I Might Make That! Monday--Festival of Lights Edition

Source: marthastewart.com via Geneva on Pinterest

I guess I jumped the gun a bit by featuring DIY Christmas bling right after Thanksgiving, forgetting that Hanukkah comes pretty early this year. (Our house celebrates both.)

Hanukkah, which started at sundown Saturday and lasts for eight days, does not lend itself to jewelry inspiration, as far as I can tell. Yes, there are menorah charms, but no one is going to wear a polymer latke around her neck.

But it certainly lends itself to plenty of crafts, from cutout cookies to dreidels. Here is a roundup of DIY menorah. The pretty one pictured above is from Martha Stewart and instructions to make it can be found here.

Source: celebrations.com via Geneva on Pinterest

Source: juniperbooks.com via Geneva on Pinterest

Source: myjewishhome.com via Geneva on Pinterest

OK, these last two are here just because they made me smile.

Source: bunchfamily.ca via Megan on Pinterest

Source: bunchfamily.ca via Nicole on Pinterest

Need a Laugh Wednesday: Pinstrosity

Is uber-snarky Regretsy one of your guilty pleasures? Are you addicted to Pinterest?

Then let me introduce you to the metaphorical offspring of their unholy union: Pinstrosity.

I stumbled on this site a month or so ago, and it cracks me up on a regular basis.

I guess it's not really fair to compare it to Regretsy, because that's a site in which the editor(s) make fun of godawful stuff they discover on Etsy, and the people submitting to Pinstrosity are sending in their own failed attempts to recreate a Pin on Pinterest. There is usually good-humored discussion about what went wrong (and it usually involves a confession of not quite following directions or a creative approach to substituting ingredients.) Occasionally the authors report "Pin Wins"--successfully duplicating a Pinterest project.

I haven't seen too many jewelry experiments yet--mostly food flops and craft fails. Have you seen that Pin that shows you how to create a flower by gently melting plastic spoons into petal shapes? The picture sequence is too long to republish on this blog, but here's a link to the Pin and the Pinstrosity.

It's nice to recognize that most DIY projects don't come out looking like a Martha Stewart staged shoot.

Here's one of my favorites from recent weeks:

You can read the full post here.

Leather earrings and more for I Might Make That! Monday

Leather Leaf Earrings by Design by Night

I am back and well-rested from a jaunt out West (hint: the Grand Canyon was involved), and perhaps the parched desert and cowboy culture inspired my pick for this week's I Might Make That! Monday.

I have Pearl of the Beading Gem's Journal to thank for alerting me to the blog Design by Night by Kolleen Kilduff. Pearl recently featured a roundup of leather jewelry tutes. Several of these were cute, but I especially liked the leaf earrings that Kolleen did that looked easy enough for a beginner. The pic above is not the one Pearl featured; I discovered it by clicking on her "tutorial" label word cloud and poking around. On this link Kolleen features leaf templates and shows a couple of variations. This link is to her original instructions.

I've had a hankering (see how that trip out West has affected my speech?) to attempt kumihimo with leather cord. I've even bought some 1 mm leather cord from Fire Mountain Gems. Has anybody out there tried it? The cord I've bought is supple enough for an 8-strand Kongu braid, I think, but the end finishing might take some tinkering. But anyway, a leather kumi necklace would look cute with those earrings. I think I may pull a few cast-off leather purses that I had pitched into the For Salvation Army bags and harvest them for leather scraps.

But wait, I'm not done with Design by Night yet. (And since I've taken the last couple of Mondays off, you all deserve more than one tute!) As I said, I went poking around Kolleen's tutorials. She has a wonderful eclectic mix--instructions for making hair accessories, shoe lacings, paper crafts, jewelry, recipes. Another one I liked was her charmed scarf. This one is so easy you don't really need instructions. She notes that the idea isn't hers, but I've never seen one.

Charmed scarf by Design by Night

I like wearing scarves, but when I do, I usually don't wear a necklace because I can't seem to get them to work together. (My friend Patti has somehow mastered this art.) Well, this look is the best of both.

I will conclude with one more bonus tute. This one isn't jewelry-related, but I love it for its whimsy on a gigantic scale.

Giant paper flowers by Ruche

I first spotted this on CraftGossip. Aren't these flowers amazing? Doesn't looking at them make you break into a grin? The DYI is from Ruche and is featured on the cool blog Design Sponge. Apparently paper flowers are trending in wedding design. Wedding, schmedding--I think a "bouquet" of these would light up a forlorn corner or unadorned wall in a living room.

Now the flower heads themselves are made pretty much the way you'd make a 4, 6, or 12-inch version.  You can find similar instructions anywhere. But look at those stems. They're freestanding! Genius. Click on the tute to see the engineering involved.


(For those of you unfamiliar with I Might Make That! Monday, the link on the top right corner leads to my archives. )