Weaving!!

May 22, 2018 ~ friedasfrills ~ Leave a comment

Hello 🙂

Today I thought I would share a new-ish hobby of mine.

WEAVING!

Last year I bought a Weaving Loom! I have been wanting to get a weaving loom for a long time… I even started to make one, but I finally gave in and purchased a beautiful rigid heddle loom from Ashford Australia. At first I was just going to buy their sample-it-loom but I ended up getting the 120 cm /48″ loom so that I could have more flexibility in my weaving width.

Finally after about a week of impatiently checking my tracking email every day (sometimes more) it arrived! Yay!! One of the things that I hadn’t realized when I ordered the loom was that the wood needs to be waxed before you put it together. So after I had waxed the wood and put the loom together I was ready to start weaving.

A while back I made a couple of woven rag rugs on a home made frame loom, it took a fair while to complete a rug and I had a lot of trouble keeping the edges from curving in and making my rag rug look like a strangely flat bow tie. I had done a LOT of reading about rigid heddle looms and I was expecting to have the same problem, so I was super careful to allow enough weft (the yarn that goes over and under) on each row so that the sides wouldn’t pull in… It worked!

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This is my first attempt at weaving on my new loom. I was amazed at how quickly I was able to finish this mat. It was completely finished in about 6 hours!

I really love how easy it is to make a useful item with this loom. I have just finished making a scarf with DK yarn and (8ply) feather yarn, the novelty yarn adds some contrasting texture which I really like.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed this little update 🙂

Planner Freebies! – Tropical Holiday Stickers

Mar 30, 2018Apr 8, 2018 ~ friedasfrills ~ Leave a comment

Hello peps!

So a few weeks ago I launched my first ever planner product, a laminated kawaii sheep dashboard/cover, on Etsy. I spent ages drawing and editing the sheep and choosing all the colour options, check it out here. I had a lot of fun making the dashboards and it has inspired me to make some more planner accessories.

I have also been using some different inserts in my planner for the month of March. I decided that although I like the horizontal planner format I wanted to try a vertical layout and use sticker kits to decorate my planner! I’ve been enjoying finding free printable sticker kits online, there are so many beautiful ones! So I decided that I would make one as well!

So without further ado, here is my first free printable planner sticker kit!

Tropical Holiday Stickers – Free Printable

Print at 100% to make sure the stickers come out the right size.

These stickers are sized to fit the Erin Condren Vertical Planner, but can be trimmed to the correct size for any planner!

The kit contains:

8 Full Boxes
8 Half Boxes
7 To Do Headers
7 Today Headers
1 Important Header
8 Small Flags
6 Large Flags
8 Check Lists

I hope you enjoy these freebies and please tag us @friedasfrills if you use them!

These stickers are intended for personal use only!

Bye for now!!

Sneak Peek – My 2018 Planner

Dec 27, 2017Dec 26, 2017 ~ friedasfrills ~ 1 Comment

Hello 🙂

I can’t believe how quickly 2017 went! As it’s almost 2018 I thought I would share my planner for next year.

In 2017 I started using a bullet journal as my daily planner and while I love how custom the spreads are and drawing cute little illustrations in it, I found that I got tired of laying out my monthly and weekly spreads. So for 2018 I bought a simple binder planner from the Kaiser Style online shop.

I wasn’t able to find many reviews of this planner online so I decided to share my thoughts on it. They have lots of different styles and two sizes to pick from. I chose this one and I am so happy with how it looks and feels! These planners also have coordinating sticker books and sticky notes which are soooo pretty.

The planner is in a 6 ring binder made from soft faux leather with four inside pockets, a pen loop and a magnetic clasp. It comes with two acetate dashboards and a snap-in acetate ruler too! The actual planner inserts are a minimalist grey-scale design which means its easy to decorate with stickers and washi-tape as there are no preexisting colour schemes to work around. Each month has a divider, undated monthly calendar, notes page, this month page, 5 undated weekly spreads and a month in review page.

I am so excited to start using this planner, I couldn’t wait to decorate it! So I added a tracking page, some journal cards and washi tape!

P.S. Keep an eye on our Etsy store in January, we have some new listings coming 🙂

À Bientôt 😀

Water Colour Letter Art – Tutorial

Jul 18, 2016Jul 18, 2016 ~ friedasfrills ~ 2 Comments

Hi everyone 🙂 How are you all going? It’s the middle of Winter here in Australia so it is perfect weather for snuggling up in front of the fire with a project. So on that note, I thought I would share a quick tutorial on my version of those cute water-colour and word art works that are all over Pinterest at the moment. Here goes 🙂

You will need…

Water colour paper (pre-stretched to minimize buckling)
HB pencil
Black Fine line marker (make sure it’s one that doesn’t bleed)
Water Colour paint (I used pans, but tube paint is fine too)
Medium paint brush
Ruler
Eraser
Water

First, using the pencil, lightly rule some guide lines across your page. With your pencil again, lightly draw in your desired text/quote, take care to center it both vertically and horizontally. When you are happy with your text draw over it again with the pencil to darken the letters. Erase the guide lines but LEAVE THE PENCIL LETTERS ON THE PAGE.

