Hello my lovely readers! Popping in for a short bit to bring you a quick and easy party bag or potli , using what you already have. take a look at the end product and you'll see that it's well worth the half an hour spent on it.

We all have bags in which jewellery or other precious things come. this bag actually came with a bottle of spirits believe it or not! Here below is the bag

it's a pale shade of gold and I've been wanting to buy a clutch that colour for a while now and haven't found the right one. So while cleaning my bits and bobs, I found a few things which could turn this into  rather attractive potli. 

This string of 'pearls' I found at my local fancy store. these are treasure troves of all kinds of things! The disc is actually from a toran I bought a few years ago from a Mumbai railway market. Below are the tools I used

Since the pearl string has links, I put the end links into a bigger link and stitched the chain to the fabric. You will need to stitch it at various points so that it doesn't tear with a bit of weight. Then I used the earring loop shown above to keep the three strings together and stitched the tiny eye to the fabric as well. . Next, used fabric glue to stick the toran part to the centre on one side of the bag and stitched it in places as well. The key thing to note here is that everything has to be light.. these kinds of bags will tear with very heavy jewellery bits.

And here I am holding it up

Tell me how you liked this and if you have any queries on how to ! Here are two more clutches that I have blinged up with bits of jewellery.. hit me up if you feel inspired by this post!

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Sports themed bunting

Buntings have a sense of festivity about them... I made this with things I bought from Micheal's.  It is simple to make and can be finished in under an hour. Here is the finished product, rustic as is my style.

Burlap mat stock is a very handy thing to have and is available in just the right size at Micheals. I cut the mat stock to a size which was just a bit wider than the ball and long enough to hold both the ball and brad. Then I just did a running stitch in black thread. Perfection is not really necessary in the stitches since the whole feel is rustic.

and this brad is just the right size for me to spell out my son's name on.

I threaded the individual pieces on a rough jute thread and stuck it on the wall.

Voila! Run a line of fabric adhesive along the stitches when working with burlap or any other easy fray fabric to keep it in shape.

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Lladro inspired senorita lights

Sometime back I received the yearly calendar from Lladro and was blown away by all their collectibles. Their chandelier, though had me spellbound. I would love to have this piece in my home by it is out of my budget so I set out to make my own rustic version with IKEA battery operated lights and a few beads and baubles from my craft basket. Here is my Senorita light set, deep in conversation!

all lit up!

Here is one of my senoritas!

 and her parts - I just used my imagination and glue gun...

And I went to town 'designing' their head gear!

 

 Of course it is nowhere near the real thing - jaw droppingly gorgeous but at a fraction of the price my senoritas are worth the time spent on them- don't you agree?

Find this project at DIY like a boss link party where there are a fair few lovely craft ideas.

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Love potion gift tags

Hello! Valentine's day is round the corner and I thought I would do something fun so here are a couple of Love Potion gift tags. 

For this you will need:

• Some thick, coloured paper
• Adhesive cork sheet
• glue
• paper or felt hearts and twine

Use the printable at the end of this blog and print out the potion bottles and corks

Cut out each piece as below

Glue the wrong sides together

leaving the top edges free

Using the cork template, cut out two adhesive cork sheets and stick them on either side of the cork template so that both sides are lined with cork.

glue the cork lid in between the bottle sheets like shown below. Now your tag will have two sides with text as shown below.

Cut out  heart in red paper or felt and tie with string..

Here is the other bottle

To get a free printable template for the two bottles shown above click here

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DIY home lighting solution

Simple and effective, this lighting solution is assembled in 10 minutes flat.

 I have used 

-Miniature paintings done on thin marble

- an ordinary square sided bottle and 

- battery operated serial lights (the only ones I had)

You could use

- any set of  images copied on a transparency

- a square sided bottle or vase

- batter operated or even electric lights of the correct length.

Assembling this works the same way and is easier if you have a vase so the neck is large and easy to work with.

Here are the miniatures. The fourth miniature doesn't fit so I have to get a vase with larger squares (in time!)

Here is the bottle I had in my pantry

Put a scrap of cloth inside before you begin so that the pictures don't fall in and break.

Insert the pictures one at a time

Remove the cloth carefully and put in the serial lights (mine look ugly on their own!)

 Put in the serial lights...

and click it on!

Lid it or not, the miniatures come to life through the glass

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Two ideas to repurpose and upcycle coasters

Here is a way to use interesting coasters to bling up plain bags.

All you need are interesting coasters, a good adhesive and a sting of coloured stones or pearls; anything that you have lying around at home that matches the bag and coaster.

Assembling this takes very little time. Just stick the coaster in the centre and the string around it and it's done.

It is easy to assemble little wall hangings using native style coasters 

Hot glue bookmarks, old jewellery or Christmas ornaments to the back of the coaster and use double sided tape to stick it to the wall. 

Here is another way to use translucent, funky coasters. Use a glue dot to attach four of them to four sides of any suitable bowl. Here I have used a ziploc box.

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DIY Vintage coasters

If you have old embroidered pieces, combine them with old fabric and burlap to make vintage feel coasters. These are cross stitch pieces I dis a while ago and have been repurposed here.

Here is a look at the material you will need - the embroidered patch or edging, burlap, old fabric, fuse bonding paper and threads in different colour.

Cut fuse bonding paper to the size of the embroidered piece.

Iron it on to the burlap or old fabric cut to size.

Finish with a running stitch in a contrasting colour.

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Fixing magnets on glass without glue

Attach attractive  magnets to glass without fuss or mess. All you need are the magnets and basic magnets which look like donuts.

Clean the glass well, hold the basic magnet on one side of the glass and the fridge magnet on the other. That's it! 

Here you see magnets on both sides of the glass. Since like poles repel in magnets, if you find the magnet pulling away from the glass turn it round. The other side will move towards the magnet on the other side of the glass.

 To hold heavier magnets, even clip ones like below, stack two or three magnets together, opposite sides facing and put the magnet clip on the other side.

Tip

For this to work, the glass cannot be very thick and the magnets cannot be super heavy. 

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