Gift Wrapping - Added Touch

Want to Jazz up that gift presentation?

Have some extra craft supplies hanging around?

Taking an extra 2 minutes you can turn a simple gift bag or gift box into something amazing.  Take trinkets or embellishments you have laying around, arrange them on your container, and glue them on (the longest part of this process was waiting for the glue gun to heat up).

In additional to a wonderful (hopefully) gift, your friend may keep the wrapping container now as well to reuse for a long time coming.

Copper Patina Paint Technique

Copper looks really gorgeous when it ages, it turns a gorgeous aqua/turquoise color, which is a beautiful contrast against the orange of the metal. Why not duplicate that pattern with paint?

Step 1: Brush on a layer of copper-colored paint. Let it dry.
Step 2: Using a wide flat-headed brush, dip the tip of the bristles in turquoise or aqua-colored paint. Apply over the copper in patches by touching just the tips of the bristles to the surface, dotting instead of brushing. This gives a more natural weathered look. Do this all over, wherever you want the patina look to appear.

I love painting trinket boxes. They are an excellent canvas for trying out new paint techniques. Plus they are great for storing thumbtacks and paperclips. Or really tiny treasures that you want to bury in your back yard.

Mermaid Drawstring Bags

I saw this fish scale fabric at JoAnn's last Halloween and couldn't resist. I never got around to making a Little Mermaid costume (sorry, Hubby), but I had the brilliant idea to make little drawstring bags that look like mermaid tails.

So fun!

I added little glass beads scattered on it (hard to see in the pictures) - they look like bubbles!

Want to buy one? View the listing on Etsy.

Fleece Cosplay Dragon Ball Z Gohan

I've talked about this before, but I wanted to bring you another example of why using fleece for cosplays are so great.

Fleeze is stretchy and smooshable so making a ball is much easier than traditional fabrics, because if you make a mistake, enough tugging out or smooshing inwards will help get you to the desired shape.

Because fleece is light, you can def add full supture pieces to the top of the hat without worrying about it being too heavy. 

This kid is a child of an old classmate, I didn't have him around to try test the outfits while I was making, so his parents sent me a ton of measurements.  But just in case, using fleece means it can strech a bit if the outfit is too small.  ~cough~ ok i made the shirt too short, I asked them to pull to stretch it out, dont oonw how much you can stretch before it gets a little crazy.

Anyways with the fleece I didn't need to worry about cutting the edges and it fraying, so I was able to cut out the chinese symboles and use a zigzag stitch on it to sew the pattern on.  If you go over the sewn lines a few times with the zig zag it creates this very smooth pipping look. 

The tail would look a lot more awesome if it could be shaped.  ok that's easy, let's put some wire in it.  But But But how do you wash the outfit if there's bendable wire in it?  Put the tail on with a button!  LOL ok so maybe it distracts the person and shows that this is indeed a costume instead of a real tail, but I thought it was a really cute idea.  And besides isn't it any mother's dream to be able to wash a child's outfit simply without having to destroy it?