Fine Craft Guild

Preppy Pleaded Purse

Fine Craft Guild — Sun, 13 May 2012 12:14:00 +0000

Shoulder straps on roomy bag in vinyl fabric neutrals makes a fabulously functional everyday bag. Add some cute pleats and a contrasting liner and you got yourself a fashion statement to boot. Best of all, easy and fast project to sew.

All you need is

Green and white vinyl fabric (less than half of a yard of each one)
Liner fabric (about a yard, maybe less)
2 large D-rings
Sewing machine and thread, supplies, etc.

Find the pattern on Kojo’s blog.

Other Bag Patterns

More fabulous bags with patterns, instructions and sewing tips.

Paint a Rug

Fine Craft Guild — Fri, 11 May 2012 12:37:00 +0000

You can do it. Everybody else is doing it, so I dare you.

Here are two amazing examples of DIY hand-painted rugs that came out marvelously: one features blocks, the other chevron stripes. Take your pick. Both easy print designs to add to your plain sisal rug.

credit: Midwestliving.com

Hand-painted Area Rug

Quick 1,2,3 How-to Instructions

Plan your rug design before you begin. Ideally make several scetches to determine what kind of design and color scheme best complements with and integrates the colors and design elements in your room. Then, work out how much paint you’ll need of each color.
Next, get your plain canvas or sisal rug out and block out your design with painter’s tape. As you can see in the video below, you tape what you do NOT want to paint.
And the last step is to Paint!
Tip: if this is your first time painting project, I suggest you limit yourself to just one or a few colors, to save both time and drama. Keeping it simple is secret to success! Also, an area rug with a more limited color scheme is actually more versatile and can be easly moved between rooms in the home.

”How to Paint a Chevron Rug’- Video tutorial

DIY Bathroom Mats or Bedroom Rugs

Flooring and floor covering such as homemade or otherwise unique and interesting mats and rugs are becoming a popular theme at Fine Craft Guild. Check out the various rug tutorials.

Copyright , Fine Craft Guild .com. All Rights Reserved. Amazing/Eco Home Decorating & Craft ideas and tutorials, for you.

Felt Bird Tutorials

Fine Craft Guild — Thu, 10 May 2012 15:37:23 +0000

Fun, easy project, with loads of application. You guessed it: birds. Felt, that most easy to work with materials can be easily cut in shapes and froms and all you need is 2-3 shapes, and you have a bird modeling for you to be the embellishment of just about any project.

photo source: Capungmungil

More Detailed Felt Bird Designs

We feature several other felt birds; disguised as advent calendar and Christmas tree ornaments, out of all things! Only goes to show, a good design can be use at all time.

Assorted Pack of Acrylic Craft Felt 9 inches X 12 inches, 50 pcs – Pastel Colors

TIME FOR A PARTY

Fine Craft Guild — Wed, 09 May 2012 07:46:26 +0000

15th edition of TIME FOR A PARTY. Let me remind you and all last minute DIY handmade gift givers: there are quite a few projects you can complete in time for Sunday, in our MOTHERS DAY DIY GIFT GUIDE. If nothing else, give mom this DIY guide with lots of beautiful ideas, plus a gift certificate for craft supplies. An original mothers day gift.

Featured Party Guests

This week I hope to be able to share with you my creative craft findings from the Netherlands, but will feature the most creative ideas from prior parties sometime in the next week.

In the meanwhile, just think of all of you being go talented and inspirational, and that thank-you goes out to YOU too, as I am just featuring 3 party guests today.

It’s time for a NEW PARTY!!!

Show us all what you’ve been doing and making!

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Followers’ Linky

Water Bottle Cozy Knitting Pattern

Fine Craft Guild — Tue, 08 May 2012 12:52:00 +0000

Just a quick article, as I’m travelling to the Netherlands today. One of my readers told me I’m no longer allowed to say that it is ‘freezing’ in the northern countries. OK. So let’s just say that travelling north makes me think of things that make me feel warm. Like a water bottle cozy. Got one?

Like a pattern for a cozy? It is another handmade gift idea that I think is great as a gift for Mothers day, as it is a great gift for dad. Quick and easy to knit and piece together, so you might as well make a couple of them. Looks really cool.

Yarn /Materials Needed

2 skeins of Cotton-Ease: Cactus (3-1/20-Ounce (100 g) each)

Knitting needles size 9 (5.5 mm)

This is an easy to follow pattern and you will enjoy how fast it works up.

Tip: Check your gauge before start and adjust the needle size if needed.

Get Your Own Copy of the Pattern

Please sign up for our newsletter (sign up form is top right of the page) and you will automatically receive your copy of this pattern and many other wonderful patterns and tutorials.

Source: Lionbrand.com

Related Patterns

Another knitted water bottle pattern (cables) (great mothers day or fathers day gift)

A fabulous cold drinking water bottle carrier crochet pattern

Wrap Cardigan is Womens Wardrobe Must-have

Fine Craft Guild — Mon, 07 May 2012 12:55:00 +0000

Whatever you might call this garment, I love it!

