Fabric & Lace Cuff Bracelet Tutorial

 Lace Cuff's are very popular right now and so easy to make.  I thought I would share with you the one I made recently and how I made it.  Sit back and relax, this is heavy on pictures.

 Most of the supplies I used are available from Alpha Stamps (a complete list of supplies is provided at the end)

Blue Jean (or other heavy fabric like this printed burlap)

1" Natural cotton lace
5/8" Zig Zag Cotton lace
1/2" Natural Scalloped Cotton lace
(or purchase all the laces in the sampler)

Pink Tulle

Pink Ruffle Ribbon

Charms (I made mine using supplies from Alpha Stamps, listed below)

Jump rings

Pearl Rosary Chain

Chain

Cream Pearl Assortment

Pin heads

Clasp

 Step 1: Measure your writs.  Mine was 6" so I decided to cut my fabric 7" giving me a 1/2" seem allowance at both ends.  Because I am using a chain and clasp closure method I did not have to worry about making the fit exact.

 Step 2: Measure the base fabric.  

** Not shown in pictures.  

I laid out my laces and ribbon to determine how wide I wanted to make the bracelet.  I went with 2 1/2" 

 Step 3: Optional.  I decided to rip the jeans to give the edges a frayed look.  You could of course cut the fabric.

 Here is my base fabric.  It is roughly 2 1/2" wide and 7" long.

 Step 4:  Lay out the ribbon, lace and charms to get a feel for where you want them.  This helped me determine how wide to make the tulle, it is 1 1/2" by 25" (you want the tulle long enough to gather nicely and slightly wider than the charms you are using, my charm is 1").

 Step 5:  Sew a running stitch up both sides of the tulle.

 Step 6:  On one end of the tulle, tie a knot, on both the right and left sides  

 Step 7: At the other end of the tulle, separate the threads and pull on one per side.  

Step 8:  Keep pulling on the same threads, working the gathered fabric down to the end with the knots.  

 Step 9:  Now that the tulle is gathered, spread it out and pin it to your base fabric.  

 Step 10:  To determine the order you need to sew down your ribbons place all of them on one side and pin them.  

 Step 11:  Sew the ribbon and lace down using a running stitch.  You might have to move some of them aside to sew others down (as shown in the picture above).  You want them all to be as flowy as possible so don't sew them where they don't need sewing, just one stitch per ribbon is fine.

** I used a sewing machine but this entire project could be done by hand if you don't have one or if it scares you (yes, my sewing machine scares me on a regular basis).

 Step 12:  Place the lace/ribbon on the other side of the bracelet.  The white lace I choose to put under the blue jean.  The image above shows it affixed to the back of the bracelet.  

 Notice I have only sewn down one side of my Tulle.  That is because it goes over all my other ribbons/laces.  

 Step 13:  Pin the remaining ribbons/laces to the bracelet and sew them on.

 Here is the cuff with all of the ribbon and lace sewn on.

 Step 14: Fold the ends under and sew them down.  I folded them over twice so that the finished seem was nice and clean

 Now it is time to affix the chains and charms.  This portion has to be done by hand.  

Besides the charms and chain you will need

Coordinating thread

Scissors

Needle

Chain nose pliers

1 step looper tool (not necessary but so easy)

diagonal pliers

 The above charm I made using the following items 1" round slide glass, Collage Birds Pendants Collage Sheet, Harmony 6x6 paper pad, jump rings.  I soldered it all together but you could use the 1" Brass Pendants with 2 loops and glue the glass on top with diamond glaze.

Step 15:  Determine where you want the charm to sit and measure the length of chain you will need.  Affix it to the charm.

 Step 16:  Sew the other end of the chain to the end of the bracelet.  Do this for both sides.

 This is how it looks with only one charm.  I like it but thought the addition of the smaller charm would be nice.

 Repeat steps 15 and 16 to attach the smaller charm.

Supplies used to create the smaller charm are 

 Collage Birds Pendants Collage Sheet, 1/2" Brass pendants , Clear Domed Acrylic pebble

 Almost done

 Step 17: Sew on the clasp.

Step 18: Determine how much chain you would like, cut it to size and sew it onto the bracelet.  

