Lost Project Vintage Ribbon Rose

Things I've done today:

made a huge dent in the couch with my butt
made a little cloud of dead skin cells
made a mess in the kitchen
(home made potato soup om nom nom)
made this blog!
Found an old instruction folder I made forever ago but never did anything with.
Here are the instructions


Some things:

a few yards of flower coloured ribbon at least 1 1/2 inches wide (satin or velvet doesn't matter)
fabric tac to glue the rough ends up so they don't fray
matching thread
hand sewing needle
scissors

Cut a piece of flower coloured ribbon about 8 inches long and glue the ends together so the rough edges are well hidden. Let it dry a bit.

Thread the sewing needle with matching thread (I used contrasting so you could see what I was up to) Sew 1/4 inch stitches all the way around one edge. Stop where you began but don't knot it off.

Gather the stitches by pulling the thread until the opening in the middle of the flower is about 1 inch wide. Knot it to secure the stitches.

Cut another matching piece of ribbon (or contrasting, what the heck, lets experiment) about four inches long. Glue up the ends so the rough edges don't show. Let it dry a bit.

Gather both sides of the ribbon until it's only 1 1/2 inches long. Knot the ends to secure.

The little gathered piece should just fit onto the hole in the flower middle.

Glue or hand stitch the middle of the flower over the opening.

Cut a piece of green leaf coloured ribbon about 6 inches long. Fold so the ends meet right sides together and gather up one side. You will be catching both layers of ribbon when you gather creating a seam that is gathered. Pull the gathering stitches until they are about 1 1/2 inches long.

Unfold the ribbon, it should look kind of like a leaf.

Glue or hand stitch the leaves to the bottom of the flower.

I added an extra layer of flower around the outside to make the flower fuller looking. Make it the same as the first step but don't gather it quite as much.


Add the flower to a pin back or a hair clip or a shoe or belt and enjoy.

Polymer Clay Skull Cane.

I only used black and white polymer clay for this one.
Make a cylinder of white clay that is two inches wide and one inch deep. Cut it in half using a razer and push two indentations into the flat edge for eyes.
(Ignore the little rectangle cheeky bits, I ended up not using them.)

Put worms of black clay in the pencil indentations and cover the flat edge with a 1/2 inch sheet of white. Cut a triangle shape in the middle of where the eyes are and fill it with a triangular worm. Cover this with a 1/8 inch sheet of white.

Make five or six rectangular worm shapes that are about an inch long. cover every other one in a thin black layer. Stack them together and cover any white edges with more thin black. put them where the teeth go under the nose.

Pack black pieces into the cheek area and under the teeth. try to make it be roundish when done like the top of the skull. You should have a cylinder again with a skull inside.

Cover the white sides of the cylinder with a thin sheet of black.

Squish it in the center, gently pulling to make the cane longer as you squish.

After you have it about 4 inches long you can start to roll the cane to make it thinner.

Try to maintain the same thickness all along the cane as you go. Cut the cane to more manageable lengths if you need to.

You can make it as thin or as thick as you'd like. I made mine for nail art so it's about a 1/2 an inch thick.

Finished skull cane!

If you're using this for nail art, cut the cane into three or four inch lengths and bake it at 260 for 15 minutes. After it has cooled off you can use a razer to cut it into paper thin slices. It's easier to cut if you tape the cane to your cutting surface.

Polymer Clay Citrus Fruit Canes

Some things:

Polymer clay (I used FIMO Big surprise huh?)
Yellow clay (mine was sparkly)
white clay
transparent clay (mine was sparkly)

Long razor blade (I got mine from a utility knife, be careful it's sharp!)
covered work surface
Oven
Oven mitts

Mix equal parts yellow and transparent

Roll and twist them together until they are mixed.

It takes a while, keep going until there is no marbling and the colour is even.

Make a cylinder that is about 2 inches across and one inch thick out of the new yellow you have mixed.

Cut the cylinder in half using the razor blade.

Continue to cut the cylinder into eight equal pie shaped wedges.

Roll out some white clay to about an eighth of an inch thick and cover each side of every other wedge with it. Keep the top and bottom free of white.

Push the wedges back together alternating covered and uncovered pieces.

Cover the edge of every uncovered piece in white so that the whole cylinder is white around the edge.

Roll out a piece of yellow clay to about an eighth of an inch thick. Cover the outside edge of the cylinder in a yellow sheet keeping the top and bottom faces free.

Should look something like this now.

Gently start to squeeze the middle of the cylinder. Keep the ends as even as possible as you are squashing it.

The cylinder should start to get longer. keep squeezing and pulling the cylinder until it gets about four inches long. Now you can start rolling it to make it as thin as you'd like.

Keep on rolling, cut the cane into manageable lengths as you go.

When the cane is as small as you'd like it, check the pattern by slicing off an inch or so from the edge. The pattern will become distorted more at the cane ends and remain truer to the original pattern in the center.

Looks pretty good huh?

I made limes and oranges (looks more orange in real life, lighting was a bit off) too.

If you are using the canes for nail art, cut them to three or four inch lengths and bake them at 260 for 15 minutes. Let them cool and then slice them thin as paper. It's easier to slice them if you tape them to the cutting surface.

Yeay!!!

Nail Polish Marbeling

Some things:

At least three nail polish colours (try to pick ones that you like and that look pretty together)
Old throw away plastic tub, smallish (no bigger than 4 inches across)
water
nail polish remover
something to marbleize (anything small and water safe)
straw or wooden stick

Drop drips of nail polish into the water. It will float! Put the dots on top on one another and randomize the colours as you go. You have to work pretty quickly, the polish dries fast. You will need ten to twenty drips, they will spread out as you add more.

Take a stick or a straw and pull the colours out toward the edge of the dish. Swirl them a bit but not too much. If you over do it, it just looks muddy.

Dip the item into a pattern you like. Before you pull it up out of the water, clear the way by pulling any extra surface polish out of the way.

The finished fake nail. You can re-dip stuff to make more complicated patterns, or remove the polish with nail polish remover if it doesn't look the way you want it too.

I did my nails this way. It made my fingers pretty messy. I used nail polish remover to clean up any marble pattern that was on my skin and then finished with a top coat of clear polish so it would last longer.

Shrinky Dink Rings

Inspiration for this project from

June Gilbank's blog


Some things you'll need:

Shrink film (should be available where you buy craft stuff)
permanent marker (I used black)
stamps (smallish designs work best)
scissors (can use an exacto knife)
A ring sized cylander of some kind (I used a magic marker)
ruler
oven
oven mitts

Cut strips of the shrink film about 6 inches by 1 inch. The measurement will change depending on the shrinking capacity of your particular shrink film. Might have to experiment with the dimensions a bit.

Use the permanent marker to colour in the stamp face. Work quickly before the ink dries and stamp the image onto the shrink film strip. If the ink dries out you can huff some of your breath onto the inked stamp to re wet the ink.

I used the edge of the shrink film as a guide for the marker and drew a thin line around the strip. Thought it looked more finished with an edge.

Bake the shrink it according to the package instructions, mine baked at 260 until it shrunk up. It will curl up and look like it ruined for a bit until it flattens back out. If some parts get stuck together in the baking process and don't uncurl by themselves, I use chopsticks to unstick them and continue to bake them until they have flattened out.

Quickly take the flattened rings out of the oven and wrap them around something ring sized. I used a magic marker, but a wooden spoon handle or piece of dowel would work just as well. Be carefull touching the hot shrink film..... It's pretty HOT. Might be adviseable to try to do this wearing oven mitts. Don't burn yourself!

The finished rings. Yeay!!!
So much fun and sooooooo easy!