I like to give Bina credit, but that would not be fair on the many ancient civilizations around the world who have been wearing this garment for ages. However, this contemporary example in the photo is by Bina Bianca.

Material Needed

Find some lightweight, stretchy fabric, and wrap away. Bina used a material that consists of Rayon – Jersey. Follow this link to buy a wide range of colors and prints for about $5/yard, 62" wide. (Bina sells her wraps ready-made at $42.50, which is not that unreasonable either, particularly since the wrap comes with a booklet on how to wear the various styles.)

This picture & video here show you one of the various ways you can wear this magical women’s top. It can be worn as a scarf, cardigan, poncho, blouse, shrug, stole, turtleneck, shoulder scarf, back wrap, front wrap, tunic and headscarf. Or style it to make up your own unique look!

Design Secret
The inventive slit placement makes it possible to wear in so many ways.

How to Drape the Top – Video Demo

video demo

How to Make This Drapey Scarf Cardigan

Quick 1,2,3 How-to Instructions

Look at the wrap in the photo. How much fabric you’ll need is easy to measure. For the central panel you’ll need 3x the width of your hips (not circumference!). For the side panels, you’ll need two panels that are about the width of your hips.
Cut panels.
Observe where the open slits are in the photo. They look to me as about 14" wide, just below the middle or right in the middle of the garment. Pin slits.
Sew seams, leaving slits open.

This is just one of many ways to drape it. Look at this website, to find at least 10 more ways to wear it.

DIY Jeans Bag

Fine Craft Guild — Mon, 07 May 2012 12:29:00 +0000

summer gold = a hand-sewn bag.

Here’s a fun video tutorial for you on how to transform those jeans you no longer fit into a darling, glamorous summer bag. We’ve seen the basics of this before, but I think the gold chains and jewelry add a contemporary flair.

Jeans Bag Making Video Tutorial

If you don’t see the video, click here.

Peruse our great range of tutorials for embroidered, crochet, sewn or knit bags : handbags, tote bags, diaper bags, etc.

Darling Crochet Edging Friendship Bracelet

Fine Craft Guild — Fri, 04 May 2012 20:06:00 +0000

Was doodling in the sun this morning and came up with this. I actually intended to create a crochet edging for a piece of clothing and was just about to rip it out as I thought the flowers were too close together for this purpose, when it fell out of my hand onto my wrist. Fate. It looked great. Aha, I thought, let’s make a friendship bracelet out of it. I’ll give to my friend who I’m going to the hot springs with tomorrow morning (oehhh, the benefits of living in Italy … ).

Don’t remember how long it took me to crochet this, but let’s just say that taking pictures and writing about it takes 5x more time than crocheting this, i.e. this friendship bracelet crochets up superfast.

Difficulty level: as hard as counting till 3, ah, till 5.

This is an ideal project to try out a particular new yarn, or to use up leftover yarn. What I used for this is a super-soft cotton yarn. Check this yarn out here, it’s called 100% mercerized cotton yarn. It’s cheaper online than what I paid for it in a local shop. So check the link for a deal, if you like.

Get the Pattern

Want the friendship bracelet crochet pattern to make one of these ? Sign up for the newsletter (see top right of this page) and I’ll give it to ya!

Soon a version of this pattern will be part of 7 different crochet edging patterns that I’ll sell in my new shop.

Toodles!

Other Crochet Patterns

There are so many crochet patterns of lovely, lovely projects, from small ones like this, to complete cardigans that look adorable on. Hop over to the crochet patterns category page, and you can go back pages and pages worth of projects, each post illustrated so you can see what I’m talking about…

Colour Tips & Painting Techniques to Create Highlights & Paler Shades

Fine Craft Guild — Fri, 04 May 2012 12:25:32 +0000

How about learning a bit about painting today, like how to create highlights?! Even though I don’t really blog much about it here, I’ve been a painter for decades…

Highlights for Focus & Drama

Let me share some painting techniques/color tips on how to make colors a shade lighter, as that happens to be a most important technique in making a painting exciting and placing things in focus. It a technique that can make a painting ‘work’ and become alive. I transforms a flat painting of a bouquet of flowers that resembles a ‘historic record of ‘the flowers were here’ into a ‘flower story’.

Acrylics Paint

Let me start sharing that I use acryclics, a medium of choice. So versatile. Dries quickly and one of the most forgiving. But I dare you to become a mixed media artist, and just use acryclics OVER whatever you’ve already made, provided your paper surface can handle the water-based nature of acrylics. This reminds me to mention my site sponsor, Blick Art Materials. They carry fantastic paints, and the ones to go for are the Golden brand or equivalent. It’s ok to experiment with the cheap school supplies kinda paint, but if you want to sell your paintings, go for good quality acrylic paint as that will last a century or more, and ultimately adds more value to your paintings. (Blick Art Materials’ Current Promo Code; FREE SHIPPING on orders totaling $160 or more!)

