Button Initial

You know what is awesome? Completing TWO pins on Pinterest in the last two weeks! Holla!!

This time it was Meg who pushed me to get this one done. She said "Hey, let's get together and do those cool button initials. I'll teach you how to cut vinyl with your Silhouette."

Sold. Plus my massive button collection is always looking to get dipped into.

I'm pretty sure she pinned something different, but I pinned {this one} on my {Crafty things I need to do} board a little while ago. Oh if I had a dollar for everything I pinned on there....I'd have $72. Not bad, anyone hiring?

I think it really perks up my crafting nook! It took a full week and a half to tear apart my nook, reorganize every bit of crafting crap I own, and then put it all in this fancy new IKEA shelf that I blew all my Christmas money on. Ahh. I love my new organized space.

A quick how to:

• Get an empty 8x10, glassless frame. Cut out cute scrapbook paper to fit. 
• Cut out a vinyl letter and stick it on the paper. If you don't have a craft cutter, just cut one out of cardstock and trace it onto your paper. 
• Bust out the buttons and hot glue gun and glue, glue, glue! We did two layers of buttons so it would look really cohesive.
• Let dry. Frame. Done. 

Sorry about the weird angles of all the pictures, there's kind of a pillar in the way.

Linking up here!

The "cheating" post, jewelry with buttons

I know, I know, the whole series was "Jewelry Making for the Non-Jewelry Maker" and it required no special tools or supplies. Well...these both have just a teensy bit of special supplies. But they were so easy to do I had to include them! You've still got a week left till Christmas! You can totally knock these out. Easy.

 The main ingredient of the jewelry today? Buttons. Yes, buttons. You'd be amazed at the buttons you can find these days, some of them don't look like buttons at all! Like that pretty pink pendant. Yes, it's a button, and this is the easiest necklace ever! Less than a minute to make.

You will need:

• Button
• Jump ring
• Premade necklace (you can find these at Hobby Lobby)

That's it! Wait for buttons to go on sale and you've got a majorly inexpensive present. To make one:

Take button off of paper. Open the jump ring, thread it through the button.

Attach it to the necklace. Close the jump ring. Told you it was easy!

And the results are lovely! Only hardcore Joann stalkers will ever know that you're wearing a button around your neck. Ready for some easy peasy earrings?

You will need:

• Small buttons
• Two earring posts
• Button shank removers (Six bucks at Joann in the button aisle. Bring your coupon)
• Hot glue gun (E6000 would be better)

This one is a teeny tiny itsy bitsy more tricky, but it'll still take you less than a minute to make!

Using the button shank removers, remove the shank of the button.

Bam. Now it has a flat back.

Do it again to another button so you can have a pair (unless you only have one pierced ear, in which case skip this step)

Bam. Pretty rose earrings on the cheap, no cabochons required. I'll spare you another picture of my face, you get the idea right?

I hope you enjoyed my little series! Remember, next month I am redoing "Jewelry Making 101" which should cover everything you ever wanted to know about making your own jewelry. Got a question? Shoot me an email and I'll cover it in the series.

Happy crafting!

Vintage style cuff

First things first, this idea isn't originally my own. It was inspired by {this} tutorial over at I Heart Naptime.

Mine's a little different though. When I saw this pretty pleated ribbon at Hobby Lobby the very first thing I thought of was "Oh!! That would make an awesome cuff!" And here we are. You wanna make one?

Uh, don't mind the pic, I changed my mind a lot while I was making this. So, besides the glue gun, heat sealer, and scissors, you will need:

• Pleated ribbon
• Ruffled velvet ribbon
• Buttons
• Velcro
• Satin ribbon

Just pretend everything is in the picture, mmkay?

Wrap the ribbon around your wrist and subtract an inch. Cut the smaller ribbon the same length, and glue the ruffled ribbon on the pleated ribbon right down the middle.

Ok...I cheated a teensy bit here. I used button shank removers to take the shanks off, but this isn't necessary. You could glue them down just fine or use your scissors to take the shanks off. Don't throw rocks at me!

Arrange your buttons on your cuff in a pleasing way, and glue them down.

To close the cuff, I cut two 2 inch lengths of matching satin ribbon and heat sealed the ends. I glued them on the back side of the cuff.

The Velcro part of it...it's really just measuring and guessing. I wrapped the cuff around my wrist and overlapped the ribbons, then a glued on the Velcro where the ribbons overlapped.

See? It didn't totally match up, but since I measured it against my wrist it worked out perfectly!

And I really love how it turned out! The gold buttons really gave it a more vintage-ish feel.

(Dude, my hair is cuh-raaaazy in this one!)

I seriously love it, I want to wear it with everything and I am typically not a bracelet person.

We still have one more day of the Jewelry Making for the Non-Jewelry Maker series! Though tomorrow...I cheat a little bit. :( There are a few easy to find jewelry supplies but I couldn't pass up the opportunity for some really simple jewelry.

I'll give you a hint. It's the necklace I'm wearing.

Velvet choker

Squee!! Welcome to the first installment of "Jewelry Making for the Non-Jewelry Maker" series! I have been wanting to this series for some time now, I've had so many ideas swimming in my head and I am dang glad to be getting them posted!

Soo... what is "Jewelry Making for the Non-Jewelry Maker?" Well, it started out as a little challenge to myself. I do that a lot. "Amie, can you make this sewing item no-sew?" "What can you accomplish with your glue gun today?" "Hmm...can you make some jewelry without using any of your fancy tools?"

Shazam. Why yes I can. I played around with ribbon, trim, glue, buttons, and a bunch of other things in the craft store and came up with some jewelry pieces that can be made without any special tools, techniques, or supplies. Almost everything I used you should be able to find around your house, or in your craft stash. And just in time to stuff some stockings and keep your wallet at bay. Everything in the series costs pennies to make!

