• Categories

  • Archives

simple pattern-making – the Basics

One of the main purposes of crafting (the other one is creative outlet & sharing, of course) is making your own of something. An original, one-of-a-kind something. This is why I’ve never liked scrapbooking die-cuts. They’re super cute and can be really useful, but even if it’s a pain in the butt I prefer to design my own shapes and cut-outs.

There are patterns (like die-cuts) for paper crafts, for sewing projects, for pretty much any kind of project. Patterns most certainly have their place, but it’s good to know how to draft your own when the need arises. Read the full post »

Share
3 Comments
by on January 28, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Paper Goods, Sewing, the Basics
Tagged , , , , ,
Posted by Tally on January 28, 2011

http://tallystreasury.com/2011/01/symmetrical-pattern-making-the-basics/

straight pins – the Basics

By the time I was about two years old my mother had me trained to crawl around the living room carpet finding stray pins. This was to keep my younger playmate (my parents’ friends’ daughter) Sarah – and, later, my baby brother – from eating them. I was very good at my job. No pins were ever digested by any family member or house guest, nor were pins often found by piercing an unwary foot.

Read the full post »

2 Comments
by on January 25, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Sewing, the Basics
Posted by Tally on January 25, 2011

http://tallystreasury.com/2011/01/straight-pins/

fabric garlands – it’s party time!

Guess what? It’s been a whole year!!! That’s right, a year ago I began blogging, shouting into the bustle of the internet, waving my arms and hoping to be heard above all the tweets and the porn and the snickering over at 4-Chan and the sound of puppies being cute and of kittens reducing people to d’awwww-ing puddles.

And now, today, we celebrate that some of you have heard me and that I continue to wave my arms and blog. Remember a year ago, when this blog was just crawling? Now it’s up and running with scissors, getting into the expensive Japanese paper and playing with superglue. This calls for a party!

Read the full post »

35 Comments
by on January 21, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Children, Decorations, Reused/recycled materials, Sewing
Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Posted by Tally on January 21, 2011

http://tallystreasury.com/2011/01/fabric-garlands-its-party-time/

Perilous Myr plushie – bonus post

On the heels of welcoming in 2011, this blog has come up on one year old (celebratory post to come). I’ve got many exciting plans for the blog and for my crafting in general during the coming year, but for a moment I’d like to reflect on how much can be learned in 12 months of experiments and constant Google searches. How many glue stains old carpet can hide, how many fabric scraps one attic can contain, how much sawdust can be made in the living room without the boyfriend flipping out.

This is all a poetic and hand-on-heart way of explaining that this bonus post is an excuse for me to gleefully show off a project I’ve been working on for about a week. It’s something I couldn’t possibly have done a year ago, and thus a great milestone marker of how much I’ve learned in 12 months. And it reminds me how many stitches I’ve pulled out over those months. Probably enough to reach across a province or two, at least.

I’ve recently started making plushies. Some turn out better than others, but it’s always a joy to create cuddly and adorable objects. Unrelated (mostly, but I’m working on that) to crafting, I’ve also been playing a lot of Magic in the last few months. Naturally, I’ve been thinking up ways to bring these two interests together.

Plushies are cute and cuddly. Most creatures in MtG are not (much to my dismay, since I very much want to play a deck full of badgers and water voles and rabbits, and anyone who’s read the Redwall books knows full well that they would kick ass). But Myr… they’re pretty cute. Perilous Myr especially, with their inquisitive faces and little round bodies pumping pollutants into a hazy green atmosphere. Thus:

Read the full post »

48 Comments
by on January 17, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Bonus updates, Felt, Plushies, Sewing
Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Posted by Tally on January 17, 2011

http://tallystreasury.com/2011/01/perilous-myr-plushie-bonus-post/

paper airplane mobile – decorative storage

I’ve discovered another magical feature of the city I live in: multidirectional wind. It has the stupendous ability to blow in every direction at once, such that you are always facing head-first into it. I just biked across town in said wind, cursing extravagantly and vowing (impossibly) to do things to the wind which my pacifist upbringing would certainly not condone. At one point I had to pedal fiercely in order to keep moving downhill. By the time I got home I was more out of breath than a rabbit in mating season, but without having had any of the fun.

Broadly speaking, all this does have something to do with today’s blog post, since the post is about paper airplanes, which involve wind and physics and stuff that I learned about in grade 7 and then forgot. Which is a shame, because all that science was much more interesting than I ever gave it credit for at the time.

Read the full post »

3 Comments
by on January 15, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Children, Decorations, MAN CRAFTS, Paper Goods, Toys
Tagged , , , , , ,
Posted by Tally on January 15, 2011

http://tallystreasury.com/2011/01/paper-airplane-mobile-decorative-storage/

split-eared finger puppets

I like critters. Real ones, imaginary ones, critters with one eye and critters with two; all kinds of critters. Over the past few months I’ve acquired all kinds of new skills for making my own critters, and this week I opened up a new Etsy store (Tally’s Bestiary) to house the menagerie I’ve created.

In honor of that store and of all cute critters everywhere, this week’s blog post will teach you how to make some of your own simple but adorable creatures – animal, alien or otherwise. I first saw this idea for colour-layered, 3-dimensionally-eared finger puppets on The Purl Bee blog, a wonderful collection of crafting ideas and tutorials. Being me, I snapped a screen shot, forgot all about it, found the photo later, worked out how to do it and then went hunting for the actual original photo location and tutorial. I’m one of those people who never reads the manual.

Read the full post »

2 Comments
by on January 8, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Children, Felt, Plushies, Sewing, Toys
Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Posted by Tally on January 8, 2011

http://tallystreasury.com/2011/01/split-eared-finger-puppets/

classy top hat… made from paper

New Year’s Eve is more fun with a little snazz, and most of us have too many fancy dresses that get shown off far too infrequently. But how to distinguish yourself from all the other ladies in red satin or black chiffon? And how to do it for cheap, since the Christmas season is already one of too many bills?

Like the fedora, top hats are just plain sexy, and on pretty much anyone. They’re also bloody expensive, except for the tacky ones in the dollar store that are never quite the right shape. The solution is, of course, to make your own out of a relatively inexpensive material, such as paper. I keep saying that paper is an under-appreciated medium, and here I go saying it again. There’s no reason that a paper hat can’t be a marvelous and perfectly wearable costume piece.

Read the full post »

16 Comments
by on December 31, 2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Costumes, Paper Goods, Wearable
Tagged , , ,
Posted by Tally on December 31, 2010

http://tallystreasury.com/2010/12/paper-top-hat/

« Older Posts
Newer Posts »