DIY Heart Baubles

I recently got engaged and am underway organising my engagment party. I love doing crafts and wanted to make some of the decorations myself. I found this great tutorial on how to make 3D Heart Christams Baubles so I followed the pattern, except my baubles have five sides instead of seven.

Materials needed:

• Scrapbooking paper (mine is double sided, twice the amount of designs)
• Bakers Twine
• Glue
• Scissors

Step 1.

Using a template cut out all your shapes. For my design you wil use five hearts to make the bauble.

Step 2.

Fold all your hearts in half, with the design you want on the inside of the fold.

Step 3.

Glue one out side of your heart only.

Step 4.

Using another heart, press one side of it to the glued edge of the other heart.

Press down firmly and make sure the hearts are even from top to bottom.

Repeat this until you have one more heart to glue down.

Step 5.

Add glue to the whole side of the heart and place the bakers twine down the middle of the two hearts.

Using the last heart, press it to the glued sides.

Press down and once again make sure the hearts are even from top to bottom.

 

Here is your final product. I decided to make nine but I may make more depending on the rest of my decorations for the engagement party.

 

What have you created lately?

 

 

D.I.Y Christmas

There's isn't long til Christmas so I thought I'd share a few D.I.Y Christmas ideas I found through pinterest. I haven't had a chance to try anyone of these yet but there's always next year! Enjoy!

 

Chocolate or Candybar Christmas wrappers 

~ These are so adorable and such a simple gift idea, who doesn't like chocolate?

Glitter Santa Key

~ Kids love the magic of Christmas and this is a fun craft idea to help bring Santa to life. Leave a key for him to get into your house instead of coming down the chimney (or if you don't have a chimney)

Winter Warmer

~ A very cute and easy gift for hot chocolate lovers. 

Christmas Gift Wrapping

~ Sick of the boring christmas wrapping? The above link will take you to a blog with lots of gorgeous christmas gift wrapping ideas.

Christmas Salt Shakers

~ These would be a great little Kris Kringle gift to give to someone as they're unique and handmade. They would dress up anyone's home.

Have you got any Christmas D.I.Y ideas?

Felt Macarons

Have a look at these yummy treats. Have you tried a macaron before? Well these ones aren't for eating. These delicious looking macarons are created by Ouissi Gresty, have a look at her blog!

I saw these on the front cover of Mollie Makes magazine and thought they were adorable, I just had to try to make them. Boy they were harder than they look! It's all about making sure both your macaron sides are the same size and then making sure the filling doesn't hang over the sides. I had fun making them and it took me just under an hour to make one. 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them, I was thinking of making a few more for some decorations at a friend's engagement party. I look forward to making the next thing I see in Mollie Makes magazine.

Little Felt Friends: Miss Foxy & Mr Raccoon

Check out these absolutely adorable little felt friends I made over the weekend. I saw these cuties featured on the front cover of the Mollie Makes magazine and thought I might give it a go at making them. The template and write up is in Issue Twenty Three.

On the left is the finished product and down below is a picture I took in the making. The fox is about 13cm high while the raccoon is about 12cm high and now I'll have to find a place for them.

I have also shared a video that the Mollie Makes team made with their little critters. So cute!

What did you get up to on the weekend?

Unique Love Sami products

I love trims, especially pretty and fancy ones. I like to collect all different types to make flower brooches/hairclips. Below is a picture of some trims I bought on ebay and also lots of pictures to showcase what I made with this trim and some other pretties I have collected along the way.

Some of these are still for sale, to view more details you can visit my facebook page

Market Day Tips

Market Day is an exciting day, but it can also be a nervous day too. I've attended quite a few markets now and I thought I'd give you some tips on how to make the day successful.

Markets aren't always held inside where it's nice & warm and the weather has no effect on your stall. So when setting up a stall outside you have to be aware of wind! Wind was my first issue I came across, I wasn't prepared for it and didn't bring anything to hold my tablecloth down. Thinking back now I feel very naive in not allowing for this problem, so I tell you now bring clips or weights to hold down your tablecloth!

