I Can Arm Knit!

Hello again lovely readers! I just made a page on this blog called "My Creations" where I'll be putting all of my crafty, artsy, DIY posts so they can be easily accessed. It's getting super cold here in Alabama, but luckily for me, I've gotten into arm knitting!
When I was first introduced to Pinterest, I learned that arm knitting was a thing, but I never tried it because it seemed confusing and like it would take up a lot of time. And how would I possibly put it down to use the restroom or eat or do anything if I'm in the middle of an arm knitting project? Well, recently I saw another arm knitting tutorial on Pinterest, and this time I thought "Hey, I could do that!" So I found some yarn and tried it out. After a few first-attempts that didn't feel quite right, I made my first arm-knit scarf!

I believe I finished that one in one day. They're advertised as "30-minute Arm Knit scarves," and they really can only take 30 minutes if you do nothing but arm knit for those 30 minutes. I get easily distracted and have to take a break every few rows to respond to texts or play another episode on Netflix. But 30 minutes is a pretty accurate estimation. 

I didn't really like my first scarf all that much because it was WAY too bulky for me. When I did my second scarf, I didn't cast on as many as the video said to. I probably only did 9 or 10 when the lady in the video was doing 12. This was my second arm-knit scarf:

I believe I casted on 10 for this one and the yarn was a bit thinner, so it's not nearly as bulky as scarf number 1. I like this one a lot because it's my school colors and it matches a blue sweater that I have.

On Thanksgiving, I taught Tessa how to arm knit. We both used the same yarn for our scarves and I don't have a picture of mine, but here's hers:

Teal and black are Tessa's dance company's colors, so we'll be warm and supportive at her competitions with these scarves. 

You might have noticed that all of these scarves are some shade of blue. I noticed that too, so when I went yarn shopping the other day I picked up a couple skeins of this really pretty red wine colored yarn. Not only did I make a scarf out of it, but I had quite enough yarn left to finger knit a headband/ear warmer.

I'm so in love with this color and the buttons that I found for the headband. My new Burt's Bees plum lip shimmer looks really great with the dark red yarn. Today I put it all on:

Finger knitting feels really weird the whole time you're doing it, but it looks pretty cool! I'm not sure if there are finger knitting tutorials out there, but there probably are if you dig around enough. 

If you're interested in being handcuffed by yarn for half an hour and making beautiful, warm scarves with nothing but a couple skeins of yarn and your arms, this tutorial is awesome. If she doesn't do it for you, there are tons of other people that have made tutorials as well (which is partially why I'm not making a tutorial for it). You do have to learn to be slightly ambidextrous in order to arm knit, but don't let that scare you away. 

If you're like me and are worried about having to get up and do something important in the middle of knitting, my mom and I discovered that those little cardboard toilet paper rolls come in handy. Save one of those the next time you run out of toilet paper to transfer your yarn onto it when you need to get up. It should just slide from your arm to the roll, but you have to be careful that it doesn't slide off the roll. Don't forget which arm it was on last!

I hope I've inspired some of you to try this because it really is fun and makes such pretty scarves. For my next arm knitting project I'll be attempting a blanket! I'll try to take some pictures of my progress along the way and I'll definitely make a post about it. Stay warm!

Bandana Headband DIY

Yesterday I posted a step by step tutorial of how I made my bandana bracelet out of the bandanas my little dog used to wear before she passed away. Today, I made a headband out of one of them! This one does require sewing, so if you're like me and can't sew for your life, turn away now. Unless you're even more like me and have an awesome seamstress sister willing to help you out. 

This is the bandana I decided to use:

I started with a spare black headband and flipped the bandana upside down. Then I dug out some wire that I had in my jewelry making box and formed it to the headband, then cut it and straightened it out. 

The only reason I formed it to the headband was to get an accurate length for the wire. One way I thought to do it originally was to just wrap up the bandana and attach it to the headband, but then I thought it'd be better to wrap it around the headband, which I couldn't figure out how to manage, and that's where the wire came in.

This is where you're going to need a seamstress with a cool sewing machine. I lined the wire up where I wanted it to go on the bandana and handed it over to Tessa.

This is what it looked like once she was finished: 

It is a bit off centered, but it honestly doesn't matter at all. Neither does the color of the thread, since we will be covering it soon. She used a zig-zag stitch very slowly as to not break the needle on the wire. She says that before you start sewing to use the wheel on the side of the machine to be sure that the width of the stitch is wide enough and that it won't hit the wire. Then I had her stitch the ends of the bandana over the ends of the wire like this:

That was just a straight stitch with her sewing machine. Now you see why it doesn't matter that it's off centered!

