DIY Les Bonbons Earrings

I love homemade gifts and for Christmas 2015 I made candles and pins. This year I took on the overly ambitious project of making earrings, similar to Les Bonbons by Rebecca De Ravenel that are available for purchase here: https://rebeccaderavenel.com/. It was harder than it looked, so unfortunately I did not finish in time for Christmas, but alas - I am now complete and here are the results!

A labor of love, my friends!

For this project the supply list is incredible, because it is cheap and basic. You will need:
1) Styrofoam balls (4 / pair): I used 1" smoothfoam balls found here, http://www.smoothfoam.com/product/balls/10010.html
2) Styrofoam half balls (2 / pair): I used 1" half smoothfoam balls found here, http://www.smoothfoam.com/product/10612.html
3) Gold acrylic paint, or color to match silk thread
4) Gold silk thread, or color to match paint
5) Clip-on earring flat back findings: I used something like these, http://www.firemountaingems.com/itemdetails/h20b4401fn
6) Gold wire, jump rings or chain: can also find at Fire Mountain Gems
7) Needle-nosed pliers, wire cutter (for jewelry), Glue, Toothpicks.... scissors, and, that's it!

The first step is to drive a hole through your smoothfoam balls with a toothpick and paint them gold. You can use the toothpick to hold the ball in place as you paint.

Painting the smoothfoam ball gold with acrylic paint.

I ended up painting a few different sizes to experiment. The larger balls, 1" diam., were my fave.

Smearing on glue with a free toothpick and tucking the tail of the silk cord in place - glue and wrap.

Keep gluing, keep wrapping and watch out for dirty fingers!

Halfway through and looking good.

Beads taking shape...

Once you reach the end, tuck in the string with some glue and let dry.

If you are still with me, you are golden. The hard part is done!

Repeat steps above with your half smoothballs.

Time to assemble. Using a headpin or gold wire (as pictured), use a needle nosed plier to loop the end. This is to keep the bottom bead in place.

Using the needle-nosed pliers, make a loop.

Attach a short length of chain. I ended up only using one single loop.

Put it all together! Yes, it is possible. :)

Apply glue to your half smoothball and cover with felt circle backing.

Glue on the clip-on with tacky glue and assemble. These earrings weigh almost nothing!

Finished product!

So I appreciate that this project is probably too hard for most to want to take on. If you love these earrings, but don't love the crafting component - you can always splurge for the original that is available for sale here: https://rebeccaderavenel.com/

If anyone decides to give it a go - please post your comments below! Would love to hear how it worked out!

Holiday Decor Cont...

I have been chipping away at our holiday decorating moving towards Thanksgiving - I am early! This weekend the magnolia garland, ornaments and wreath arrived. They look beautiful! I ordered everything shown here from One Kings Lane (www.onekingslane.com) and purchased their shipping pass for $19.95 to get free shipping through 12/31.

Fresh wreath and a peek of garland

First project - dip-dyed silver magnolia garland

I loved the idea of creating a dip-dyed silver garland to lay across the cabinet that my dad made for me. I store china in this cabinet and since we do not have a proper mantle it was a good place for some holiday dressing!

Marking off the tail to be dip-dyed

First, I draped the garland and marked off the tail for spray paint. This garland is 10' long and was $79 from One Kings Lane.

Krylon silver spray-paint from Amazon

I used silver spray-paint, but you could use any color in the metallic family.

Giving the garland a good spray!

With the paper barrier in place, bring the garland to a well-ventilated area and give it a few good coats of metallic spray-paint!

Finished garland laid out to dry

Arranging the finished garland

I really like how this looks!

I love how this garland turned out, but I also love how everything in these last pictures were made by me or my family! My mom made the sweater I am wearing, my dad made the cabinet, James and I made the woven leather chair (previous post) and I painted the monkey (previous post). Everyone including James has gotten into the crafting spirit! :)

Holiday Decor!

The holidays are coming and I couldn't be more excited about my holiday decor this year. I have ordered my materials for the projects I have planned and am sharing my list below for anyone who would like to get a head start.

10' strand of magnolia garland from the Magnolia Company

89" Eucalyptus Garland from Knud Neilson Company

30" Bunches Wreath, Magnolia Company

10 gold glass Christmas ornaments

20 Assorted glass Christmas ornaments

I am planning to decorate our dining room table and living room with these greens and ornaments. The magnolia garland can be used to decorate a mantel. Since we do not have a mantel, I plan to put this beautiful garland on top of a cabinet, but you can effectively put it anywhere that you have a flat space - tabletop, bar, be creative!
My last item for this project is silver spray paint and some checkered ornaments. Looking forward to putting it all together!

Broken Dishes

I love the Lynn Chase Jungle Jubilee hand painted plates. I ordered a set of four off of Ebay for $30. Unfortunately, two arrived broken in half, so I am left with two for this post. :/ (USPS claim is in the works!). Today I am going to show you how to fix a plate with a chip. Note: this method should only be used to fix chips along the edge of a plate and not where food is served.

Love these plates. If you look closely, you can see some chips along the edges.

To fix the chips, you need: 1) 2-Part Epoxy: I used Devcon from Amazon, 2) Oil pastels, 3) Toothpicks

Here is a closeup of the chips

Another closeup...

To fix the chips, color the oil pastel directly into the chip, mix the 2-part epoxy with a toothpick (equal parts) and spread the epoxy over your pastel work. I've seen an alternative method where the oil pastel is mixed directly into the epoxy and then applied. Coloring directly onto the chip worked best for me.

Prep work...

Complete! Three chips basically disappeared..

My color matching was not perfect because I was short on pastels.

Animals for the Kids! 2.0

I'm back with more animal watercolors since they have been so much fun. This little monkey was inspired by a photograph and is for Meghan's son Tommy.

