Saturday 16 February 2013

Project: Pimp Your Folders

Hello hello! February is halfway through and already I am impossibly busy, there are just too many things I want to do! 

January's Dress on Katherine
Anyway, the mandatory school starting pimp your folder has taken an African theme this year, completely unintentionally of course. I started off with this awesome zip up folder my mum bought from the warehouse.

The lighting is awful, but all in the spirit of last minute.
A pretty good steal for 3 dollars! Unfortunately, skulls aren't really my thing. I used this pretty embellished ribbon to cover it up.



In case you're wondering what it looks like  inside...

Weekly organiser from iheartorganizing.blogspot.com
Yes I print one every week!
 Also, I'm working on a 'snakeskin' type textured folder. I'm painting it with this fantastic caramel (and sparkly!) nailpolish I have 10 bottles of...



FInally, here's the tribal print folder I did at te beginning of the year.


Still 4 more folders to go! I'll probably give them away as presents (friends, this is a cue to start hinting.)

Monday 11 February 2013

Tutorial: Removable/ReusableTextbook Cover

Happy Lunar New year everyone!
(Apologising for the lack of posts, school has sucked the life out of me and clawing it back takes time.)

In the spirit of 'Back to school' for us here in Australasia, I decided to share this text book cover  made a while ago. It was awesome because my textbook always screamed 'HEY I BELONG TO ALETHEA AND I'M BRIGHT BLUUUUUUUUE!!!!!!!' whenever the maths cupboard was open.



 Hooray! It's removable because textbooks are only on loan for each year (we don't write in them, in fact, I barely opened mine...). Now your textbook can feel brand new again!
(Hopefully, you also feel motivated to open it in times of need...)

MAKE YOUR OWN TEXTBOOK COVER

You'll need:


- The textbook you wish to make a cover for
- A large sheet of paper, or several. I used a coffee club newspaper that I nabbed from one of the 29392873 overpriced Remuera cafes, and a blank piece of A4 printer paper.
- A Plastic pocket, or a similar, flat plastic bag (mine is scavenged from a new folder which conveniently came with plastic wrap)
- Some form of decoration - I used a magazine to do a snazzy collage, but it's free choice here.
-  Duraseal (Adhesive Plastic stuff.)
- The basics, Scissors, Glue, Tape, A pen etc.

Start by wrapping your textbook with the large piece of paper, folding the edges over the cover like so.





My piece of paper wasn't quite large enough to cover the whole textbook, so if you're in the same situation, fear not! After wrapping my book as efficiently as possible, I just glued a piece of blank white paper suitably to cover the rest of the book (later, this functioned as an ideal place to write the subject and level of the book you've covered in permanent marker.) You want to leave about 5mm at each end of the cover so that the textbook can comfortably close.


Decorate. With the help of siblings I cut a bunch of blue and yellow (oh the joys of school patriotism) squares from magazines and proceeded to arrange them in a psychedelic checker board array.



Once your cover is done, grab that plastic sheet and cut it in half. You should have enough plastic pocket to cover 2 thirds of the cover. Less is fine, but no more than 2 thirds (if you have too little you can always use blue tack). Tape it to the cover, allowing a couple of millimetres extra, it's transparent so accuracy isn't too important. (Those purple streaks are glue, the cool coloured kind!)



Now, duraseal the cover as if covering a normal exercise book.

Done! I stuck blue tack on the spine of my textbook so the cover wouldn't bubble up when I opened it.



This year, my maths book is again cuddled up and cosy in it's shiny cover, hiding a much more daunting year of maths...I'll post again if I survive the dreaded surds.

Friday 1 February 2013

Tutorial: Crocheted Headphone Covers

School started today, but we didn't do much seeing as:
A) I'm in the same form class as last year.
B) It's the first day of school.

I've mixed emotions about being in the same form class, I really wanted change, but at least more of the first day was be uncluttered with silly 'get to know your form class' games. Having expert foresight, I predicted we'd have to have enough to keep ourselves occupied, and so I brought my crochet gear, and various sewing things. Having excellent foresight I also predicted that people would gawk and ask "What are you knitting?" to which I would respond,

"DIE YOU FOOL! I HAVE LOST ALL RESPECT FOR YOU! THIS IS CROCHET!"

No really...

Anyway, Jessica tried to teach me to crochet a flower, but I got bored and went my own way, ending up making these gorgeous headphone covers.




It makes them so much comfier, prettier, and of course did I mention the greatness felt when you tell people you made them yourself?

If you're new to crochet, like I am new to making crochet patterns, I haven't listed any abbreviations (I just feel they make life so much more difficult...) A helpful site to consult if you're new and have no idea how to crochet can be found here.

MAKE YOUR OWN HEADPHONE COVERS

You will need:

- A crochet hook
- Wool
- Your headphones

I don't think gauge is important for this, I basically crocheted until I felt my covers were big enough. You will have to adjust the pattern to fit your headphones. Mine are perfectly circular, and about 3 inches in diameter, about 2cm deep. I used a 4.5mm crochet hook, and some random yarn Jessica gave me (helpful, I know.)

Chain 6 and join (slip stitch) to make the first round.

ROUND 1
Chain 2, and then double crochet into the round 10 times, making 11 stitches in total. (11 you ask? Well, I stuffed up the flower pattern which was supposed to be 12, but I can't count that high apparently). Join the round.

ROUND 2
Chain 2 (counts in the first double crochet). Continue to double crochet in every stitch. The round might bunch up now, but fear not, it will soon be resolved.

ROUND 3
Chain 2. Double crochet in THE SAME STITCH. Chain one, and then 2 double crochet in the next stitch. Continue until the end of the round. Join the round.

ROUND 4+
From here on, adjust to fit your headphones. I repeated round 3 twice, so I had 4 rounds.

FINISHING UP
Chain one. Single crochet in every stitch. If your headphone covers aren't staying on, you can do another row of single crochet.

Done!
(Something good came out of that first, meaningless day of school after all!)