Now take your brush and dip it in clean water. Paint with water, roughly making a circular area wet. Now paint over the wet area with water-colour. Be creative! Drops of clean water on the wet water-colour paint gives interesting effects!

When you are happy with how it looks, leave it to dry on a flat, level surface. Now that your watercolour is dry, carefully draw over the penciled letters with a black permanent marker. It is a good idea to test your marker out on another piece of water-colour paper.

When you are finished allow the marker to dry completely…. And you are finished!

I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and that it make you want to give water-colour a go 🙂 If you do use this tutorial I’d love to see how yours went, post a photo below or tag me on instagram @friedas_frills

Have fun,

Gill

http://www.etsy.com/shop/FriedasFrills

Work-In-Progress Wednesday (Socks)

Jun 8, 2016Jun 8, 2016 ~ friedasfrills ~ 2 Comments

Hello 🙂 How are you all going?

It’s been raining here lately, so I have started knitting a pair of socks. I love knitting socks, there is something so nice about wearing a pair of cosy hand knitted socks. I know that lots of sock knitters love the magic loop technique, but I personally prefer using double pointed needles.

So anyway, a while ago a friend was knitting a really pretty fair isle cardigan for a baby girl and she told me that it was actually the yarn making the pattern, so there were no ends to weave in and no tricky pattern charts. Then a couple of months ago I was shopping in Spotlight and saw some balls of yarn called “Not Just Socks” which is self patterning yarn. I bought two 100g balls one orange one for my mum and one grey one for me which I put away until I finished some of my works in progress 🙂 .

I have finally started knitting a pair of socks from it and i love it! The yarn is 4ply and a blend of wool (50%), bamboo (25%) and polyamide (25%). The bamboo makes the yarn nice and smooth so it’s nice to knit with. I’ll post a photo of the finished socks so you can see the how the yarn turns out 🙂

Some things I have learnt that make knitting socks a little easier are:

Bamboo Double Pointed Needles (DPN), they are awesome! Not only are they eco friendly but they also help to keep your stitches from sliding off.
Pretty Yarn. Never underestimate pretty yarn! I find that knitting with bright, variegated or patterned yarn stops me getting bored with a project so I actually finish it 🙂
Always Finish The Round. This is a really good habit to get into, it makes it easier to remember where you are up to.
Leave A Tail When Casting On And Joining. This way you can always see where the round starts.
Short DPNs, they are easier to control (not poking yourself and everyone around you) plus they make your knitting much more portable.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!

Tutorial-Toadstool Pincushion

May 30, 2016Jun 6, 2016 ~ friedasfrills ~ 2 Comments

Hello everyone 🙂 Today I thought that I would show you how you can make your own toadstool. You can use this as a cute little pincushion or just as an adorable decoration!

So here is what you will need:

Red Felt
White Felt
Cardboard
Toy Fill/ Stuffing
Scissors
Needle
Red Thread
Craft Glue suitable for Fabric (Hot Glue is fine too)
Toadstool Template

So first up you need to print the template and the cut out all the pieces. Now cut the top out in red felt and cut three large spots, two little spots and the stalk all in white felt. You will also need to cut the base out in cardboard.

Now lets put it together…

Thread the needle, and knot the end. With long stitches sew all the way around the top

until you are back where you started. (As shown in the picture above). Pull the thread tight so the top starts to gather and put a small amount of toy-fill or stuffing in.
Place the cardboard circle inside on top of the stuffing, pull tight and tie off the thread. Glue all around the edge.

Now take the stalk and put glue on one side, going from one end to the
other in a zig-zag pattern. Starting at one end carefully roll the stalk up all the way until you are almost at the end. Put some more glue on the end an roll it closed.

Okay, so now glue the stalk to the middle of the cardboard which is still showing on the bottom of your toadstool and let ALL the glue dry COMPLETELY.

You’re almost finished! Grab your spots and glue them on however you would like. Wait until its all dry, and you’re done! 🙂

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and don’t forget to check out our Etsy Shop. Thanks for stopping by. 🙂

New Listings!!

May 26, 2016 ~ friedasfrills ~ 2 Comments

Hi everyone! Long time no see 🙂

Do you remember the Tablet Cover Tutorial posted awhile ago? Well, today we are adding a finished tablet sleeve cover to our Etsy Shop so you can buy the finished product. Woo Hoo!

From now on we will also be adding a NEW listing to our Etsy Shop EVERY WEEK!! So be sure to check back regularly so you don’t miss anything. We are also planning to post weekly blogs, starting (hopefully) next week. The first post will be a tutorial….

Thanks for visiting our web site 🙂