In case of rain it's good to invest in a really good marque/gazebo. If you think you may be attending a lot of markets and they are outside then I would highly recommend buying one, it's a great investment. I bought mine from boating, camping & fishing which you can see it online here. My gazebo is easy to put up by myself but I've found that other stall holders are more than happy to give you a hand if you ask. You may even need to buy some sides for your gazebo so it keeps out the rain and wind. You can buy tarps and lots of hand clamps or you could buy the proper sides for this gazebo which are so easy to put up as it's made perfectly for your specific gazebo. I purchased my sides from a local Bunnings Warehouse, just make you buy the correct ones!

Another tip for having a market stall outside is that you should always wear something comfortable and warm because you're at the mercy of mother nature. So if you're not warm and comfortable then you will be miserable all day!

Important things to take with you to a market are: a pair of scissors, sticky tape, pen, paper, bottle of water and some snacks.

I hope these tips have been helpful and I'd love to hear any tips you may have during your experiences being a stall holder

Inspiring Crafters

As a fellow crafter I have many people that I admire. I wanted to show off these talented people and their wonderful creations. And to top it off all of these people are Australians! Go Aussies!

{All pictures taken from their respective webpages - click on their names to go to their webpages}

Hungry Designs

This is a gorgeous Day of the Dead - Ariel Princess brooch.

I love Ariel so much and this is so cool because you can wear art on your clothing!

Whiskers Lane

A candle in a tea cup, how cute is that?

I love the idea of having a beautiful tea cup sitting on the table setting the mood 

and leaving your house smelling delicious.

That Vintage

That Vintage features Tasmanian Myrtle Wood Jewellery & other accessories.

I love the little birds & rabbits that are often shown on pieces.

Dark and Light creations

Too bad this isn't edible. 

Dark and light creations are funky and that little bit different.

Art Of Indigo

This is the candle I purchased from the talented Art Of Indigo.

Their candles are masterpieces and too good to burn.

Who inspires you?

Melbourne Craft & Quilt Fair 2012

My best friend Amy & I took a train to Melbourne and went along to the Craft & Quilt Fair which was held at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. Amy has a great blog post on what she bought on the day so go and check it out!

I haven't been attending any markets because the bad weather has kept me inside and also because of this I haven't had any inspiration to do any crafting. So, this was the perfect thing to spark my interest and get me going again. Amy & I had a great time wandering around and seeing all the amazing things people have created.

Below are my purchases of the day. I've been interested in Cross Stitch and was happy to have found a very simple design that I can practice with. My knitting skills consist of scarves and I thought getting this "Ribbons" wool would be a step up from that as it's a trickier scarf pattern to knit.
I fell in love with the trims below and can't wait to work with them to make brooches and hair accessories. I'll post again once I have finished any of these projects.

Did you attend the Fair this year or any other years? What did you think?

Flower Power

My friend makes beautiful hand made cards and she had these cute flower motifs to put onto the cards. Her mum loved them and she knew I had a craft line so she asked me to make them into brooches for her. Well I knew this was going to be a sinch to do so of course I said yes.

These are the things you need to make a simple brooch: 

Hot Glue Gun, Brooch backs & any sort of motif

So as easy as 1,2,3 I got my Hot Glue Gun warmed up and 

glued the brooch to the back of the flower. Like so

And here is the final product

The diameter of the flower is 4cm

I wouldn't sell something like this through my craft store, I would probably stick the flower motifs onto some lace before making them into a brooch so they would be bigger. You can make almost anything into a brooch as long as you have some brooch backs and a hot glue gun!

 

Here are some of my brooches.

I used a butterfly Iron-on Transfer and a paper scrapbooking flower and glued a brooch on the back. 

For more products check out Love Sami

Bye for now ~ Sami X

A big hello and welcome!

Oh hi! You have stumbled upon my lil ol' blog. I work in a small public library where I’ve been working for over seven years now. I LOVE books and love how reading a book can keep you on the edge of your seat, send chills down your spine, put your heart in a flutter, make you laugh out loud and make you dream all at once!

I also started to make jewellery as a hobby and in 2010 ‘Love Sami’ was founded. Love Sami features products such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings and hair accessories.

My other passion is nailart, I love painting my nails while watching a movie or TV. So, I hope you will enjoy my posts of book reviews & other book related things, nail art, jewellery and many other things that may interest me. I’d love to hear from you so feel free to comment on my posts or contact me through my email.

Thanks for popping by

Bye for now **Sami**