Doiley Fun #1

I love doileys! Here's a quick decorating idea. 

I have this little retro table (it actually belongs to my sister) and my mother spent a lot of time sanding it back and re-sealing it. I thought I'd pretty it up a little more and preserve the varnish job with some doileys and protective plastic. I arranged the doileys in the position I wanted and then laid a layer of thick plastic (brought from Spotlight) over the top. I secured the plastic with a little double sided sticky table on the underside of the table.

Big Bead Necklace

A weird assortment of beads arranged in a strange way.... Inspired from US store Anthropologie's necklaces! To make this necklace you just need a length of ribbon and some beads, I've used red and gold. The red ones came from a $2 store, and the gold ones came from a friend! To begin, thread your ribbon (mine's quite wide) onto a needle, then start to put on your beads. Here's a (rough) sketch of how I arranged mine.

I kind of wove the ribbon through, so took the needle down through four red beads, through two gold beads, then back through the third red bead. Then I added another gold bead, continued the ribbon through the second gold bead and then added two more red ones. I also added some beads higher in the necklace, suspended by knots. To finish, I used a cigarette lighter to seal the ends of the ribbon, and tied a bow.

 Simple chic!

The RickRack Necklace

I found the buttons for this project at a local market. A bag of antique buttons for $5 - now that's too good to refuse. Some of them are a bit cracked and damage, but to me, that just adds charm! I've made a few projects with these buttons and I may share another one soon.

I wanted to make a button necklace with a twist. I can't believe that local art and craft stores were selling button necklaces for 20-80 dollars when the craze took off, cos they are so easy to make. The twist, I decided to add some rickrack.

There are lots of ways you can do a button necklace. I really wanted to showcase the charm of these buttons, so I threaded thin ribbon on a needle and wove the ribbon through. I  looped the ends of the ribbon and tied them off, then looping a button through on one end as a 'clasp' for the necklace.



Then I added the rickrack around the loops, doing two layers or parts. The trouble I had using rickrack was that it was a little bouncy. To get it to sit where I wanted I had to stitch on some pearls and a button as a "pendant" that hangs (and weighs the rickrack down).

Below is the final result. Its a bit quirky, but then again, so am I.