The best part of happiness is the pines

I found this picture of an amazing 1940's pine cone necklace and was instantly inspired! How gorgeous yet simple it is!

(picture from here)

I started wondering how could I make this or something similar happen. The pine cones especially I thought were hard to execute. By a stroke of good luck I happened to stumble upon a piece of maybe 70's hippie jewelry. It had two processed pine cones stringed with a bunch of beads and pieces of bone and made into a necklace. Before going ahead with a larger project like that 40's necklace above I decided to try out a smaller one: a brooch! 

Here´s what I used:

green paper string

70's necklace taken apart

a brooch back pin
glue

First I made the green paper string into a bunch and tied it up to keep it together. I used paper string as it goes well with the 1940's and depression era theme. One could also use for example leather string like is used in the original necklace.

I also measured the length of the string that is needed to hold the cones. the length of course depends how low you want them to hang.

Second step was to attach the brooch back pin to the bunch by wrapping the paper string around them.

Finally I glued the pine cones to the ends of the string and cut the paper "pine needles" into a proper length.

The first strawberry is the sourest

Two in a row to make up the time I was absent!

This craft was inspired by the acorn brooch in the last post. Last time I made a quirky dangling acorn brooch with crocheted acorns and belt buckle decoration. The craft in this post was made with the same theme: crocheting edibles.

A crocheted strawberry brooch!

I used:

red pearl cotton thread

green wool knitting yarn

white pearl cotton thread

a steel crochet hook size 2,5 (mm)

a recycled 1930's belt buckle

brooch pin

and a sharp darning needle

You can find many free crocheting patterns and instructional videos for strawberries online. They are very useful, but of course you must alter the pattern to suit your purposes.  I started with 4 ch(s) made into a loop and doubled them. Then crocheted my way towards the narrowing.

Here´s a few patterns and a video:

Pattern here

Pattern here

And here´s one for the flowers:

Again alter to suit your purpose!

Acorn doesen´t fall far from the tree.

Sorry for my absence from the blogging world. I´ve had time neither to write nor read blogs! I´ve been, yet again, busy with my master´s thesis and work. Even though this blog has been silent for a few months I have balanced the hectic everyday routines by doing some crafts! As I´m trying to graduate to be an elementary school teacher, I´ve noticed that I must conquer the art of knitting and crocheting. That is what I´ve been trying to do the past months! I´ve started small so I won´t lose it straight away. This blog post is about a crocheted accessory that is a recreation of a piece of a 1940's accessory.

Let me introduce to you a 1940's crocheted acorn brooch!

This I must say is recycling at its best: brooch can be made out of pieces of scrap thread and leftover belt buckle. The picture is originally from this lovely blog which contains also the instructions! (In this blog there also many more authentic vintage knitting and crocheting patterns with instructions!)

If you find these confusing, here´s more contemporary instructions for crocheting an acorn! I didn´t quite follow the instructions, because as always I somehow end up doing things my own stubborn way.

I used:

brown pearl cotton thread

mustard pearl cotton thread

a steel crochet hook size 2,5 (mm)

a recycled plastic belt buckle

brooch pin

and a sharp darning needle

1. Crochet the cap.

2. Crochet the actual acorn.

3. Fill the acorn with something soft, like leftover yarn or cotton.

4. Use the ends of the crochet thread and a darning needle to attach crocheted or twisted "stems".

5. Look at the happy bunch!

5. Pick out a matching belt buckle and attach a brooch pin behind it. Then glue the acorns to the buckle.

5. And it´s ready!

More on Fimo madness

I´ve got a Fimo madness. Here are some of the results made by using the same technique as in the last post:

Nuff said.

Horsing around

I got very inspired by modelling clay after a really long time. The reason for such an inspiration was my friend who had done some repro jewelry pieces out of Fimo clay. I have used Cernit modelling clay before, but as my friend recommended  the Fimo, I decided to try it out. And it was a good decision! Fimo is much more ductile and light than Cernit and the colors don´t change when you harden the clay in  an oven.

Here are some 1930's-40's repro pieces I have made of Cernit modelling clay:

 

The theme for my Fimo-experiment came to me when I was browsing the net. I searched for some celluloid and bakelite jewelry. I´ve always admired the beautiful bakelite and wooden horsey brooches and other jewelry. They were made in the 1930's-40's in many delicious and rich colors:

(from here)

(from here)

(from here)

And then there is this:

Oh, my sweet jebus..(from here)

But this one really caught my eye:

(sold here)

I started the Fimo mission by drawing and cutting out shapes from a sheet of paper. I made a horse head pattern, cowboy boot pattern and horse shoe pattern. Then I took a piece of yellow Fimo clay and rolled it out flat. Next I placed the patterns on the clay and cut out the shape.  The same was done with the cowboy boot pattern and the horse shoe pattern.

After cutting out the shapes I carved the details with a sharp wooden tool. You can use anything even remotely sharp, for example a needle.

When the pieces were carved I added a few seed beads to the horse shoe as there were studs added to the original one.

Next I added eye pins by sticking them inside the clay. The pins are needed to attach the pieces to plastic chain.

Between the previous and the next phase the clay parts were baked in an oven to make them hard and long-lasting. Remember to follow the instructions on the clay package! It´s crucially important to set the right temperature and time. I´ve seen the horrors of not following them (the pieces looked like dog poop)..

After taking the pieces out of the oven and after letting them cool for a while, I added a piece of plastic chain to the horse head. And attached the boots and the shoe to the chain

Then I used Fimos own gloss varnish to make a glossy finish.

 Last phase was to attach a brooch pin to the back of the horse.

The end result looks like this:

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. -Albert Camus

This post is all about flowers, which in this case really are late bloomers as summer has turned into autumn a while ago. 

Flowers have been a popular accessory since who knows how long, so it´s no wonder that flowers were everywhere in the 1940's also. They were attached to hair and hats, made into brooches and used to accessorize every outfit from literally tip to toe. Flower accessories were made of any material posibble: different fabrics like felt and velvet, wood, palstic, seashells and metals both precious and scrap. And of course you could use real flowers too. I didn´t find any specific info why the flowers were a big hit back then, but I assume it had something to do with the cheerful nature and beautiful colors of the flowers. Also you could find both inspiration and material for your flower accessories everywhere.

(From here)

 

(from here)

(from here)

 (sold here)

As a dedicated 40's girl I wanted something flowery myself. To make the accessory I needed the idea of a flower necklace and a huge portion of good luck. In a flea market I came across with this big plastic bag full of white plastic flower parts. These kind of flowers can be also detached from artificial flower bouquets or other similar decorational pieces.

To make the plastic flowers into a necklace, here´s everything else I needed:
- stick pins
- jump rings
- tiny stopper beads
-yellow wooden beads
- plastic chain
- a clasp
- pliers

First slide a stopper bead and a yellow wooden bead to a stick pin.

Then add the petals.

Twist the end of the stick pin into a loop with pliers..

..and add the jump ring to the loop.

Attach the flowers (I made nine flowers in total) to the plastic chain with the rings.

And tadaa! You´re done!

Or if you want to proceed you can do several with different colors!