The first few tutes will be more "formal" jewelry, as formal as glue gunning can get that is. But my intention was more "Christmas party" jewelry. The others will be more casual, everyday jewelry. First item on the list, a velvet choker. For some reason, velvet chokers just seem so Christmasy to me, so festive!

Overkill? Yeah sorry. Picnik is way too fun.

As I was saying, I love velvet chokers around Christmas time. They are delicate, soft, and simple. I had one when I was younger (I almost typed "a little girl" until I remember that I am still in fact, little.) that I absolutely adored. So when Joann was having a great sale on trim, I snatched up the last yard of velvet ribbon to make this lovely choker.

All items in the series will need a glue gun, scissors and something to heat seal ribbon, so make sure you always have that on hand. In addition, you will need:

• Velvet ribbon
• Blingy trim
• Blingy button
• Velcro (oops, forgot to put that in the pic.)

Wrap the ribbon around your neck comfortably, and add an inch. Cut.

Glue velcro on the ends so that you can securely clasp the choker around your neck.

Glue your blingy trim around the velvet ribbon. At this point, I looked at my creation and realized that it looked like a black version of my cat's collars. Fail Amie. So I added some bling.

You could certainly glue your button/embellishment on, but this button is from my Mugga and I didn't want to ruin it with hot glue, sew I sewed it on. (Intentional pun)

Oh, it might be helpful to make some room for it. Jus' saying.

I put that choker on and BAM, I felt like a kid again. Actually, I felt more like Alice.

Ok, ok mine is totally different I know.

But I still like it. :)

What's that on my finger, you ask? That's tomorrow's tutorial. :) See you then my friends!

Headband Week- Chrome button headband

This headband happened purely by accident! When I first got it in my head that I wanted to make seven headbands for the headband challenge, I knew I wanted a button headband in there somewhere, but this is NOT what I envisioned! But I like this one way better. Say hello to:

The-button-headband-I-like-much-better-than-the-one-I-saw-in-my-head headband. Well call it the chrome button headband for short. Woohoo! This is what you get when you play with buttons. :)

• Thin metal headband
• Five metal buttons with big shanks (that sounds dirty...is it just me?)
• Felt scrap
• Hot glue gun. E6000 would be better, but I'm not patient enough....

Ahhh, I love easy peasy!

When I was rummaging through my buttons my eyes were drawn to these vintage buttons from my awesome grandma. I noticed they had really large shanks, so I experimented....

And lo and behold, they threaded onto the headband like a dream!

I threaded all of them on the headband and stacked them on top of each other to create a ruffled effect.

And hot glued them all down. NOTE: E6000 glue would have been much better here, but I just wasn't patient enough. And because I do most things on impulse, I didn't think to cover it with felt till I saw how ugly this was (hence it's lack of appearance in the materials photo.) So I cut a thin strip of felt out.

And glued it over the mess. Much better! 

I trimmed all most of the felt that was visible.

And BAM! Awesome headband! Love it, it's so chic and modern! I even used two more buttons to make matching earrings. Holla! Thanks hubs for taking pictures for me so I don't have another awkward self portrait. 

I managed to get half a picture of him. Isn't he adorbs? For some reason this picture reminds me of a cute little  teenage boy trying to talk his crush but is super scared and doesn't know what to say for fear of being awkward. So shy and innocent looking. (Looking, keyword there) I don't know why he looks 15 in this picture, I promise I'm not a cougar.

Oh! And here is an interesting shot of my hair! I'm seriously lucky to have awesome natural highlights all throughout my hair. Since the top layer of hair is what the sun hits, it is usually way lighter than the hair underneath. Sometimes when I wear a side pony you can really see the difference! I'm a third brunette!

Still five more headbands to go. Linking up {here} Keep working on YOUR headband projects because at the end of headband week we'll have a fun linky!

The button belt {a tutorial}

I made this a few weeks ago for a Pinterest Challenge over at {Better Life Bags}. My inspiration?

{via the swell life}

My version?

Love it! And it was way easier than I thought it would be to make a belt! A little time consuming with all those buttons, but still simple.

Yeah, it's awesome. It's fun and interesting and made a tiny dent in my button stash. Wanna make one too? We could be twinies!

You will need:

• Lots and lots and lots of buttons (I had all of my button organizers spread out but they didn't fit in the picture)
• Long strip of felt
• Inch wide satin ribbon (I think I used...a yardish. 18 inches one each end of the belt)
• Scrap of faux leather
• Glue gun with at least five extra glue sticks
• Scissors

I was a little too quick for myself and started working on it before taking pictures. First thing you need to do is cut a strip of felt 2-3 inches wide and long enough to wrap around your body minus an inch or two. You need room to tie the bow. So if you want it around your waist, measure around your waist and subtract and inch or two to leave room for the bow. Same if you want it around your hips. THEN you cut these two faux leather rectangles for the ends. Make sure they are just as wide as your belt. Mine were like....2" x 6"? I hate measuring.

Cut a small slit right through the middle of the rectangle just barely wide enough to thread the ribbon through. Do this for both pieces.

See how nicely it fits? Hot glue the ribbon down.

Liberally glue the inside of your leather rectangles and sandwich the felt in between. Do this for both sides and in less than 5 minutes you've got yourself a belt!

Then glue, and glue, and glue, and glue all those buttons on. I chose mostly pale colored buttons in neutral themes and designs, with a few funky ones thrown in. I wanted it to be able to wear it with multiple outfits.

Ok, maybe I had a lot of funky ones in there. I just love buttons! I used over 100 and my stash doesn't even look like it has been touched.

I've really got to get a picture of me sporting all the button crap I've made! That would be one intense pictures. Hmmm...what other crap can I make with buttons....

Linking up {here}