Kelly Bag

Hermes Kelly Bag

Tammina brought the Kelly bag to my attention, and I find it very chic, too :)
I didn’t make it yet because I have an idea about but not the time to test ist.
Besides I don’t need a purse because I’m always using my knapsack.
But I like it so… ;-)


Links:
Kelly Bag – click there always on the picture of the bag in the Flash animation, then on the desired bag (the white one is down to the right) and for the template click eventually on ‘I want it’.

At flickr: photos of the Kelly bag

Here at unikatissima:
Shoulder Pad Purse
Entries with the tags ‘bag’, ‘purse’ and ‘tote’

Self-made Hairpin Lace Loom

unikatissima DIY Hairpin Lace Loom

I found two tutorials on how to make a hairpin lace loom (see links below) and because I hadn’t the appropriate material at hand (in fact that’s strange seeing all the stuff I have lying here about ;-)) I did it a little different:
I took two toilet paper tubes, cut them lengthwise, rolled them up strongly and taped them all around.
Then I pricked two metal kebeb skewers through those thick cardboard rolls: my hairpin lace loom was done!
;-)

At last I could give hairpin lace a try and it – worked.

 

unikatissima DIY Hairpin Lace Loom
That is to say that I haven’t read the hairpin lace instruction at stichdiva thoroughly(!) and therefore it didn’t work in the beginning.
They write ‘Insert hook under thread of topmost loop’, but for me it isn’t the topmost thread (blue arrow) but the foremost thread (red arrow).
After I took the foremost thread everything worked fine.

At the moment I don’t have the time for it but in future I will play around with hairpin lace :)


Links:
Instructions for self-made hairpin lace looms:
Instruction at ehow – from metal
there you can find further down (Resources) links to hair pin lace tutorials
Instruction at Little Projects – from bamboo skewers and hot glue sticks
via: DIY Hairpin Lace Loom: the link isn’t available no more.

Tutorial for base hairpin lace at stitchdiva

Google search result for ‘hair pin lace’
Google image search result for ‘hair pin lace’
Google search result for ‘Gabelhäkelei’
Google image search result for ‘Gabelhäkelei’

Woven Newspaper Vase

The Creative Year Woven Newspaper Vase

I like paper weaving and recycling, too, but I like it even better if all come together ;-)

This happens here: they had the inventive idea to glue some newspaper on beverage cartons and weave them with plastic strips to make a (non-waterproof!) vase from.
What a great idea!


Links:
Woven Newspaper Vase

Here at unikatissima:
Entries with the tags ‘weaving’ and ‘paper’
Entries with the tag ‘recycling’
Entries with the tags ‘weaving’, ‘paper’ and ‘recycling’

Staple Together Little Notebooks

unikatissima Staple Together Little Notebooks

Another very dear friend sent me the link to the inventive technique on how to staple together little notebooks.

I tried it: It works great! And fast! And neat!
;-)

At any rate it is a really great idea that I’m glad to spread.

Playing cards could well serve as cover here ;-)


Links:
Staple together little notebooks (Tell me if you’ve seen this one before.)

Here at unikatissima:
Accordion-Style Playing Card Notebooks
more entries with the tag ‘books’

Origami Photo Frame

unikatissima Origami Photo Frame

A dear friend sent me the link to an Origami instruction for a photo frame.
I’ve seen several before which didn’t really impressed me, but of course I took a look at the tutorial:
I’m amazed!

My friend wrote that you can put a postcard or a 10 x 15 cm photo in a frame made of a A4 paper sheet and that a 7 x 10 cm photo fits in a frame made from a A5 paper sheet.
I find best of all that you adjust the size of your photo frame exactly to your photo in one of the last steps and this way you can even make it fit a not-so-exacltly-cut 10 x 15 cm photo.
What is more the frame is easy to fold.

What more could you ask for? ;-)

 

unikatissima Origami Photo Frame Here I show the back of the frame.
When folding you create an (amazingly stiff) triangle that serves as frame stand.
Here you can (hopefully) see that the photo frame can only stand if the picture is in landscape format, a portrait formatted picture has to be hung at the wall or put into a photoholder.

First I thought about making the frame from patterned paper but then I found it a little bit silly because you can only see the four corners on the front side.


