Things I Do Myself

Welcome to Things I Do Myself! I am ordinary 18 years old girl enjoying to make various things myself. As every girl I love Robert Downey Jr. and admire Emma Watson. I hope that you'll enjoy my posts and let's hope some of them help you out or at least give some inspiration! Thanks for visiting!

[truebluemeandyou]

DIY Book Clutch Tutorial from Caught on a Whim here. Really clear tutorial and you can leave the book as is or cover it with fabric. For more book clutch DIYs including a roundup go here: truebluemeandyou.tumblr.com/tagged/diy-book-clutch

[thingsidomyself]

Too late Advent wreath

Yeees happy first advent!

I used:

Already made base of the wreath

chestnuts

Candles and candle holders

Hot glue

copper wire

Bronze spray paint

I started with spraying the chestnuts bronze.

Then started sticking the colored chestnuts on the wreath.

In order to make the wreath more fun, I twisted a copper wire around it.

And then had a peaceful first Advent.

[thingsidomyself]

Funny cookies

Those are good if you're bored and want to make something tasty really fast.

I used:

Pack of salty cookie pretzels

Candies with sticky caramel filling

Tiny jelly candies

It's absolutely easy:

Take the pretzel, put the candy on it and then the jelly on.

Put all the cookies on the baking pan and put into a heated oven. Cook while the candy is starting to melt:

You can push on the jelly candy so that the chocolate/caramel one penetrates on the pretzel.

I hope you like it! It's a mix of salty, sweet and overly sweet. ((:

http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu142/Rouza_Nonna/20121129_215002.jpg

[thingsidomyself]

Fancy collar

One of my friends is very artistic and today I noticed hand-made felt collar on her neck. I took an inspiration from that and tried to make one myself:

Came out very gothic, eh?

I used:

A4 of thick black felt

white lace

different ribbons

some cute jewels

decorative needle

Start with drawing a pattern.

Then cut it out from the felt.

Then take the lace and attach it to the collar

I used sewing machine but sewing by hand can be good, too.

Everything what happened further happened in a very inspiring moment and - voila! - I had a ribbon flower in front of me, the decorative needle put in the middle. You can have some moment with yourself here and let your imagination do the thing.

But with the needle came its sharp ending. So I cut it off.

And secured it by hot-gluing another piece of felt to it.

I attached some black ribbons in the ends of the collar to be able to put it around my neck, glued some jewels to it and here's the outcome:

[thingsidomyself]

Transform your slutty shorts!

I had those slutty shorts... 

You'll need:

Your slutty shorts

Some beautiful lace [2 m would be enough]

[optional] Sewing machine [can do it with needle and thread]

Take your shorts and turn them inside out. Attach the lace with pins starting from the inside of the leg, leaving 1 cm over. When gone around the leg, cut off the excess lace, leaving 1 cm for seam.

Now take your dear friend

Sew together the lace so that the seam is facing you. Then sew the lace around the leg and remove the pins. Repeat with the other leg. [really easy]

Progress: From slutty shorts to flashing grandma underwear.

[thingsidomyself]

Winter feather earrings

Can't wait for it to start snowing. I hate it when the seasons are late! This year the summer already took some time, now - winter? Common!

You will need:

White feathers

feather stuffing thingies to secure the damned feathers

silver pearls

hooks for earrings

thread

Take those damned feathers and stick 'em into the metal tiny thingies.

Okay this is going to be real easy.

Following the picture above, add the pearls and okay, I had two slightly larger black pearls to gather all the threads together. Attach them to the hooks.

In my case I again used the fishing thread so the earrings came out really stiff. Don't do that and use normal thread or whatever. In case you have a thing for stiff earrings, follow the step mentioned above.

[thingsidomyself]

Flaming ear cuff

LOVE LOVE LOVE ear cuffs!!!

Unfortunately, in my region it is almost impossibru to buy them. So why not make one vanguard myself?

What you need:

Feathers

the tiny stuff one use to secure those damn feathers

copper wires

invisible thread

imagination

Alright, it's not perfect but I love it anyway!

As I had some partially ruined devil's wings left over from Halloween, I decided to borrow the feathers from there.

Curve the wires in pretty and comfy way for your ear. It is perfect if you have some cuff that you can compare the shape of the two.

Take the thread [honestly, I used the thread of fishing rod], attach it to the wire [I just tied it] and start wrapping it around or through the wires [as you like. I personally switched sides of tiring while tiring].

When emotionally ready, take those damn sicked feathers into those damn thingies and attach them as you can and your imagination allows you to. Honestly, I just wrapped it through and around for some times. :)

Add as many feathers as you like or your budget allows you to.

Use your imagination in order to make different kinds of cuffs!