This type of closer is especially nice if you are giving the bracelet as a gift.  You don't have to know the exact wrist size of the wearer.  

To finish it off I affixed some pearls to the end of the chain.  

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you enjoy making your own!

This one is for sale in my Etsy shop and I am taking custom orders.

Supplies available from Alpha Stamps

Blue Jean (or other heavy fabric like this printed burlap) cut 7"

1" Natural cotton lace
5/8" Zig Zag Cotton lace
1/2" Natural Scalloped Cotton lace
(or purchase all the laces in the sampler)

Pink Tulle cut 1 1/2" by 25"

Pink Ruffle Ribbon cut 7"

Jump rings

Pearl Rosary Chain

Chain

Cream Pearl Assortment

Pin heads

Clasp

1" round slide glass

Collage Birds Pendants Collage Sheet

Harmony 6x6 paper pad

 1" Brass Pendants with 2 loops 

 diamond glaze

1/2" Brass pendants 

Clear Domed Acrylic pebble

Other Supplies Used

(* items are not necessary but make it easier)

Sewing Machine*

Tape Measure

Scissors

Quilters Ruler*

Rotary Cutter*

Cutting Mat*

Straght pins

Iron/Ironing board

Needle

Cordinating thread

Chain nose pliers

1 step looper tool* 

diagonal pliers

Mini Victorian Kittens Needle Book

 The minute Leslie from Alpha Stamps shared with us the theme for this months kit I knew exactly what I wanted to make (which is rare for me).

 My mini needle book measures approximately 3 3/4 x 4 1/4 inches. So yep, it's small.  

The images did not come on fabric so I tea stained some white cotton, ironed it onto some freezer paper and ran it through my printer (only praying a little bit). If that's not for you Alpha Stamps carries some ready made fabric printer sheets.
I really love the vintage look that I achieved.  

 Inside I created a pocket to hold scissors etc. and stamped it with the sewing machine from the sewing stamp set.  As for the felt pages I thought they all needed a bit of pizzazz so for my needles, they get to snuggle behind velvet ric rac. 

 Another little pocket to hold some buttons made out of a printed out image.

 Have to have safety pins!  The printed burlap lifts so you can have two layers of pins.  

 Straight pins guarded by a small kitten.

 And lastly a pocket to hold a small notebook I made to jot down measurements.  

Everything I used but the fabric for construction and the felt are available at Alpha Stamps.
This piece is on sale in my Etsy Shop.

I'm sharing this on My Romantic Home's Show and Tell Friday

Complete list of supplies

Victorian Kittens Collage Sheet

Versa Craft Real Black

Stamps

4mm silk ribbon

Rayon Cording Siam Red

Crocheted Cotton Lace Trim

Mini Spool

Heart Buttons

Mini Buttons

3/8 inch ric rac ribbon

Pink peach seam binding

Bark tan seam binding

Kitty Button

Sew Lovely 6x6 paper pad

Distress Ink vintage photo

Sewing Kitty Collage Sheet

Tim Holtz Ruler Ribbon

Printed Burlap

A perfect Valentines Gift

 This is what every man should give their sweetheart (that or jewelry LOL).  A custom decorated chocolate box and card!  I have to admit it was really hard for me not to eat those chocolates while I was decorating the box.

 Alpha Stamps theme this month is Star Crossed Lovers and y'all know how much I love using these vintage images.  I kept the card simple because I didn't want it to overshadow the box. I used a bunch of different papers from the Star Crossed Collection.

 What good is a card without candy!?!  The papers in the Star Crossed Lovers kit had a lot of blue.  I ended up using the blue as a highlight on the box by painting the wooden heart broken china blue.

 I love the dresden scraps red roses so I just had to use them along with the half round dresden boarders.

 Beads!  Enough said.  I totally fell in love with the Acrylic heart beads Leslie sent.  

So my valentines is all set.  How about yours?

Tiny Little Glitter House

 This month at Alpha Stamps the kit is 3D House Ornaments.  I was so excited about this because I've been wanting to make some glitter houses.

 When I found out that Leslie had lights to go with this kit (the add on kit) I was over the moon, glitter and lights!  