Next was the fun part; rolling it! I rolled it up really tightly.

I didn't get a picture of it, but I folded the tip of the bandana under.

Now for more sewing!

This is where she did some hand sewing with white thread. It's called a blind stitch, which should be easy to find on Google or the wonderful world of Pinterest.

Finishing it off:

Then we formed it to her head. We did have to bend it a little more for it to be tighter, and since it is made with wire we'll probably have to do that every time, but it's no big deal and it's super cute.

Tada! There's our lovely new headband made from a bandana! This came out so well and I'm really excited about it. Yay for teamwork!

Bandana Bracelet DIY

A little over a year ago, our little pomeranian named Sugar had to be put down because of her many health issues. She was 7 years old and we were very sad to have to let our sweet princess go to dog heaven.

Yep, she was pretty adorable. 

Whenever Sugar went to the groomer, she would always come back with a cute bandana around her neck. We threw away most of them after they got worn out, but a few of them were in pretty good shape. We had about 4 left after she died, and it wasn't until today that I decided to do something with them. I already had the idea to make bracelets, so that's what I did!

I took three of them and decided to braid them together. I lined them up and used a ruler to draw a straight line across them.

Then cut...

Then I tied them together at the top and taped them to my desk.

Then I started braiding...

I braided pretty loosely because I wanted the patterns to still sort of be seen. I estimated about how long I'd need it to be for my wrist and then tied it off. 

At this point I wasn't completely sure how to tie it into the bracelet form, but I ended up taking a scrap piece of fabric and using it to tie the ends together. Then I cut off some of what was left, leaving some hanging off and looking a bit like a bow.

And tada!

I personally like how it looks! And the fabric is somewhat stretchy so I was able to just slip it over my hand and onto my arm. 

Here's Sugar wearing two of the bandanas I used in this project:

She stuck her tongue out a lot.

So now I have a cute little bracelet to keep a memory of her with me. 

Tomorrow I'll post a step-by-step of making a headband out of one of these bandanas with the help of my seamstress sister. 

Random Wreath Making

Last night I spent a really long time at my boyfriend's house with him and all of his friends because they wanted to watch a League of Legends tournament. I'd sat through one of them before, so I figured this time I could crochet while they watched their game and listen to their goofiness and eat pizza. But what I didn't expect was having craft time with my boyfriend's mom during the last part of the tournament. She came downstairs and asked me if I was interested in making something with her, and I said sure! Anything would be more entertaining than a bunch of video game stuff that I don't understand.

So I went upstairs with her and she showed me these big bins full of all kinds of ribbon and two wreath frames. The plan was to wrap the wreaths in ribbon and make them look pretty. I'd never made a wreath before, but there's a first time for everything! We were going to glue on the ribbon with a hot glue gun, but then she had the (less messy) idea of holding the ribbons on with little pins (I kind of hate glue, so this made me happy). It actually turned out really well for both of us! The wreath she made was red and gold, and she said she'd add more to it when Christmas comes around and she gets inspired by something. I went with a New Year's theme.

I realized that it could also be used for a graduation party. 

Obviously I couldn't do a step-by-step with this, but I'm sure you could find some on Pinterest! What we did was we wrapped the base color ribbon (in my case, gold) all around the frame. Then we chose another smaller ribbon to wrap on top of the base (blue). What I did for my little bow was a little odd, but I'll explain anyway. I tied a blue ribbon around the wreath with the knot in the front. Then I cut a piece of blue ribbon and a piece of gold ribbon the same length and slid them under the blue knot and tied them on top of it. At this point I just had a big knot with some pretty ribbons hanging down. I was running out of gold, so I found an extra piece that was kind of wrinkled at the ends and slid it under the knots and tied it like a bow. I cut off the ends as close to the knot as I could so it just looks like the bow is connected to the gold ribbons hanging down. I cut triangles out of the ends of the ribbons to make them look fancy. Then I stuck pins through the knots just in case, and voila! 

The way I have it, I could stick little decorations on it depending on the occasion. But I'm really happy with how it turned out! It probably took about an hour or so, maybe less. I might start making more...

When I came back downstairs, I discovered that I'd missed the beginning of a pool tournament.

So they wouldn't let me play until their little brother decided he was done and had me fill in for him. I won the first round I played and just barely lost the second. All of us have kind of become obsessed with this game. 