[thingsidomyself]

Advanced skirt pattern

My mum decided to change the curtains in my sister's room. The old curtain fabric was left in my use.

Challenge:

Make the skirt so that the fabric doesn't look like curtains.

Challenge accepted!

Difficulty: intermediate. You'll have to have some basic sewing [and not so basic for the hidden zipper] skills.

Being a big Project Runway fan I made the skirt after one of Ven Budhu's skirt: it's like his classical touch.

The finished skirt looks very elegant on body just like in this picture [the original]:

You'll need:

Sewing machine

Curtains [:) about 4x2m]

Thread

Pattern of basic skirt.

I started with making both sides of a basic pencil skirt.

I used this pattern:

Unfortunately, it's in Russian and I'm no better Russian speaker than probably you.

Anyway, get the pencil skirt pattern and make that skirt girl! BUT do not sew both sides together YET.

For the front I just cut out various sizes of rectangles, folded them in half and after the scheme above only in reverse order than the numbers are written I sewed the rectangles to the skirt so that the size of the rectangles grew and their covered field grew too.

It's not hard - you just have to understand the scheme. It is time consuming, though.

But when it was done, the most time I think I spent on sewing the hidden zipper. In the end it came out perfect!

Here's the end version of back of the skirt, with small flirty tail.

[thingsidomyself]

Delicious cakes "Old Riga"

Hungry?

Making sweets is one of my favorite things to do.

Heeere we go: (sorry for giving the European sizes!!)

100 grams flour

200 ml water

100 grams of butter

4 eggs

salt

Filling:

200 ml cream (whipped)

200 grams there is this thing called curd but you can fill the cakes only with whipped cream.

Sugar [~3tbs]

vanilla sugar [~1/2tbs]

Take a kettle, pour the water in, drop in 100 grams of butter and 1/2 tbs salt. well, maybe a little more salt. Make sure you add salt.

Wait until the water boils and the butter melts.

With wood spoon [metal spoons often change the taste of food] stir clockwise [superstition] so it doesn't burn.

Then add all flour at once and stir actively while still heating the kettle [maybe not so hot anymore but still]. Stir until the dough turns into a firm paste. [this may take a while and at some point you're going to think that it is never going to happen but right after that moment it does.]

Chill the dough for ~7 min and turn on your oven [210 C]

Add eggs one by one after every one stirring the dough very actively. Here is another moment of wanting to die but the dough will eventually turn into something useful. Stir clockwise tirelessly. [you may want to drop your hands afterwards but while in the process - don't give up! You can do it!]

When all eggs are in, take a tablespoon and put spoon by spoon the dough on the oiled baking tray. Leave good spaces between them because they're going to grow.

Bake 35 minutes. Do not open the oven in the first 15 minutes. It would be better if you didn't open the oven until the time is up and they look golden.

While the tiny precious are baking, whip the cream, add the sugars and curd if you have it. 

Take out the cakes and take them off the pan. It would be better to fill them while hot so try and do that. There might be open holes in the cakes. Through them you can try and fill them. If unsuccessful, you can always cut them open and put the filling in. [it does not change the taste]

You can overwhelm them with icing sugar or dip them in it.

Best right after finishing - in time they kinda soak. Best to fill right before eating!

[thingsidomyself]

Organza flowers

Had some fun making beautiful organza flowers to give as gifts for my friends. A wonderful idea for Christmas!

What you'll need:

Organza (1 m might be enough for some flowers. You may want to vary with the colors, though.)

Candle or lighter

Scissors

Needle and thread

Some cute stuff to fill the middle of the flower

Some felt (not much, only for the base of the flower)

Cut five different size circles out of organza. Mine were ranging between 3 1/2 inches and about 6 inches. I cut about 3 circles in every size.

As shown in the picture above, cut the sides of the circles, pointing your scissors at the middle of the flower. Do not cut them in half, leave some space in the middle.

Then take the candle or lighter and carefully melt the petals. BE CAREFUL WITH THE FIRE!!

When all the flower parts are made, put them all together, add the felt circle under the largest one and sew them all together. Add something in the middle so that in the end it resembles something like flower :)

In the bottom you can sew a safety pin and make it into a brooch or add it somewhere else where it fits.

[thingsidomyself]

Feather earrings

So I have a crush on feather earrings. Not having money to buy them myself I decided to try and make them myself. (what a surprise!)

  What you'll need:

6 feathers

some wires

some thin chain

2 hooks for earrings

6 tiny things to secure the feathers in (no idea how they're called but there's a picture of them lower)

Divide the chain into two and add the earring hooks.

Stick the feathers into these thingies:

Now with the wires attach the feathers to the chains.

It is really easy to do!