Ribbon and chain necklace

I am still sticking to my "no fancy tools or supplies" rule here, promise! Today's tute comes from the trim departments of both Joann and Hobby Lobby. You would amazed

Yup, seriously. That's some metal trim from Joann. It's a bit pricey, so if you go looking for it make sure to bring some coupons. The whole thing ties together with ribbon (as do most of these creations.) Ready to make your own?

Aside from scissors, glue gun, and heat sealer, you will need:

• Metal trim (or if you want to break the no supplies rule the jewelry section has some lovely chain)
• Satin ribbon

These materials lists seem kind of pointless don't they?

First, cut your trim to about 12-14 inches long.

Heat seal the end of a 12 inch length of ribbon

Thread it through a link and glue it down. Repeat on the other side.

Don't worry, I'll keep your secret when you give away one of these to each of your friends and neighbors.

Oh wait, you have some chain leftover?

Same thing as the necklace. Measure the chain around your wrist and subtract an inch and use 7ish inch ribbon strands.

Weave some pretty trim through the links if you're feeling really fancy.

Use another length of ribbon to cover up raw edges. Better make two for good luck. NOW you're done.

I've been really into stacking bracelets lately! (See that ring? It's a button threaded through a thin hair tie using the same method from earlier this week. Holla!!)

Hope you're having fun with this little series! I have one more tomorrow and one "cheating" post.

Happy crafting!

Thrift Store Frame to Jewelry Display! {a tutorial}

This tute is a long time coming! I made it during {Headband Week} in August, didn't write it up till September, and now here we are middle of October and I'm finally posting it! Oops. Onto the tute.

A thrifted frame to jewelry holder is one of the most common projects on a craft blog these days. Right up there with rosettes and an elastic waist skirt! Not that that is a bad thing, (I have BOTH on my blog! Well, now all three!) it's kind of fun to reinvent the wheel! Plus, it's one of those things that just WORKS, so why not give it a whirl? Aaaaaand I saw a million cute ones on Pinterest and I just had to try it. Stupid Pinterest.

See? I pinned it {here}

Or this one? {here} Gah, I almost feel silly posting mine!

Care to see it? Too bad, I'm showing you anyway.

I pretty much love it. Up until now, all my jewelry has been crammed in too small jewelry boxes, plastic bags, and strewn all over my room in heaps. Ugh, not cool. I love that everything is organized now and I can actually SEE what my options are! I kept all my fancy stuff in the pretty jewelry boxes, but the everyday stuff I hung up. Care to make your own?

You will need:

• A sturdy wooden frame, it's gotta thick and it's gotta be wood
• Sandpaper
• Scrap fabric
• Hot glue gun
• Nails
• Spray paint
• A handy hubby that is good with tools

This is my frame. I felt so bad for it. Obviously it had been around for years and years and it never even got used. :( No matter, I gave it a good home and now I love it every day. :) I unwrapped it and sanded the crap outta it.

And covered it with several coats of "oil rubbed bronze" spray paint. Ah, already so much better! And shiny....

Seriously, what is it with cats??

Next I wrapped the back of the frame in some pretty fabric and hot glued the edges down. Pull tightly so it's nice and smooth on the front!

I knew I wanted some lace strips at the bottom to hang my dangly earrings, so I glued some down as well. Pull REALLY tightly because the weight of the earrings will make the lace sag. I also glued it down in the middle so it would be a little more stable.

I marked where I wanted all the nails to be with a crayon I found in a drawer. I marked some at the bottom of the frame for really long necklaces, at the top for short necklaces, and on the sides for bracelets.

This is where hubby came in! He very patiently and oh so skillfully nailed nails (redundant much?) into all of those little crayon marks...and there were a lot of them!

"Thanks honey! Oh wait....can you do one more things puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeeaze??"

"Can you install these knobs I got from Anthropologie (on clearance! Three bucks each!) onto this other wood board I spray painted? No...I don't know how to install them. Use those power tools and figure it out kay? Love you!"

I stuck the back back into the frame while the hubs humored my request. No real instructions there.

Then I hung it up and filled it up! That took just as long as the project itself, oi. Oh, did you notice the headband holder?

Thanks for figuring that out hubs! Now I can hand up all my headbands in one place and not have to search the whole house looking for one. (On a side note, I have many more headbands now. This picture is over two months old!)