Painting Techniques for Highlighting

OK. that’s said, there are several ways to make your colors palers, and how you do it, depends on why you need your colors to be paler.

We use light in painting to draw attention. Our eyes will go to where the light is, so we give our work a focus by just adding white/pastels in certain areas.

The colors are real life are usually lighter where the light is hitting an object, right?! Ditto in painting. Paler colors are used for highlighted areas.

Planned Painting

If you like to plan a painting, make a base drawing and depict realistic situations, then you’ll know exactly where you’ll need your lighter areas in advance. In this case, you can simply mix a bit of whatever color the object is, say teal, with white. Then when you get the shade of the color you need, you’ll apply.

Organic Painting

In contrast, if you’re like a spontaneous conbuxtion when you’re paintings, so that your painting totally unfold, intuitively, in seeming random, orderless manner, then you’ll may prefer the next technique: make a wash of white paint and water, apply it lavishly over the area you wish to become lighter, and take it immediately back off with a rag. This also works fabulously if your painting is somehow ‘not working’ and you get to shape it, ie. create accents and more drama in your art. Now, this technique really works best if the base you are painting onto is also of a relatively light color already. Otherwise you’ll have to make a wash with whatever that base color is plus white.

Now exceptions apply to any rule. Neither technique may give you the result you’re after when working with red. White mixed with red makes pink. Unless you’re painting a feminine rose, like the painting above, the pink may change the mood of your painting to be more feminine than you’d like.

In this case, try this: ensure your base color paint is dry. Then paint a layer of white. Let it dry too. And then add a wash of red over that. Easy as pie. Well, not really, as you usually don’t work in solid color blocks. But, you get the drift of it.

Experimentation Makes You a Master

I suggest you experiment and test things a bit on an old canvas before applying your diluted whites onto that precious painting you are working on. White can become chalky when diluted with water, and as water actually kind of ruins your paint, I highly advice you to use a paint medium instead to thin the paint. So, you got to test things a bit and play with it to get it right. Well, that’s why they call artists artists. We get to play around, a lot.

If you are trying to add a highlight, for example, to an area that you have already painted then let the paint dry before adding a thin layer of white to the area for the highlight. Use quite a watery mix if you want some of the red to show through. White is an opaque colour in acrylics and the area can look a bit chalky if the white is applied too thickly.

Highlights are relative.

This means that you could also simply add a darker wash over the rest of the areas you do not wish to highlight. Personally, I love to apply thin orange washes. Usually once over the whole painting, but sometimes I add several washes topically. Washes turn out great, making your painting colors richer. I love it. Also, washes unify all the colors in the painting, and I think they are best reserved for towards the end of your painting.

Last but not least: Make sure that your over-paint is not thick, but more like a voile. You want your highlighted area to have the most build-up paint, having the focus of the painting accented with texture.

Dr Seuss Wall Decals : Not just for Kids Bedrooms

Fine Craft Guild — Thu, 03 May 2012 10:03:00 +0000

I came across these wonderfully inspiring Dr. Seuss quote wall decals. In case you wonder what are ‘decals’? They are stencils without the work, i.e. stickers for the home. Easiest craft ever: just stick them on the wall. Aren’t they fun? I am thinking about this Dr. Seuss-quote from the book ‘Oh, the Places You’ll Go!‘ in the hallway. Wouldn’t that be fun? And I promise, I will not paint my wall pink first, but leave it white-tan –colored.

My Favorite Top 5 Dr. Seuss Quotes

Dr. Seuss, in vinyl lettering :

“Why FIT IN when you were born to stand out” (GREAT QUOTE!!)

“BE who you are, Say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind” (another wonderful affirmation to have around!)

“Today you are you, That is truer than true. There is no one alive, who is Youer than you.” (great quote for building self-esteem and self-worth)

“You have brains in your head, and feet in your shoes. you can steer yourself in any direction you choose!” (something for the free people. I like this for a kitchen/family room)

“ You’re off to great places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So … get on your way! “ (hall way, or in kid bedroom).

Get Your Own Quote Wall Decal

Click any of the above links and learn more about them. You can purchase your favorite quote right there, and that does not have to be a big decision as these decals from Epic Designs are really inexpensive : most are JUST $7-8!! Installation instructions are included for a simple, professional install in minutes. Measures 23"x10.5" . What do you think?

Doesn’t this quote just make you smile?:

Fine Wall Art Indeed!

TIP: If you don’t want to place the stickers straight onto the wall, you could make a large canvas, and add the wall decal to the canvas. That way you get to move your wall art around the home.

Home Trend

Quotes and other sayings on the wall are the latest trend in interior decorating and home decor. I guess it’s because vinyl lettering offer such an easy, creative way to add personality and charm to a space, and to make a room into a stylish, unique space. And they can act like an affirmation too, which I really like. Inspirational.

Inside the Home or Outside the Home?

You can use these graphics also outside. They have a life of about 6 years outside, while they could last longer than a quarter century inside..