This little guy is for Little Tommy. :)

These lambs are for Kristy and her baby girl!

I added a little extra pink to these lambs! :)

My friends have been using Framebridge for framing. You order a kit on Framebridge to mail in your art, and they mail it back in your fame of choice! Pretty easy!

View fullsize

Meghan chose white on white...

Lauren chose gold for Pierce's giraffe. I love how they both turned out!

Jasper Necklace

A trip to the bead store landed me with a strand of blue Jasper stones and a project on my hands! I turned it around quick so I could wear this necklace to work this week. There are so many beautiful pieces of jewelry that you can buy in the store or make yourself for so much more fun!
To make this project at home you will need: 1) strand of beads (mine are blue jasper), 2) beading wire, 3) small silver spacer beads (if preferred), 4) 2 crimp beads, 5) a clasp, 6) needle nosed pliers (to crimp the crimp beads, and finish the necklace)

Jasper beads unfinished and fresh from the bead store

I chose a fun snake shaped clasp with silver spacer beads.

Beginning the strand

To begin the necklace, thread the tail of the beading wire up through the spacer bead, the crimp bead (very small), around the clasp and back down through the crimp and spacer bead. Using your needle nosed pliers, squeeze the crimp bead shut. This will hold the clasp in place and allow you to move forward stringing the beads.

Stringing the beads

I used some extra small silver spacers to fill in gaps that were caused by angled stones. This is optional and they are not evenly spaced, but they fill the gap where wire would otherwise show.

Finished product!

To finish the necklace repeat the same steps from how you began; string large spacer bead, crimp, clasp and back down through crimp and spacer bead. Use your needle nosed pliers to pinch the crimp shut and weave the remaining beading wire back through the strand, clipping when you are a few inches away from the clasp.

Beach Chic Leather Folding Chair - Woven Leather v2

This will likely be my last chair post, but I wanted to add this variation since it is slightly different than the first (see, Woven Leather Chair) and has a summer spin! I purchased this aluminum Telescope folding chair on Ebay for $44 and re-covered it in leather for an additional $100. I purchased the natural strap leather (4 oz / 5 oz) from Weaver and had them cut 2" strips.

Here is the Telescope aluminum chair from Ebay that I bought for $44

First step is to disassemble the chair by unscrewing the canvas strips. Discard all but one from each direction to use as a template.

We found it was easier to cut the strips down the middle and just turn the strip, vs. using the screwdriver.

Using a strip as a template, cut your leather strips - give an inch of extra room just in case.

Prep the leather strips with a coat of oil to make them easier to work with and kick-start the patina process.

After washing the chair down with soap and water, it looks much cleaner.

Assembly in process - attach the leather strips just like the fabric was attached before.

Screwing each of the strips into place.

Halfway done - ready for weaving!

Weave the straps across and secure to the frame, just like the chair was assembled initially.

Finished product! Super comfy and beach chic - although, for sunny days only - do not get wet!

Please let me know if you have any questions by posting in the comments section below! 

Woven Leather Chair

I have been slowly decorating my new apartment, mixing the expensive with the more thrifty and was struggling to find a dining room chair that I loved. I found many chairs on First Dibs that fit the bill; the Les Arcs and woven variations, leather sling chairs, etc., but nothing that fit my price range. I decided to make my own and they turned out really well, so here is my how-to if you would like to pick up this project yourself! Each chair cost about $115 including the cost of tools.

Supplies for one chair:
1) IKEA Ivan pine chair
2) Danish Oil in Light Walnut: to stain the frames
3) 21 vegetable leather strips: I bought mine from Weaver Leather and had the strips cut 1.5" wide
4) 100% pure neatsfoot oil: to condition the leather
5) Tools: awl, brass upholstery tacks (9 per chair), hammer, short nails (0.25" long), paintbrush

The first step is to prepare the frame and the leather. For the frame, I brushed on one coat of Danish Oil and laid the pieces out to dry. I did not wipe off the stain. Remember, you don't have to stain the chair seat. I used the chair seat as a tray to hold my stain and oil while I worked.

Weaver ships long leather strips that need to be cut down to size. For the Ivan frame you will need 3 strips cut 24" long each (top of chair, across), 5 strips cut 18" long each (top of chair, vertical), 13 strips cut 22" long each (seat). Once the strips are cut I laid out parchment paper and painted neatsfoot oil on both sides of the strips - it doesn't have to be perfect. The oil conditions the leather.

Now for the fun part..! Beginning with the top of the chair (the hard part!) space and nail down your strips to the FRONT of the chair - 3 across and 5 vertical, nailed to the bottom ladder. I used 3 nails to attach the end of each strip.

Use an awl to make it easier to set your nails

Leather strips nailed to the FRONT of the chair frame

Wrap the leather from the bottom ladder around behind the chair and back up the front and over the top to nail underneath the top ladder. Each leather strip will wrap around the frame to cover the nail-heads. The only nail-heads that will be visible are those on the back of the chair, under the top ladder.

Underneath the top ladder of the chair the nail-heads will not be visible

Prepare for weaving!

Weave across the three horizontal strips, covering the nail-heads and stretch tight around to the back of the frame. Since these will be visible, secure with brass tacks to finish.

The natural leather strips cover nail heads for a clean finish

Use brass tacks to nail final three strips in place

Clean finish with brass tacks

Complete the seat of the chair in a similar fashion, nailing down the strips to the underside of the frame. I used 6 strips across the back and 7 down the side. Resting the chair seat face down on a workbench makes this step easier. I also added felt feet to the chair so they don't scratch my floors.

Woven strips secured to bottom of seat

Please let me know if you have any questions about this project. Hope you enjoyed it!