Enchanted Cloak and Cape

I love making cloaks and capes! I made two in one night using the same aqua velvet crush fabric.

ENCHANTED CLOAK ~

First up is a cute off-the-shoulder short hooded cloak. I wanted to make the cloak kid-friendly so I used Velcro for the closure and hid the stitches under a pair of pretty gold buttons.

The cape is short or half-length on an adult. But it would be a nice long cloak for a kid. The back of the cloak is squared (pointed corners).

I added a charm at the point of the hood. It's a nice detail and the added weight keeps the point hanging down properly.

View the Enchanted Cloak on AvalynArtistry.com

ENCHANTED CAPE ~ 

Next I made a simple cape that fastens in front with a little snap. Again, it's a short style for an adult, but it would be nice and long on a little princess.

This cape is rounded at the bottom instead of being square-edged like the cloak. I left the neck opening huge so it drapes down the back. This also gives the option to pull it up and tie it in front instead of using the snap.

Or, I suppose you could wear a pair of wings on your back and have them poke out of the back opening from your shoulder blades.

Note: Both the cloak and cape are pictured with my Shimmering Mage Blouse.

Winged Backpack

It's wings AND a lightweight drawstring back pack AT THE SAME TIME.

I made this with convention cosplay in mind.

Drawstring backpacks are my favorite way to carry things when I am in costume if I don't have a back or purse that matches my costume, because the strings are slim and subtle and the bag isn't bulky or heavy; it hides well in photos. Then I figured, why not take it one step further and make it a part of the costume by sticking wings on it? Viola! Instant cosplay for any cute dress.

View the Winged Backpack on AvalynArtistry.com

Tutorial: Golden Book Repurposing

So you might have seen people starting to sell old children's books remade into journals.  Well I'm here to show you how to do it :)  To be honest if you dont have the equipment it might be cheaper to go ahead and purchase one from a crafting seller.

Here we start off with a classic Golden Book.  Ok this isn't that vintage, but I really liked the cover art for this Cars Book.

Now to cut off the spin,  I like to use a circle blade cutter (on a cutting mat of course).  It runs pretty smoothly on the crease of the spine of the book.

See spin comes of pretty straight.

And it comes with pretty pages inside with all the same line cut.

Using a sprial bound hole punch to cut the holes.  I've purchased a whole stack of books, and I've noticed that GoldenBooks are the thickest cut my punch can go through, so some of the older books from the 70s just dont work out here.  But you also dont want a flimsy, just cause sturdy books are well, just more sturdy. 

Here's the more expensive piece of this project. I happen to have a spiral bound hole punch sitting in my room, not everyone has one and they are pretty pricey. 

The sprial bound punches ususally also come with a handy feature which stretches out the plastic spirals so you can slide your pages in.

Here we can include blank paper for drawing, line paper for journaling, or whatever else you desire.  I like to slip several pages of the original book in the middle to both section off chucks of the book and give back to the wonders of the story.

In my case the plastic spirals (purchase and the office supply store for pretty cheap) is too long.  But no worries, any handy dandy scissors cut those down the size really easily.

Yay now you have your own little self made journal.






WARNING:  Please practice using the sprial bound punch.  Here's some photographic evidence of my many botches.

Sunday School Sheep

This is a quick project for young children

This was for a sunday school class I taught (for 4 and 5 year olds), we made sheep! Here was my example. It's a styoform ball and Qtips for legs and I precut out the faces from felt.

Cute eh?

-Rini