Links:
Origami Photo Frame (Picture Frame)

Here at unikatissima:
Plaster Photo Holder
more entries with the tag ‘photoholder’

Flower Flap Box

unikatissima Flower Flap Box

I saw somewhere (unfortunately I don’t remember where) such a box, but it was flat while I wanted the actual box (not the flaps) to be of about 2 cm height.
So I made me a template myself ;-))

 

And that’s what you do:
unikatissima Flower Flap Box Template (Click to enlarge)
That is the template.

 


Instruction for first box: Pasted paper

 

unikatissima Flower Flap Box
First print the template and cut it.

 

unikatissima Flower Flap Box
I wanted to have a Chinese box so I pasted the outside up with some Chinese newspapers that I stained with tea before (see links below).
Of course you can paste the paper up with gift wrapping, snippets from ads and so on, too.
I suggest to paste a second layer on the paper in any case to get it sturdier or to use thin cardboard.

 

unikatissima Flower Flap Box
When having pasted up all four flaps you can pre-fold the box. This way it will be easier to glue the tags.

 

unikatissima Flower Flap Box
Here is the glue setting.
You can see that I didn’t paste up the inside.

 

unikatissima Flower Flap Box
And that is the box in its full beauty ;-)
I suggest to let the glue set well because there will be some strain when you close the box and the tags can get unfixed.

Instruction for second box: Thin cardboard

 

unikatissima Flower Flap Box
After the first box I felt like making a box from thin cardboard.
The cardboard is from the wrapping of a pair of trousers I bought and I liked the colours of the printed picture.
So I put my printed and cut template on the cardboard, copied it and cut the cardboard along the lines.

 

unikatissima Flower Flap Box
I pre-folded the folding lines to get better folds.

 

unikatissima Flower Flap Box
Then I simply folded the box without glueing the tags.
The red arrow shows that there originates a gap.
Depending on what you want you can leave the box at that, the tags make sure that in spite of the gaps nothing will drop ;-)

 

unikatissima Flower Flap Box
Here I glue the tags to see what happens.
The box always got apart until I fastened it with an elastic.
The glue could set this way better.

 

unikatissima Flower Flap Box
And that is my second little box.
You can see at the edges that it is a properly closed box now ;-)

 


Links:
Here on this site:
Instruction for first box: Pasted paper
Instruction for second box: Thin cardboard
Template to print

Stain paper with tea
Tea Staining Your Art Journal Pages
Tea Stain Paper

Cross Stitch Patterns Treasures

myauntsattic Cross Stitch Patterns

I found a blog where the author fetched the cross stitch patterns of an old aunt from the attic and published them.
I saw beautiful patterns thereby and it’s not as if you had to work cross stitch only with the patterns ;-)

The blog is written in Netherlands and English (the italic text), but the patterns can be recognized anyhow ;-))


Links:
Cross Stitch Patterns Treasures (Tantes zolder) (Netherlands and English)

Here at unikatissima:
What Can You Do With Filet Crochet/Cross Stitch Embroidery Charts?

Making Paper Beads

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads

After I’ve made my paper beads roller that I presented yesterday I played around with paper beads a little more.

I prefer the tube beads anyway (marginally ;-)) and after having seen the paper bead designer I thought: ‘Yes, a little bit of colour is enough, you can’t see the rest anyway.’

So I quickly made me some doodle paper beads ;-)

And that’s what you do:

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
First I took two sheets of plain printer paper and simply doodled at one side with a blue ballpoint pen.

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
Then I cut the sheets in strips of the same width…

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
… and rolled my paper strips with my nifty paper bead roller in a wonderful short time.

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
Of course the hole of the bead is split into two holes, too, because my bead roller consists of two halves.

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
I ‘stirred’ the hole again with a toothpick so that only one big hole remained.

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
Somehow I didn’t want to use the glue excess as varnish for the beads, so I used a simple glue stick and covered the beads afterwards with medium gel. Here you can see them drying.
My potted palm got special leave on my balcony for it ;-)

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
Although I find my doodled paper beads beautiful I thought that I would look boring if I string only them, therefore I made some additional easy Peyote beads.

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
Looks good, doesn’t it? ;-)
I wasn’t sure yet what I would do with my beads on this photo.

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
It became a bracelet in the end. I simply strung the beads on an elastic and hid the knot in a bead.

 

unikatissima Doodled Paper Beads
And here an ‘action shot’ ;-)
It’s not so easy to take a good photo of your own arm ;-))

 

After I had finished with my doodled paper beads I thought, that this was a great way to make a lot of matching paper beads from advertising flyers.

