2011 summary

As we are coming to an end of 2011 I have decided to do a summary of my 10 most popular posts of this year.  My top 3 had about 3 times as many visitors as no 4 on the list so they are most defiantly in a league of their own.  (I do also have a blog in Norwegian, and the list over there is very different from this one, so if you want to see you can take a look here : )
To see the original post click on the images.

 

Number 10 on my list is shared between two posts. One was my first attempt to make a tutorial and I think it went down well. These posts are number one and three on my Norwegian list so it has boosted my confidence and I’ll be making more in the year to come.

Number 9 was a post about some Christmas stars I folded and my first visit to a craft fair. It was a fun experience and I hope to participate in a few more nest year.

Number 8 are some of my pendants. Domino and puzzle pendants are a passion of mine. All of the pieces are individual and one of a kind. I cut out every tiny bit of paper and glue them on to make unique pieces of art.

Number 7 is my experimental chair makeover.Used my favorite material and covered the chair in paper. It doesn’t go with anything in my house so sadly its still just stuck away in the corner waiting for its true purposeJ

Number 6 were my Christmas bulbs tutorial. I’m so glad you liked it!

Number 5 is one of my repurposed trousers bag. I really like this one and were using it dayly until I made this one.

Number 4 were one of the first owls I did sew together with a matching display shelf. Not sure how happy I’m with this project now, but for a first attempt it wasn’t too bad.

And then we have reached the top 3, they were in a leage of their own and the number one even surprised me a little so here we go:

Number 3: was my suggestion on how to organize your boots. This made my life easier this winter, being able to hover the floor without it turning into a huge project every time. Hope those who tried it found it helpful as well.

Number 2 you’ll find my owls I think their cute and apparently so did many of you J

And my number 1 most visited link this year was my denim bracelets. I like them very much but still didn’t expect them to become so popular. I have gotten a lot of emails requesting a tutorial, and I will be posting one in the first week of 2012.

All in all I’ve had far more hits than I was expecting and I’m very grateful to all of you who have visited me the last year and made my blogging experience so much fun! Hope to see all of you again next year!

All hearts rejoice...

This year I decided to join the heart movement.  Some left the house before I had time to take pictures, but the rest you can see here.

As always I combine small leftover pieces with ribbons and small doilies. On my first hearts I used burlap on the back, but that was not a good idea. No matter how much I tried to seal the edges it starts to fray. So those hearts will live their short lives with me.

Appreciate the moments and the years will take care of them self

The rest ended up under the Christmas tree and are hopefully appreciated by their new owners.

 

Christmas preparation

December is a difficult month to blog because most of what I do is supposed to be a surprise to my friends and family. But this weekend was dedicated to making the house a little more ready for Christmas.  

I started by getting the tree out. 5-6 years ago I bought a plastic tree, a white plastic tree, because in a 200 years old hose filled with peculiarities from the 50s, 60s 70s what would look better… JFor years I have decorated it with black, red and god bulbs and that looked quite stylish, or so I thought. But according to my daughter it was now time for a change and the team this year would be pastel/candy colors. I don’t think pastel colors is the first that come to mind when people think of me, but I think the tree is very cute so why not J

Next was gift wrapping. I cut open some brown paper bags and decorated them with ribbon and Christmas scrapping paper. I learned how to fold the bows here.

 

Tutorial - Christmas bulbs

Last year I started making these Christmas bulbs from old light bulbs. I think it’s a great way to recycle them while they still exist, and they became very decorative.

What you need:

Light bulbs
Glue
Napkins
Christmas images
Paint
Glitter
something you can rest the light bulb on when it’s drying.  I used a roll with ribbon for gift wrapping.
Varnish
wire
Scissors

1.       The first thing I did was to cover the bulb in a napkin. I don’t put any effort into doing this nice because most of it is supposed to be covered up.  

2. Next I start putting my images on. It’s important to put glue on both sides of the image so you don’t get air bubbles.
I start with the biggest images and then fill in the gaps with smaller ones until the whole bulb is covered.

To make the image fit around the bulb you have to cut it in several places. Don’t worry about the image losing its shape because that will not ruin the overall impression. Sometimes I cut an image as much as ten times.

3.Now you need to wait for the bulb to dry before you put on 3 layers of glossy varnish.

4.Then I paint the socket and when the paint is still wet I cover it with glitter.

5.When the paint is dry I wrap wire around the socket to have something to hang it from. 

     

My latest pendants

Its dark when I go to work and its dark when I get home. So these pendants have been lying around for more than a week waiting for enough daylight to be photographed. All of them will be added to my store tomorrow.

   

Christmas fair and christmas stars

Yesterday I attended my first ever Christmas fair. Even though it was crowded I wasn’t happy with the sale.  I was a little late signing up so I ended up with a tiny table in the corner. But I have learned my lesson and will be signing up earlier next time.

When I still thought I would be at a normal size table I decided I needed to make some Christmas related products. I’m not a very Christmassy person and its especially hard to get in the mood before December. But then I saw a picture of a nice folded paper star and decided to have a go at that. My first attempt was in fabric and it was ok, but extremely time consuming and I don’t think anyone would pay for that time so I decided to go with paper aswell. I bought some scrapping paper that had print on both sides, cut out a crazy amount of strips and started folding according to this tutorial.

I decided to drop the 3D effect and not fold part three of the tutorial. I really liked the end result, and so did the people in the fair because it was without doubt my most selling item.

      
 

Album cover notebooks

A while back I made a birthday card out of an old album cover. I wanted to make note books with the rest of the cover and have been saving paper ever since and finally i had enought to make a few books (I have used all kinds of papers and some of the pages do have print on one side.)

I have seen so many beautiful journals on the net and have wanted to make one myself for a long time. So one of the books has been assigned to the task, but I have no plans for the rest of them just yet. Maybe I’ll bring them to the Christmas marked I’m attending this weekend.