I built everything on top of a Medium Craft Shadowbox so that I could hide all the light components inside the box. The house is built out of the Christmas Collage Flurry Paper that I then coated with Star Dust Glitter.  Normally I would have used Dresden to outline the windows and roof but I wanted everything on the house to be glitter so I created strips of gold glitter.  The doors and windows come with frames so I just covered those with the glitter and added them to the house.

 Y'all know how much I love my texture.  Well I discovered a new product, Snow-tex and oh my!  It is a lot lighter than modeling paste and I just love how it gives the appearance of snow banks around my house and fence.

 Yes, I know this picture is awful (blurry as all get out) but I just had to show you what it looks like all lit up.

And here is a better lit up picture but I didn't take this one in complete darkness like the above image.

I am going to make myself an entire town of these little cuties.  

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful holiday season!

Cigar Box Book Nesting Boxes

 Cigar Box Sweeties was the them for this months Alpha Stamps Kit

 I had purchased some Tiny Cigar Boxes and when this kit came out I knew I had to use them somehow. But y'all know me, I couldn't go simple and just decorate them...so I reached into my pile of books to alter and came up with this Nesting Cigar Box Book.

 In the past I have done tutorials on how to prepare a box for altering and how to create a box inside of a book (HERE).  This time I went with making two openings and I will be pulling together a tutorial soon.

 I love Dresden Flowers and Gold Dresden to me they make things look so rich and Victorian (my favorite time in history).

 When I saw the new Collage Sheets I instantly knew I wanted to use the Starry Queen image from the Small Cigar Labels and Bands Collage Sheet.

 I used texture paste to build up the clouds all around her and then sprinkled it with glitter.  Alas after all my excitement of working with this collage image I ended up disappointed with the outcome.  

 For my second tiny cigar box I again used an image from the Small Cigar labels and bands Collage Sheet.  This box just fell together perfectly and I absolutely love the outcome.  Inside each box is spray painted gold.

 I used a ton of different papers on this project from the Cigar Box Secrets Paper Collection. The papers are so rich and coordinate so well. To hold the tiny cigar boxes I built up two openings.  You can take the tiny cigar boxes out and use them or keep them inside this book.  

In the end I am really pleased with this creation.  It might just be my favorite so far this year, but then again I would have to go back and look at everything I've made. 

 I hope you are inspired by my creation.

You can purchase this piece in my Etsy Shop

Cigar Box Nesting Boxes

I have also put all my Halloween items on a half off sale and lowered the cost of some ornaments I made last year.  

Thanks for taking the time to stop by my blog.  

Complete List of Supplies Used 

(available at Alpha Stamps)

Cigar Box Secrets Paper - perfecto, panatela, corona, figurados, robusto

Cigar Label Banners Collage Sheet

Gypsy Coin Mix

Pink Roses Dresden Scrap

Senorita Cameo

Halfround Dresden Boarders - Gold

Cigar Box Label ATC Collage Sheet

Red Roses Dresden Scrap

Narrow Gold metallic Braid

Tiny Cigar Box

Small Cigar labels and bands Collage sheet

Diamond Stickles

Tiny Star Sequins

Cigar Box Secrets 6x6 paper pad

Lumiere Metallic Acrylic paint - metallic gold

Texture sand paste

Cigar Box Secrets Ephemera

Gold Ric Rac Dresden Boarders Set

Home for the Holidays Ornament Swap!

 Oh I am super excited about this one!

I am hosting the annual Alpha Stamps Ornament Swap and this year we are making mini houses.

Home for the Holidays

 The little chipboard houses measure ATC size 2 1/2 by 3 1/2

 The swap is a 3 for 3.  You make 3 and will receive 3 in return.  All you have to do is use the chipboard houses and at least one Alpha Stamp Collage Sheet or Rubber Stamp.

Not a member of the Alpha Stamps yahoo group?  You don't have to be.  Email me at ouztshay@yahoo.com and I will send you all the swap details and sign you up.  

If you are a member Sign up HERE

Don't miss out on this fun swap.  

My tree is full of handmade ornaments and I cherish them all.