!
If you order your tickets by clicking on the KreaDoe banner or this link, you won’t pay the regular price of Eur. 12,50 per ticket, but you’ll get yours for just Eur. 10,00 each.
A Eur. 2,50 discount per ticket’s pretty nice, I’d say.

Now, I’m planning to visit KreaDoe on Thursday October 29, and wouldn’t it be lovely to see you there in person? Please let me know if you’re going – very much looking forward to it!

Love,
Marianne xx

Yarn ends

Having played with yarn ends before (diy and links here) and finding the container that houses the snippets of my crochet filled to the brim, I played again and what delightful play it was!
This time I not only used cotton yarn ends, but had a try with some acrylic ones as well. Strangely enough these were harder to “sculpt” around the objects I used, but with a little extra effort they turned out ok too.

I made two votives (using simple glasses as their molds) and a matching small bowl (see first photo).

The photo I made of them at night – lighted – is not the best, but does show how nice they look when the little tealights inside are lit.
Another experiment came out rather lovely too: I bought an inexpensive lamp (here) and covered the lampshade with yarnends – I’m pretty chuffed with the result!
                   Leaving you with a couple more photos, just because …..
Happy crafting!

Love,
Marianne

Yarn bowl

Feeling crafty yesterday morning (thank you, Allison Sadler and “make-it-sewcial Mondays“), I decided to do what I have been wanting to do for a lóng time: use the yarn ends I’ve been saving up for ages and turn them into a bowl. Yes, that’s right, a bowl!

I came across this fabulous idea months and months ago on the wonderful blog of Elisabeth Andrée and pinned it to my “DIY/crafts Pinterest board“.
Time to open the pin and get started!
Elisabeth Andrée’s tutorial links back to yet another beautiful blog, by Carolyn and gives you the “recipe” to make the paste with which the yarn ends are sort of glued together to form a bowl. On Carolyn’s blog you can see that you don’t necessarily need yarn ends, you can very well use long strands of yarn and stick to one color as well.

You’ll be perfectly fine, just following Elisabeth Andrée’s and Carolyn’s instructions, but I just want to show you how things looked here when I got started and moreover, show you the result! I’ll be pretty much bombarding this post with photos, but that way you’ll get the picture – ;) – even better!

So, I got everything I needed: yarn ends …..
                    
as well as the ingredients to make the paste with …..

Then, following the “recipe“, I mixed and cooked the paste and let it cool …..

Prepared the bowl(s) by covering the outside(s) with plastic wrap, making sure to cover all of the bowl(s) …..
Placed the bowl(s) on aluminum foil (so the paste could safely drip) …..
After all these preparations, it was time to  p l a y!
I picked up a handful of yarn ends, got another handful of the paste and mixed them in my hands, making sure every piece of yarn was soaked with the paste. Then little by little I covered my first bowl with the gooey yarn ends, feeling like some sort of sculptor, really.

After all this sculpting, the hardest part came …… finding the patience to let them dry! When I had finished my first (big) bowl, I very quickly got the feeling that I might have sculpted a bit to thick a layer onto the bowl. Since there were enough yarn ends ànd paste left, I prepared another, smaller bowl and made sure its layer of yarn-paste was considerably thinner. The first bowl is drying nicely, but is still not totally dry – after almost 48 hours!
However, the second, smaller bowl with the thinner layer was completely dry this morning and so the exciting task of removing the yarn shell from the bowl started. Nervous moment, I can tell you ……
But, the bowl came off nicely though, after which I carefully removed the plastic wrap from the inside of the bowl and T A D A H!!

Isn’t it beAUtiful? I’m ridiculously happy with the way it turned out!
So, go ahead, give it a try – you won’t regret it! It’s really easy (the drying part is the toughest, honestly) and I’m sure you lovely yarn loving people will get a kick out of this too. Oh ….. and please share photos of your yarn ends bowl, I would love to see all of your unique creations!
Happy crafting!

Love,
Marianne