(re)freshing: Flower Belt Tutorial

Here's a quick, adorable belt that probably cost us a whopping 50 cents altogether.
Wanna make one? Here's how....

Supplies

• Wide satin ribbon, enough to go around your waist and hit wherever you should choose
• Synthetic organza or chiffon
• Small "seed" beads
• Needle 
• Thread

Step 1. Cut out three circles from your chiffon/organza of similar size. It doesn't really matter if it's perfect
.

Step 2. Stack them and pull and knotted thread through them so that they hang together.

Step 3. Turn your stove on a lower heat and sortof twirl the petals around until they warp into a pleasing, flower-like shape. We won't lie, it's a bit hard at first. You might have to try several times. Don't get it too close, just be patient.

4. It should look something like this now. Attach it at the end of a piece of ribbon long enough to fit around your waist at whatever part you want it to. I(Jonie) wanted mine to hit my natural waist(ish). You can skip a step and attach it while sewing on seeds beads, like so.

 

Step 5. Bust out your mom's sketchy snap buttons and attach one half to the back of the flower area and another to the other end of the ribbon.

Step 6. Trim your ribbon on both end in a triangular way (to prevent fraying) and apply clear nail polish to the ends to help stop fraying.

Step 7. Wait for that to dry. Contrary to what you might convince yourself, this step is important. 

You've got yourself a snazzy new belt that will class up pretty much anything! 

(re)freshing: A Silk Flower Rubberband/Clip Tutorial

"Wait a second...silk flowers are TACKY."

Yes. Yes they are.

But not all of them,per sey.

Plus,nothing says spring like flower in your hair!

Plus plus! The cost is minimal and the project is quick and simple.
PLUS PLUS PLUS,it's a pin-up girl throw back,only,ya know, classier.

Win-win-win!

Here's how...

Step 1. Gather your supplies. You will need...

• Rubberbands(the coated kind, not the ghetto rubber kind) or hair clips or bobby pins or headbands or whatever,really. You could even use a pin backing fro a broach if you're wild and crazy.
• Felt. Yes,it can be the cheap kind, it's just for gluing to the bottom of your flower. We used "eco-felt"(Ooooooooh,snobby!) 'cause we had it on hand.
• The best crafting item EVER Hot glue gun and work surface sufficient for it's use.
• Scissors
• Silk flowers! Choose pretty 'uns. Micheals and Hobby Lobby pretty much always have them on sale, and the dollar store carries them,too.

Behold,supplies.

Step 2: Get your glue gun heating now and start deconstructing your flower. What this entails is pulling it off the stem. From there it's pretty simple. Just pulling apart layer. We recommend only going a layer at a time,however.

Yaaaaaay,destroying flowers!

Step 3: On your work surface, start gluing the petals of the flower together,one layer at a time,working from the bottom up. You're going to be doing this for a while. Once you get to the LAST petal or CENTER,depending on the flower type you're using,consult the instructions again.

Just a dot in the center!

Layers! Good thing hot glue dries fast,eh?

Step 4: You at your center now? Congrats! From here you have a two options. You could (a.) continue in the traditional manner and finish the flower off with the remaining part,or (b.) glue a rhinestone or something in the center. Your choice. Should you go traditional, we have a few tips left for you...

If you have a layer center flower(no fake pollen-y looking center),like a carnation, take the remaining layer and hold it in your hand. Moving fast,glue a droplet of glue in the center and pinch close,the giving it dimension. Glue it to the center,fluff, and you're done until the next step! 

Pinching!

Nice'n'fluffy? Good! You may move onto the next step now.

 If you have a "center" center flower, you will have been peeling layer off the bottom of your center. Now you probably have what resembles a yellow thing on a tiny stick. You're going to want to cut that apart as close to the base of the center as is possible,then proceed to glue that smack dab in the middle of your flower. You're done with the flower assembly!

Oh no's!

Glue and press!

Step 5: Cut out a square of felt. If you are gluing to a rubber-band or headband, you're done cutting felt. If you are gluing to a clip or bobby pin, you have to do the slit-y thing seen in the bottom right hand corner of the picture below. You could always glue directly to the clip, but our experience is that it will fall of fast if it has nothing to grip to. You have been warned.

Examples of how one might use their felt square differently depending o what they end up gluing their flower to.

Step 6: Glue your flower and felt together,sandwiching your hair thing in between!

Sorry for the truly awful photos of this process.

Voila! Super cute,cheap, and springy!

A new daisy clip in action!

Awwwwww,the flower ponytail holder and clip together! Sooooo cute.

Did this all make sense? Let us know if it didn't! Betsy has been making them for years,so hopefully the idea got across well enough,as well,it's pretty simple.
This is such a fun,fast project. You can easily have friends over and whip out a bunch of these in 10 minutes flat!(Tea party with flower clip making? We vote yes.)
It would also be great for a little girls birthday party! Our church actually something kind of like this for our Christmas craft night last year and it was a huge hit!
Sorry for the crappy photos! We're still getting used to tutorial photography,hehe..

