Handmade cards and other crafts, templates & tips

Today I'm going to show you how to make a card topper like the ones below:

You'll need:

2 cocktail sticks
2 beads
Yarn (you can use your leftovers)
Small strip of paper
Glue

Step 1

Make your knitting needles by putting just a little glue on one end of the cocktail sticks and insert the beads. Put aside until the glue dries.

Step 2

Make the paper ring for your skein. Cut a small strip of paper in keeping with the theme of your card and glue one end over the other to form a ring like the one shown above.

Step 3

Make your skein. Use a template or just your hand and go around several times until you have a skein big enough for your project. Tie a knot around the middle so it doesn't come undone.

Step 4

Insert the paper ring to finish your skein.

Step 5

With your regular knitting needles knit a few rows with the same yarn you used to make your skein.

Step 6

Transfer the knitted bit to one of the cocktail sticks. Apply a little glue to the first and last stitches and press onto the cocktail stick so they remain in place. Allow the glue to dry and there you have your card topper ready to be used.

Tip

You can also adapt this idea to a Christmas card by changing the colour of the beads and the yarn and by changing the message from "Congratulations" to "Warm Wishes" for instance.

 

I finished these four brooches this morning, they can be found in my online shop and they have all now found new owners :-)

 

 

How often does this happen to you? You have an idea of something you want to make and by the time you're done it turned out something quite different. To me it seems to happen all the time

At the moment I'm into crochet flowers and that's what I was trying to make when I got these leftover yarns from my crochet box. These were bought years ago by my mum, she knitted a jumper for Alex and I kept the leftovers. Anyway, there's me sitting on the sofa trying to come up with a new flower design and instead get this spiral thingy. It reminded me of some glass Christmas decorations I had as a child. So I made a few more using different colours and in different sizes and then attached then to a crochet chain and now I have a cool (well, I think it's cool anyway!) Christmas garland.

These are my new headbands, they are a one-size-fits-all design and very comfortable to wear.

 

  Ref. 001Headband - £5 including P&P (for UK only) For other countries the corresponding postage will be added Payment by postal order or PayPal (please email me your order and I'll send you my details) Description  Made with green felt and light green dotted ribbon, measures approx. 90 cm and is embellisehd with 3 little crochet flowers each with a cup sequin and bead in the centre.

 

  Ref. 002Headband - £5 including P&P (for UK only) For other countries the corresponding postage will be added Payment by postal order or PayPal (please email me your order and I'll send you my details) Description Made with pink felt and brown dotted ribbon, measures approx. 90 cm and is embellisehd with 3 little crochet flowers each with a pink bead in the centre. Not available.

 

  Ref. 003Headband - £5 including P&P (for UK only) For other countries the corresponding postage will be added Payment by postal order or PayPal (please email me your order and I'll send you my details) Description  Made with red felt and light green ribbon with white and blue circles, measures approx. 90 cm and is embellisehd with 1 green crochet flower a red button in the centre. Not available.

 

  Ref. 004Headband - £5 including P&P (for UK only) For other countries teh corresponding postage will be added Payment by postal order or PayPal (please email me your order and I'll send you my details) Description Made with red felt and red ribbon, measures approx. 90 cm and is embellisehd with 1 white crochet flower with a metalic red bead in the centre.

 

  Ref. 005Headband - £5 including P&P (for UK only) For other countries the corresponding postage will be added Payment by postal order or PayPal (please email me your order and I'll send you my details) Description Made with white felt and blue dotted ribbon, measures approx. 90 cm and is embellisehd with 1 white  crochet flower  with a blue bead in the centre. Not available.

I now have my own online shop, I'll try it for a while to see how it goes.

I've listed a few of my new handmade headbands, if you'd like to have a look, just click here.

This is one of the headbands I made recently.

This is a photo tutorial for one of my crochet flowers. All my flowers are either my own design or based on someone else's but with some alterations.

I am used to crochet charts instead of written instructions, unfortunately everytime I tried to draw a crochet chart it was just so awful that I'm sure no one would understand it so I decided to take photos of every stage of my flower making.

Let me show you the finished flower first so you know what it will look like:

A flower like this one is done in 5 quick steps as you can see below.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

 

And the winner is...

Alexia

Congratulations.

Last month my blog had over 2000 visitors, a number beyond all my expectations and so I think a big Thank You is in order to all those who not only visited my blog but also took the time to leave such lovely comments.

Thank You

As a token of my appreciation I'm giving away these 6 lovely crochet snowflakes I made. All you have to do is leave a comment or subscribe to my blog until November 7th. I'll then put all your names into a hat and take one out at random. The name of the winner will be posted here on November 8th.