Who Painted My Roses Red?

Lovely, a rose made from old playing cards and some hot glue. I thought this up while thinking about the Red Queen's roses. I bet she would love to have a bouquet of roses like these.
This single rose was made from one suit, diamond. I just cut petal shapes from each card and roll it into a rose pattern, with hot glue. I am going to try to make some more roses, because not only this will be great for an Alice in Wonderland costume, it is great as a Valentine's gift.


Here are some pictures showing how the rose was made.

 

Recycle Cards

Roll one half up and glue to form a bud.

Add some petals.

Base.  Then glue on more petals.

Final roses.

The French Knitting Nancy

Remember the Knitting Nancy, or the spool with 3-4 nails sticking out. Bet you did not know you can make one out of wire. I recycle the wire from notebooks to make one. It produces a sturdy little knitting nancy, and I can make it as big as I want because it is recycled from unwanted wire.

In order to make it I use some needle nose pliers. If you want to try, I recommend wearing gloves. Bending the wire will be a little hard on your hands. What needs to be made first are teeth, which are the nails protruding out of the spool. We do this by making a bend similar to the following picture. The prongs should be about an inch. It can be longer or shorter. Afterwards you continue to make more prongs. If you want 2 make 4, 3 make 6, 6 make 12, etc. Then you connect the ends by wrapping the long end around in a ring. Then finally you bend the prongs' tip outward.Now you have a knitting nancy. You use a small crochet hook and wrap every two wires. Originally, each prong was suppose to at like a nail, but I find using two makes knitting easier.

My original knitting nancy resemble a mini crown. This is my new one, which is bigger but not as stable. I ran out of wire to reinforce the bottom, but it makes storing it easier.

Amigurumi

Amigurumi!
Where have you been all my life? Amigurumi is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting. Basically it is the cutest knitted creatures you would ever see. Depending on the size they can take from an hour to just a day. Just google it and you will see all the lovely amigurumis there are. I even crochet a bear and an orange. This is such a lovely hobby, and does not cost a lot too. I just used some scrap yarn I had lying around, and old shredded t-shirts for stuffing. For the eyes, I just embroider them on. Warning, embroidering the eyes is hard.

If you want to learn more about amigurumi, you can search for for information or take a look at the following links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amigurumi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hKBeu2BlhU
(I adore that last link. She was so helpful.)