Ahh, it makes my little nook so much more organized. I've been wearing lots my jewelry now that I can find everything! If you haven't tried one of these yet you really should, they make life so much better. At least 20% better. (Bro hoof!!)

Headband Week- Three strand lace headband

So Little Miss Momma pretty much dictated my crafting last week by initiating her "headband" challenge. I got it in my head to make a headband every day, even though I had a few that I could rotate all week. And thus Headband Week was born!

Today's headband was one of the easiest I've ever done in my entire life. Seriously. I saw {this} on Pinterest a few weeks ago....

Gorgeous right? I loved the hairstyle too but that is for another day. I miraculously had almost the exact same lace in my stash, so this came together in less than five minutes! That's also why the pictures are absolutely horrific, I was in a rush to get out the door and didn't have time to stage any of the pictures! Sorry 'bout that.

Though my face and pose are slightly emo-ish, I LOVE the way the headband turned out! It's super cute, versatile and really comfy!

To make one, you will need:

• 4 yards of lace
• 8 inches of white fold over elastic 
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Hot glue gun 

Easy right? I bet most of you already have all of that stuff in your stash!

Most adult headbands are 19-20 inches, so use that as a rough estimate. I cut three 14 inch strands of lace, and one six inch length of fold over elastic. 

(Can you even see that picture? Yuck, sorry!) Stack each strand of lace on top of each other, making sure everything is facing the same direction. SLIGHTLY fan them out, and glue directly onto one end of your fold over elastic. Then do the same thing for the other side. Make sure nothing gets twisted in the process, that wouldn't be pretty. 

Cut a one inch section of FOE and glue it over the raw edges. 

That's it! It really was that easy! The hardest thing was waiting for the dumb glue gun to heat up! 

I made this one using the same method with my mom using some trim from David's grandma. This is by far the most versatile method out of all of them this week, you could make a zillion trillion headbands! (An exact amount.)

There are still six more headband tutorials coming this week! Stay tuned. :) Linking up {here}

Oh, and PS! I decided it would be fun to have a headband themed linky party at the end of Headband Week!  Huzzah! It'll be so fun, I can't wait to see all your headbands!

Lace roundup

Confession: I love doing round ups. I love perusing the internet and finding lovely little gems and gathering them all into one place.  It makes me happy. I hope you enjoy today's lace round up! I LOVE lace, I'm actually working on a lace craft right now! (I'm working on LOTS of crafts right now...I just need to finish one of them. Darn this ADD.)

The best part? Everything I rounded up has a tutorial, so you can recreate everything you see!

Decoupaging with lace from {Urban Comfort}

Lace t-shirt refashion from {The Crafty Cupboard}

Ruffled lace skirt from {The Planner and the Procrastinator}

Lace lamp from {Dos Family}

Lace manicure from {The Look for Less}

Lace heart garland from {Michele Made Me}

Lace envelopes from {we.love.laugh.kiss.}

 Lace bangles from {Rubies and Pearls}

Lace belts from {Make it Perfect}

Lace envelope clutch from {me! :D You don't mind self promoting right?}

Happy Thursday my lovelies. I'm working hard on getting a crafty contest together, it should be fun. :)

Edited to Add: We are ONE like away on my facebook page from having another facebook fans only sale! This means it could happen this weekend!

So how about this, let's have a facebook referral contest. Tell your friends to "like" Kitty Cats and Airplanes on facebook, make sure they mention who sent them! Whoever gets the most friends to "like" KC&A will get a free pair of rose earrings with their facebook fan order.

Tutorial Tuesday- Spring time earrings

This post was originally posted over at Mine for the Making. The tutorial I planned for today didn't go according to plan! Hopefully next week I'll finally have a sewing tutorial up for you. Enjoy. :)

Now I don't know about you, but when I think spring, the first thing I think of is flowers. Big, bright, beautiful bouquets of flowers. (Say that five times fast!) So with the theme of Spring Fling, I knew I had to do something with a floral inspiration. Then I threw in a few of my favorite things: jewelry, lace, and pearls! I ended up with....

 These pretty earrings! I think they are just perfect for spring. Light, floral, and romantic. Want to make a pair of your own?

You will need:

• Non fraying lace with a floral design
• Embroidery scissors
• Two eye pins
• Two freshwater pearls
• Two ear wires
• Two jump rings
• Round nose pliers

Got it?

