Building, Boxes & Dressing for Downton....

So this is the view from my temporary crafting space..  

As you can see it's not hugely inspiring (even worse on a wet day!) but hopefully means I will soon have a lovely new crafting space to play work in.  Anyone who's had building work done will know, it's a necessary mess and you have to play lots of move-boxes-around-the-house which basically means I can't find all the bits & pieces I need to be able to make the projects in my head (still.... it won't be forever...)

It's also very noisy and hard to think straight... as you can imagine I've done very little 'making' recently as a result!  However, this week I had to get rummaging through the boxes so I could find all the pieces & tools to make a necklace for my daughter who is going to a 1920's themed party.  Rather than the usual 'Flapper Girl' style she has gone for a more Downton Abbey dinner dress and I have followed suit with a long beaded necklace with focal tassel. 

I chose a large sequin covered bead for the focal point and decided to add tassels to it. Once you've made the focal tassel bead the rest of the necklace is a sinch..here's the step-by-steps:

I began by securing the thread to the bottom row of sequins and then threaded 2-3" length of bugle beads before sewing back up through them. This was followed by another few threads in and around the sequins before repeating with the next strand and so on..

Keep going, adding as many beaded strands as you can fit around the bottom of the bead. 

Next add a jump ring to the bottom of an eye pin..

Then sew more strands of beads onto the jump ring..

 Thread the eye pin up through the bottom of the bead...

Then turn a loop on the end of the wire so it will be ready to thread onto your necklace.

To make the long beaded part of the necklace, first sort out a pleasing arrangement of beads with gaps of around 2inches.

Then begin to knot them onto some thread (waxed cords or synthetic works well)

Work down the first side (work out how long you want the necklace)

Add the tassel bead to the center point and bead up the second side..

You can leave long ends on either side of the necklace to make it easy to tie and/or adjust the length.

You should now be ready to dance at Downton!


Happy Making!


All pictures & text (c) Addicted to Making 2014

Flapper style earrings & all that jazz....

Hello Again,

Hasn't it been lovely to see that big yellow orb thing in the sky once again (in the UK at least!)  It really does seem to make a difference to everyone & everything -  although it also seems to gives me permission to just sit in the garden and bask in it whilst not getting much done.  Apart from these...

Recently I got very excited about the release of 'The Great Gatsby' movie (which everyone must surely be aware of by now?) It's just all the style & glamour of the era - fabulous!  It also brought back memories of an amateur stage production of  'Chicago' I took part in many moons ago.  I was in the chorus line and what fun we had...it was all neatly bobbed hair, feathered headbands, sparklies and all that jazz !

Here's one I made earlier...  1920's inspired fascinator
 (for Simply Homemade Magazine, issue 27)

As you know, many things that inspire me end up as some sort of project and being that I totally LOVE those glittery, jaunty flapper girls I simply couldn't resist making up a few pairs of earrings starting with those dangly fringed darlings at the top of the page!  I thought you might like to have a go too - they'd be great to wear to a summer party so  come on babe why don't we paint the town...

Or rather, perhaps just follow these steps!

1) First you will need to gather together some pliers, head pins, eye pins, earring findings, jump rings and lots of bugle beads (long & short) an a small sparkly rondelle...

2) Thread 6 x long bugle beads onto a head pin (this will be your centre pin)

3) Then turn a small loop on the end of the pin with your round nose pliers...

4) Repeat the above two steps until you have a total of 9 beaded headpins with the following number of bugle beads on them: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 (i.e. as shown in the picture from L-R)

5) Now thread up 2 x eye pins with around 10 x short bugle beads each, bend & trim the tops of the pins and turn a loop on each..

6) Pop your sparkly bead onto an eye pin and make a simple loop on the end of the wire..

7) Open the bottom loop on an earring finding and attach the wired sparkly bead to it..

8) Now use a small jump ring to attach the short bugle bead eye pins to the bottom of the sparkly bead...

9) Thread all the long bugle beaded head pins onto a new eye pin...

10) Bend the wire over at right angles, trim and turn a small loop (aim for this to hold all the beaded eye pins in place evenly)

11) Use a couple of small jump rings to attach the 'bar' of dangly bugle beads to each 'arm' of the earring...

12) ...and don't forget to make a second matching earring!

C'est complète!

                                           
Now you can mix a gin cocktail and go shimmy 'till your garters break....



                                             Enjoy xx

Oohh Velma.. did you hear that Addicted to Making is posting a delightful earring tutorial for us to make!