After the pool tournament, they started to play this "scary" video game called Outlast, and none of them really wanted to keep playing, but they wouldn't stop because they're weirdos. I had to be the one to suggest a game of Ninja to finally end it. You're welcome. 

That was a fun night, and I really enjoyed making a wreath! 

The Power of Pinterest

Pinterest is probably one of the best things to ever happen to social media. I read somewhere recently that Twitter and Facebook are "look at ME!" sites, while Pinterest is a "look at THIS!" site. I love it because it's so organized and you don't have to search too hard to find exactly what you're looking for. "Pinterest is my Google." 

Since I started blogging, I made a board on Pinterest specifically for everything I find related to blogging. There are so many helpful things on this site for blogging beginners! 

I think the most popular thing about Pinterest is the wide variety of DIY tutorials you can find. Even just some suggestions that give creative minds a starting place for crafts and interior design and gifts and makeup and nails... I could go on forever. Here are some of my Pinterest-Inspired accomplishments:

My weekly calendar made from a frame (super cheap at Walmart!). Tessa had fun with it...

I came across a painting of a tutu, which inspired me to paint Tessa's costume from her first competition dance on a little canvas. I plan to paint each competition costume for the next two years.

The icicle lights I had around my room died, so I took them down. I hated how empty that little piece of wall above my closet looked, so I printed out a bunch of Instagram pictures and hung them up with yarn and clothes pins.

I covered a cork board and reupholstered my desk chair with some cheap fabric I found at Walmart. Both are holding up nicely!

There have been more, but some are gifts that have not been given yet... 

While Pinterest is awesome and fun and helpful and inspiring, it's also addicting! I tell myself all the time that I should be DOING the things I'm repinning instead of sitting here repinning more! And obviously I do force myself away from my iPad to make these things every now and then, but there are a lot more crafts in my DIY board that I haven't done yet! 

There are also so many helpful links for college students that I've discovered since my friends and I are headed in that direction. Ways to save money, alternative sites for buying and renting cheaper books (which I realized last night are ridiculously expensive- there is no valid reason for them to cost that much!), and multiple links to lists of what to pack for people living on campus. 

If you find any of this appealing, you should make a Pinterest account and follow me as well. Another cool thing about Pinterest is that you can follow specific boards a person makes, so if you don't care to see me repinning hand lettered stuff all the time, you can unfollow that board! And if you just want to see what I pin in my DIY board, that's all you have to follow. 

Happy Pinning! 

Basket Renovation

As I said in my little descriptions and "About Me," I like to make stuff and paint. Recently my mom gave me a basket to fix up so we could possibly sell it.

Obviously my sister and I got a hold of it as children and made it sooooo pretty. Well now it was my job to make it look prettier. There were a couple bottles of brown paint with the basket, so I used the darkest one. I started on the inside because I knew that would be difficult to get to, and I was right. I wished I had a tiny brush that would fit in the basket so I could get in the little corners. This is how it looked once I got the inside painted: 

There was also a bunch of purple paint in there which I didn't get in the "before" pictures. The paint covered it up surprisingly well. I had to add an extra coat in a couple spots, but other than that it was fairly covered. Painting the outside was a lot easier.

Wow bad photo. But this is what it looked like completely covered with the "burnt umber" paint. I've never liked that color name. What even is umber?

This is when I got to start having fun. I painted little designs on the rim of the basket with white paint. Then I used an old brush pen to outline them and make the lines smoother. The reason I used a brush pen and not a sharpie is because my experience with sharpies on paint has not been positive. Plus sharpies tend to look weird and shiny and almost tinted blue. If you ever want to use pen on top of paint, be sure the paint is completely dry! I've lost a lot of pens because of my impatience. That's why I used an old brush pen, just in case I got a little excited. I used a Faber-Castell PITT brush pen. These are very nice pens, and they are permanent like sharpies, but don't leave that weird sharpie look. I recently got a new set of these pens, so I used one from the set I've had for a couple years. And I didn't mess it up, either! Here's what my designs looked like before and after outlining:

I was very happy with how they looked after I outlined them. The before and after pictures are at the top. So much better! I almost don't want to sell it.

The whole painting process took about 4 hours or so, with one break for lunch. I don't like waiting to finish things... I hope I've inspired someone to update something sitting around in your house! You really need no artistic talent to do it, just paint, brushes, a good pen, and a steady hand. And it doesn't have to be perfect; imperfections are what make things unique!