Start by cutting out the flowers from your lace. You'll need four. Use embroidery scissors if there is small detail.

Admire them and think about your springy earrings.

Next, thread a pearl onto an eyepin.

Bend the eye pin over at a 90 degree angle.

Make loop using the round nose pliers. (Need help? Check out my tutorial here.)

Snip off the excess wire. Set it aside.

Open up one of the jump rings by twisting it open, not pulling it apart.

Thread the pretty flower and the ear wire in the open jump ring. Twist it back together.

Remember that pearly piece? Open one end and attach it to the bottom of the flower. Attach another flower to the other end of pearly piece and twist it closed.

Do it all over again and you've got yourself a pair springy earrings!

Dig through your lace stash again and make another pair. Do it again, because this it totally addicting.

In case you missed it- the Envelope Clutch

In case you missed my post on Better Life Bags last week, here it is again. This clutch was so much fun to make! Since Rebecca's blog is all about bags, I thought it would be fun to add another bag to her tutorial collection!

I call her the envelope clutch. Why? Well....

Because this bad boy was my inspiration. I was sending a letter and was thinking about the envelope (because, you know, everyone ponders envelopes) and I thought, "This is the perfect size for a clutch!" And with some fabric, a sewing machine, and about an hour my inspiration became a reality!

It's got dreamy red satin, oh-so-sensual black lace, and one blingly vintage button! Wanna make one too?

You will need:

• Large scrap white cotton fabric (at least 10"x13")
• Large scrap black lace
• Large scrap red satin
• Large scrap medium weight, iron-on interfacing
• Envelope
• Large sheet of paper (bigger than a regular 8 1/2" by 11")
• Closure of your choice (button, velcro, elastic, etc.)
• Iron, ironing board
• Sewing machine, matching thread, scissors, etc...

Got everything?

The first thing you need to do is carefully cut down the sides of your envelope and open it up. This is how you will create your pattern. Lay it on your larger sheet of paper. (I used a sheet of freezer paper, but you can use newspaper, tissue paper, butcher paper, whatever you've got!) Keep the envelope, you'll need it again soon.

Press your envelope down and sketch about 1/4" all the way around the envelope. I chose to keep the bottom straight to make the sewing easier. When you're done, cut out your pattern and fold it in half, lining up the edges. Trim anything that doesn't match up so you're pattern is symmetrical.

Using your pattern, cut out a piece of red satin, black lace, and white cotton. It is not necessary to cut out your fabric with a rotary mat/cutter, I just prefer it that way. Then, using the envelope as a pattern, cut out the interfacing (so that the interfacing is slightly smaller than all the other pieces.)

I didn't take a picture of the next part because you would have puked if you would have seen my nasty ironing board. Following the directions on your interfacing, iron it onto the wrong side of your cotton fabric nicely centered.

You'll now have three pieces: red satin, white cotton with interfacing, and black lace. Pin the wrong side black lace onto the right side of the white cotton (so both of the fabric's right sides are facing up.) Sew the entire way around the black lace using a very small seam (1/8").

Now you have two pieces! The red satin and an interfacing, cotton, and lace sandwich. Pin the two pieces together (right sides together, so the shiny side to the lace side) and using 1/4" seam, sew around your pieces. Leave a 3 inch or so hole at the bottom for turning.

When the sewing is done, clip the corners so when you turn it right side out, the corners will lay flat.

Turn it right side out. Push out the corners (I like to use a chopstick) and make sure they are nice and crisp. Press flat and make sure all your seams and corners are pretty.

Using a very small seam again (1/8"), top stitch along the bottom and along the point at the top ONLY!! Don't top stitch along the sides.

Fold up the bottom of your clutch so that it resembles an envelope. Look back at it if you need to! Pin the sides together and top stitch using that 1/8" seam on both sides.

 

Now, I'm hugely a little obsessed with buttons, so I used a fantastic vintage button to close my clutch. You can use whatever you'd like, magnetic closures, snaps, velcro, elastic/button, whatever works for you!

When you're done, plan a special date with your honey because this little clutch needs to get out!!

It's the perfect size to hold just the essentials: cell phone, keys, lipgloss, credit card, and maybe something extra!

Make sure you check out my "Parties" tab to see where I'm linking up!