This was my first real piece of embroidery, made last spring. I was a student art therapist at Sheena’s Place and had no idea what I was doing. Luckily, there was a facilitator for the 6-week session and I could stumble along with the rest of the students. I can’t say I made nearly as much progress as some of them did in terms of actually learning embroidery, but looking things up in books and trying out new colours and stitches with the clients was thrilling.
I had some leftover grout from the mosaic project, so I decided to make a bowl!
Over the years I’ve collected seashells from Cuba, Mexico and now Israel, and they usually just sit in a clear bowl as decoration – not that there’s anything wrong with that, but thinking outside the bowl isn’t an awful idea either.
I bought a $2 glass bowl from the dollar store and grouted the entire thing, sticking the seashells into it before drying. You could probably superglue the shells on first and then grout it afterwards too if you worried about them sticking in the grout. I didn’t grout the inside, but I guess that’s an option?Anyway, it’s now a change bowl in the entry-way.
I made this a while ago for a friend who had accidentally broken a special mug (a beautiful rose pattern). She wanted a fairly substantial sized artwork, so I bought another dollar store mug (polka dot pattern), took it onto the concrete balcony with a hammer, and smashed it up. I used fixatif to attach the pieces to the wooden braced panel, and then grouted the entire panel. I scrubbed the excess grout from the pieces with a toothbrush. Then I painted over the grungy-looking grout with metallic copper paint.
Moral: No use crying over a broken mug.
Click the photo for more pictures of the project! Awesome necklaces for summer – I mostly made them as gifts. They may take a couple hours, but overall it’s a pretty easy craft.
Preheat:
Determine if you’re going to use a pattern and select beads accordingly. You can also use different lengths of safety pins if desired, or use the same length all the way around. Determine what colour you’ll use in between the safety pins on the wire as well.
Ingredients:
90-120 safety pins
450-600 seed beads
clasp (I used jump ring and lobster)
thin wire or sturdy thread
flat-nose pliers
crimp beads (if using wire)
Recipe:
1) Open safety pins, stack seed beads, close safety pins. Remember that the closure end of the safety pin will hang downwards. Arrange them in an ordered pattern if you have one.
2) Clamp the safety pin closures shut using flat nose pliers so they don’t come undone and stab you in the neck when you wear it.
3) Cut a length of wire or string which is longer than desired necklace length and tape one end of it (temporary step).
4) String safety pins on wire or thread one at a time, placing a seed bead between each one. Ensure that the pins are all facing the same direction, bead-side-up. Also, ensure the seed beads are big enough that they don’t go through the loop of the safety pin.
5) Determine if the necklace is long enough (carefully hold it up to your neck so that components don’t fall off, or temporarily tape the other end).
6) Add additional beads before the clasps if desired.
7) Add crimp beads and clasp – if you don’t know how, Wikihow has great instructions.
i don't give a craft 