Ikea bag

Last Saturday afternoon, my crafty friend Paola and I (the arts&crafts dynamic duo!) went to our local Ikea for a sewing workshop organised for the Ikea Family card holders.

The workshop was organised with a local fashion school and the partecipants were looked after by some tutors who explained the projects and helped when needed. There were quite few different projects to choose and we opted for a sling bag.

It was the first time for Paola with a sewing machine and despite some little hesitations she finished her project too.

Here is my sling bag. I must confess that I don’t particularly like the model… but I’m happy that I learnt some new tricks, I had some confirmations that I’m not doing wrong, and I had the chance to try the Ikea sewing machine, which is quite easy to use.

All in all, a very enjoyable experience!

Ikea bag

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Birthday gift

So, today is my birthday and every year I try to take this day off from work to avoid stress and have a relaxing day all for myself.

And today I used my very well deserved free time for making myself a birthday gift.  🙂

I had a small piece of light pink 50% viscose/50% cotton fabric with a kind of beehive weaving that I cut from the sleeves of a t-shirt because they were too long, and I wanted to do something out of it for a very long time.

I actually never wore the t-shirt, but I think I’m going to wear this bracelet…

I added some charms: an owl to make me wiser (I really need it despite my growing age…), a little rabbit with the word “fuku” 福 engraved on it (which stands for blessing, fortune, luck, wealth… you choose!), a little bell to protect from bad spirits (you never have enough protection!), and  a pink glass bead (for a girly touch…).

I quite like it and I think I’m going to wear it pretty often… despite the noise from the bell… 🙂  ..or maybe because of it. 😀

Birthday bracelet

Birthday bracelet

Kanzashi brooch

My friend Paola – yes! it’s always her! – spoke me about Kanzashi flowers last Friday and told me that they didn’t look too difficult to make. So, I surfed the net for a tutorial (there’s plenty of them) and gave it a try during the weekend. Basically they are made using this technique called Tsumami which, in my opinion, is closely related to Origami…

I used some remnants of a white/cream coloured acrylic fabric – which I don’t think is particularly nice – that I thought were perfect for a prototype.

Since it didn’t come out too bad I decided to finish it with a red wooden single holed button and a red half crystal bead on top of it. I fixed the button and the crystal with some hot glue (another first time for me) and stitched a safety pin on the back to make it into a brooch. 🙂

Doesn’t it look like the Japanese flag? 🙂

Kanzashi flower

Kanzashi flower back

Chinese jade

Some time ago I bought a lovely Chinese jade pendant and all this time I’ve been thinking about how to use it.

I’ve always loved jade pendants from the very first time I saw a Pounamu from New Zealand Maori tradition but I haven’t been able to go and buy one so far…. I actually bought a beef bone maori pendant called “koru” few years ago at the Manly Sunday market in Australia, from a kiwi guy who hand carved it himself. His carvings were so beautiful that it took me quite some time to decide what to buy!  Anyway, since my dream to own a maori Pounamu is still far I decided to at least get me a lovely Chinese jade pendant in the meantime.

So, in the end I decided to make a gold chain using 8 pink quartz beads on both side (see why 8 beads in this post here), and adding an upcycled gold chain from an old and broken necklace that I’ve been given by a friend. I also matched the necklace with a pair of earings made with the same pink quartz beads and a green fluorite rice shaped bead.

Chinese jade pendant and matching earings

Chinese jade pendant and matching earings