 

unikatissima Magazine Paper Beads
So I picked an ad with a photo of bed sheets where I liked the clour scheme.

 

unikatissima Magazine Paper Beads
Then I measured the circumference of my doodled paper beads with a string and cut strips from the ad a little broader than necessary.

 

unikatissima Magazine Paper Beads
I glued the strips from the ad at one side of a plain printer paper sheet and cut the resulting papers in (in this case) 1 cm broad strips, because I wanted to have little beads.

 

unikatissima Magazine Paper Beads
I glued some patches from the rest of my ad on details that I didn’t like, they won’t to be seen on the bead.

 

unikatissima Magazine Paper Beads
Here my beads are drying on a wire because I cut about 80 paper strips and I don’t have enough toothpicks or plants for the drying process ;-)
This time I used a water-based craft glue that glues fast but dries slowly.
This is great because I could varnish my beads easily with the excess of the glue which made them shine and when my fingers eventually got sticky I could wash the glue easily away with water.

 

unikatissima Magazine Paper Beads
I have not yet finished, but I find my paper beads beautiful, a little bit like made from Jade.
We will see what they will become :)

 


Links:
Paper Bead Designer

Peyote Bead (Beaded Bead)

Here at unikatissima:
Paper Beads Roller
Entries containing the words ‘paper’ and ‘bead’

Paper Beads Roller

unikatissima Paper Bead Roller

In a sense I always found paper beads great, but in another sense it always makes (made! ;-)) such a mess, so that I didn’t often made some.
Then I found the paper bead purses (ooooh…). (The link doesn’t work no more, look instead for the Google image search result for ‘paper bead purse’.)
And on the website of the paper bead purse designer I found a video showing how to use a paper beads roller that you can buy at her website (this link doesn’t work neither, but there’s still the video).
Great idea!
She also describes very good how to apply the glue and how to use the glue excess as varnish for the bead.

A little more research found me an instruction on how to build a self-made paper beads roller.
Another great idea! ;-))

I wasn’t sure whether I want to make sooo many paper beads and additionally I thought that I don’t need no crank, so I simply put everything together and the result is my spontaneously made paper beads roller ;-)

And that’s what you do:

 

unikatissima Paper Bead Roller
Cut your paper strips for the beads (I used a page from a travel brochure) and take two big needles, two toothpicks (they have to be smooth!) or – as I did – two little metal skewers.

 

unikatissima Paper Bead Roller
Join both needles (toothpicks, skewers…).
It would be enough to wrap some tape around, but I didn’t want to become my skewers sticky after taking away the tape, therefore I wrapped a broad strip of paper around and taped that.

 

unikatissima Paper Bead Roller
Slip the end of a paper strip between both skewers (if you use triangular ones, slip in the broad end) and begin to wrap on the bead.
On the photo you can see the paper strip that holds together my skewers.

 

unikatissima Paper Bead Roller
That’s how it looks shortly before you’re finished with wrapping.
You can’t see no glue on this photo because I can’t wrap with one hand and take photos with the other – at least not without dripping glue everywhere ;-)

 

unikatissima Paper Bead Roller
When your bead is done you can easily remove it.

 

unikatissima Paper Bead Roller
I was amazed at how fast and easy everything worked and I had much less mess than before ;-)

 

unikatissima Paper Bead Roller
The hole of the bead is split into two holes because my bead roller consists of two halves.

 

unikatissima Paper Bead Roller
I then simply ‘stirred’ the hole with a toothpick so that only one big hole remained ;-)
(By the way, the instruction for this bead is scheduled for tomorrow ;-))

 

Have fun wrapping paper beads! :))
and if you want to try some other bead shapes check out the Paper University.


Links:
Paper Bead Purses
The link doesn’t work no more, look instead for the Google image search result for ‘paper bead purse’.
Paper Beads Roller Video
Paper Beads Roller Video
Self-made Bead Roller (How to use a bead roller) => scroll down to ‘Hand Made Bead Roller’

Different Paper Bead Shapes (Recycled Paper Beads)

Google search result for ‘paper bead howto’
Google image search result for ‘paper bead howto’
Google search result for ‘Papierperle Anleitung’
Google image search result for ‘Papierperle Anleitung’

Here at unikatissima: Entries containing the words ‘paper’ and ‘bead’