DIY Spike Necklace

When a good friend of mine was visiting recently we made it a priority to visit Queen West which, for those who don't know, is Toronto's craft mecca. Tons of stores dedicated to fabric, beads, yarn, buttons and ribbon...mmm... My friend spotted these spikey beads in one of the stores and bought a few in gold. I thought they were so fabulous that I had to follow suit and voila! A DIY was born.

What You Need:

Pliers, wire cutters, small spikes, large spikes, jump rings and a clasp.

We found these spikes at Arton Beads in Toronto. They came in gold and silver, plastic or metal. These ones are plastic so the necklace is light and less of a weapon. Each pack came with roughly 25 beads at only a few bucks a pop. Not bad!

Cut two lengths of chain: 17 inches for the short spikes, 18 inches for the long spikes.

If you think you might want a different length for this necklace, always always always cut more chain than you need. Then you can trim to your heart's desire.

To attach the spiked pendants to the chain, you'll be using your pliers to open and close the jump rings.

Starting with the smaller spikes and the shorter chain, string the pendant onto the jump ring and slip it through one of the links in the middle of your first chain.

I started from the middle and worked my way out to ensure that my cluster remained centred. It's a massive pain to do all that work only to have to redo it!

Space them out about two chain links. The spacing totally depends on the size of the links of your chain so test it out. For my chain, I found 1 space left in between looked nicest.

Try to keep your chain as flat as possible when attaching your spikes.

Keep going until you have 2.5 inches of spikes (17 spikes), or, really, however many you want. You don't actually have to listen to me ;)

Once you get a ton of them on the chain they start to fall into a big cluster.

Move on to adding the longer spikes to the longer chain. Repeat the steps above in attaching the pendants however this time I left 3 spaces in between spikes, having a total of 3.5 inches of spikes (13 spikes).

When you are happy with how the spikes are looking, use two more jump rings to attach the chains (again, careful not to twist them) to your clasp and pow!

Ways to change it:

- Increase the number of spikes per chain.

- Increase/decrease the length of chain, creating more a different shape in the final necklace.

- Add a third strand of spikes, maybe a different colour.

- Paint the spikes using a bright nail polish.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

Summer Hiatus

We all get restless. Myself in particular. Like one morning I decided 10 years was long enough to have stretched ears. Or the time I threw out my coffeemaker and switched over to tea. It's become quite clear that I am giving owlswakeup a break for the summer, and that's totally okay. I can't pressure myself into thinking that I should keep going when I am genuinely not in the mood to do so. So a vacation it is.

However, a recent fabric shopping trip got my head filled with all sorts of new ideas. SO. My new plan is not to try to be as productive as I was in the spring and feel sad when I fail to do so, but to get ready to get back into it in the fall. My plan for now is to plan.

Until then.

Favourite DIYs Lately

There are some seriously fabulous DIY tutorials out there. Here are some of my favourites:

Honestly WTF—DIY Pearl & Safety Pin Necklace

Design Sponge—DIY Wall Organizer

For the Makers—Fitzgerald Floral Embroidery

Swell Mayde—Gold Gilded Geode Ring

Of course there's always the one unattainable DIY. A friend has promised that when he wins the lottery and becomes a carpenter, he'll make me a piano desk. Until then… Until then…

Apartment Therapy

There's already a B on it and everything. Just be mine!

Inspiration: Hand-Printed Fabrics

I'm game for pretty much any DIY, but lately hand-printed fabrics have been catching my eye. Can't find the pattern you want? Make it yourself. There's a screen-printing course at The Make Den that I've been hmm-ing and haw-ing over for a while. However, I don't have the space in my home to really get into this right now. Yet another thing to add to my future dream craft room :). So I guess I'll just have to admire from afar:

Leah Duncan

Coriumi

Nell and Mary

Bookhou

DIY Collar Necklace

Hello again! Time for another DIY!

The Peter Pan collar trend is still going strong, although I must admit I wasn't always on the bandwagon! I'm still not 100% convinced that I could rock one of these collars on a blouse, so I made a more subtle one in necklace form. Also, if I had a cameo she would be right smack dab in the centre. But alas I do not. Maybe you do??

What You Need:
Beads (I used 66 for this project), eye pins, jump rings (3), clasp, round-nosed pliers, pliers, wire cutters.

String your first bead onto your eye pin. Using your pliers, bend the wire at a 90 degree angle.

Using your wire cutters, clip the wire so you are left with just under 1cm.

Using your round-nosed pliers, bend the wire to form a loop. Leave the loop slightly open. Set aside.

Repeat with your next bead. These beads are going to be linked together to form the "chain." Slip your second bead's eye pin loop through your incomplete loop to connect them. Using your round-nosed pliers, close this loop. See photo for illustration:

Continue these steps until you have two lengths of 19 beads each, and two lengths of 14 each.

Note: the numbers of beads listed is simply what I used for this project. Feel free to make it longer or shorter dependent on the size of beads you use! It's up to you!

The two longest chains are connected with one jump ring. Two more jump rings are used to connect the beads to the clasp. Use your pliers to open and close your jump rings.

Here is where the jump rings should be attached:

The final step of this necklace DIY is attaching the shorter bead lengths that will serve as the loops of the collar. One end of each also connects to the jump ring in the middle (as shown in the photo below) but the other two are to be connected in the middle of the longer chain. I have connected mine after the 9th bead from the front jump ring.

Note: changing this position will change the shape of your collar so feel free to experiment to find what style you like.

Using your round-nosed pliers, open the loop just enough to slip it through the loop from the bead's eye pin that you're connecting it to, then close securely. That was a bit of a mouthful, so here's a close-up of what this connection should look like.

Do the same for the other side. And you're done!

Not the greatest photo, but here's what it looks like on!

Designer Crush: Biko

I thought about doing another Wednesday Wishlist but then I realized that this girl's entire website would be on it! My friend and I discovered Biko at the One of a Kind Show last week in Toronto. We kept going back to Corrine's booth but in the end came away only with her business card. I just couldn't make a choice! Here are some of my favs:

All images from www.ilovebiko.com

Happy Wednesday!

DIY Painted Leather Bookmark

Hello, all! While I could do totally do necklace DIYs forever, I felt it was time for something new. :) So as I was staring at my pile of leather scraps leftover from past clutches, I had a fun idea for what to do with them—make bookmarks!

Supplies:

Ruler, scrap of leather (2 x 10 inches)*, bristol board/cardboard (also 2 x 10), paper scissors, fabric scissors, sharpie/pencil, exacto knife, gold craft paint, paint brushes, palette, cutting board, binder clips.

*Leather scraps are fairly easy to find on the cheap. Any fabric store that sells leather will have a bin full of bits and pieces of every size and texture.

I cut my stencil the same size as the bookmark to make sure it didn't shift around. And now it also serves as a pattern for future bookmarks!

Inspiration, as they say, is quite literally everywhere. I swiped this chevron pattern from the vents inside my ancient elevator. I'm glad I took a picture when I did because my elevator is being renovated starting this week!

Mark your pattern. I left 2.5 inches for the fringe and centred my design on the remainder of the stencil.

Carefully cut out your stencil with your exacto knife over a cutting board.

Mark your fringe on the back of your leather 2.5 inches from the bottom. Cut the fringe with fabric scissors (or you can use your exacto knife if you don't have fabric scissors).

Place your stencil on your bookmark. Since I used a thin material for the stencil I found binder clips necessary to keep it in place.

Paint two coats.

Remove the stencil. Touchups with a small brush were needed at this point.

Finished!