(re)freshing: Facial Spray Tutorial

Facial sprays are little known, yet so fantastic. Jonie uses them everyday after washing her face. Just spritz on for some refreshing, skin-helping goodness, which can be as moisturizing or smell as good as you want it to!

Start out with a simple travel size perfume bottle.

As far as what you put in it, you've got a few options. You could

a.) make tea (herbal or floral)
b.) boil skin-healthy herbs (lavender or rosemary, for example)
c.) use distilled water and add a couple of drops of skin-healthy essential oil (like rose or lavender)

You can be done here, or you can keep going and add a couple drops of Vitamin E oil, or if you don't have that on hand, use some olive oil. Of course, these will probably settle on top, so you'll have to shake up your bottle when you use it.

Depending on the ingredients, the facial spray may have a short shelf life of 1 week, but it may last much longer. Check every day to see if any little floaties have developed, and if they have, it's time to make a new batch!

You're done! Use your facial spray after washing your face, or simply to put some pep in your step midday.

(re)freshing: Chain Earrings Tutorial

Have you too,noticed all the sweet chain earrings everywhere?

Are you to, too cheap to pay $12 or more for said earrings?

We made a quick pair (seriously,QUICK. This whole project takes about 10 minutes,tops.) with supplies we had on hand.

Free beats $12,in out opinion.

Unless you want to give us $12.

(In which case that's different...)

Anyways, wanna find out how?

Here's the skinny on your new pair 'o sassy earrings...

Step 1. Gather your supplies. You will need...

• Earring hooks. We had some in our stash, but Micheals normally has them for about $3 for a small infinity of them(rough guesstimations of both numbers.)
• Jewelry Pliers, but if you wanna use real pliers, we won't tell.
• Scissors. The project is hinged on it! Use a strong pair,but bear in mind it will be cutting chain. We used out second-from-best. Yes,we rate our scissors.
• Annnnnnnd chain. In this project, the thinner, the better. Just big enough loops to string it on the earring hook. JUST big enough. Not big enough to individually pry the links;however.

 

Step 2. This will feel absolutely ridiculous, but hold the chain up by your ear whilst looking in a mirror. Why? You need to figure out how long you want them to be. Everyone has different opinions on how long earrings should be, and it also greatly depends on your face type. But we digress. Find a length you are comfortable with and mark the spot with your finger. We went for about 2', but you may feel differently.

(no picture 'cause we have too much self respect to post it,ha.)

Step 3. Taking care NOT to cut your finger, cut the chain where you marked it.

Be prepared for the link you severed to potentially go flying.

 Step 4. Using your pliers, open the loop of your earring hook. This is very elementary and we doubt we should have to walk you through it.

Step 5. Loop the bit of chain you cut off onto the open loop. Try it on(carefully) to make sure you like the length!

Thar she be.

Step 6. Once comfortable with the length, take your bit 'o chain off the earring hook. Vaguely line it up against the "big" chain, and cut multiplies. We liked the simple look for 3 chains per earring, but hey, maybe you like things more dramatic. No need to be a perfectionist about the chains lengths,it'd look weird if they were all the same length. You just want the separate earrings to look semi-uniform, that is all.

 Step 7. Loop the chains onto the earring hook and CLOSE TIGHTLY. Other wise they will fall off and that would just be embarrassing/ infuriating and you'll run late getting ready because you had to string them back on. Not that we'd know or anything.

Loop 'em!

...and close it! Like the awkward pose for the pliers? Us too!

 Step 8. Wear,rock,and enjoy. Beats $12? Yes. Yes it does. And it's so inexpensive a project you can easily get more earrings out of your supplies,which means hey! Good presents, are we right? Yes. Why yes,we believe we are.

Not to shabby for stuff we had on hand!

We like!

This would be a great way to use up little bits of chain leftover from jewelry projects! It would also look fantastic if you used a few different gauges of chain. Yay earrings!

(re)freshing: prom dress update mini-tutorial

Oh, Prom. How you have plagued us all.

But it doesn't have to. It occurred to us that we didn't need to spend boatloads of money on Prom. So we didn't. We thrifted and spent a whopping $6 on a dress at Goodwill. EPIC AWESOME!!! So if you're stressed out about finding a Prom or Formal dress because they're freaking expensive, hit up a thrift store and be creative!

So here's the dress by itself, which is pretty, so we think.

But we didn't feel quite satisfied with accepting the dress as we found it, so we used the accompanying wrap that went with it to make it into a one-shoulder dress.

How did we do this?

1. Tuck one end of the wrap under your left pit.

2. Pass the wrap over the right half of your chest and around the back.

3. From the back, pass it over it's origin (left pit), make sure the left half of your chest is covered, and pass it over your shoulder. 

4. Tuck it into the back.

5. Make sure all of the folds in the material are flattering. This may take a couple of tries in order for it to look good. 

Sadly, this dress kind of fell to the bottom of Jonie's closet, hence the wrinkles...but don't be lazy like her!