For this DIY we used the beautiful jewel encrusted ornament designed by Chan Luu. Our clever team used this ornament to create an adorable headband in just a few easy steps! All you need is a plain old headband and some fabric glue.
Untie the ornament from its hook, and then bit by bit, use the fabric glue to adhere it to the headband. We used clips (pictured below) to hold the ribbon in place as it dried.
That’s it! I love how the hanging chains give this a delicate feel:
Due to the power outage, I didn’t get to post this week’s DIY on Wednesday, so here it is – part two of our tutorial for turning our holiday ornaments into accessories you can wear all year long!
We removed the hook from the small gold feather ornament using the pliers, and then untied the red string from the larger feather. We used the string to tie the smaller feather to the ring of the larger feather.
To add a decorative touch, we wrapped the red string around the gold ring, finishing it with a knot. Now just attach the ring with the two feathers to the keyring, and you’ve got an awesome new keychain!
Have you guys seen our beautiful collection of holiday ornaments? We have chosen some of our favorite jewelry designers to collaborate with, interpreting their aesthetic and materials into ornaments that can be hung on a tree! The ornaments are lovely, and the best part is – all of them can be turned into accessories that you can wear and enjoy all year round :) Our team helped put together some awesome tutorials on how to do this – first, we’ll show you how to turn the ornaments into earrings or necklaces!
DIY ornaments turned into earrings
What you need:
A pair of pliers and two earring hooks – you can find these online at places like amazon or at your local craft store.
We used the Zodiac Coin Ornament – I love that these have little fortunes on the back :)
Using your pliers, remove the large hook that comes on the ornament.
Replace the large hooks with the earring hooks, using the pliers to pinch them shut.
You now have a new pair of earrings :) It would be really cute to mix your own zodiac sign on one ear and a loved one or best friend’s sign on the other!
DIY ornaments turned into necklaces
This one is really simple – all you need is a chain of your choosing, and, depending on which ornament you use, you might need the pliers.
Remember those rad newspaper nails I posted a few weeks back? Ever since then I find myself noticing nail art more and more… I’m terrible at the whole nail polish thing, because I bite my nails – it’s a habit I can’t seem to kick. But if I managed to get my nails to look like any of these, I don’t think I’d want to ruin them…
Early Saturday morning I flew to Boston for our Holiday Crafting Party at Free People Cambridge. It was such an amazing day – we were blown away by the creativity of everyone who came to the event, and it was so great to just sit around a table, talking and crafting for a few hours! Here’s a photo diary of the day :)
It was an early flight…very early… but this sunrise made it ok.
Hello, Boston!
Our Cambridge store is located at Harvard Square, a really cute little spot just outside Boston where Harvard University is located.
I loved these friendship bracelets one of our fp girls was rocking.
And this sick tattoo another fp girl drew herself!
One of our crafters, Nicole, blew me away with her style and creativity! She made the following braided hat band, necklace and bracelet. And her rad printed jacket is actually a men’s shirt that she found in Africa – amazing.
It’s November and holiday season is officially upon us – so why not get a head start on your holiday shopping and decorating? When it comes to both of these things, there’s nothing better than something handmade – it gives it that special little personal touch that can go a long way. I can’t get enough of these clear Christmas bulbs because there is so much you can do with them – and they make great decorations or little stocking stuffers for your family and friends :)
For those of you who are coming to our Cambridge Crafting Party on Saturday, we’ll have the supplies to make these cute little ornaments, but for everyone else here’s a tutorial!
What you need:
Clear Christmas bulbs – I got these at A.C. Moore but you can also order them online from Amazon!
Gather whatever other embellishments you like! I used yarn, glitter, fake feathers, fake flowers, glue and a little plastic figurine I had lying around. But the best part about these is you can literally do almost anything!
I’ve had this little plastic deer sitting at my desk for a while now, and for my first ornament I knew I wanted to make him a little snow globe :) I gave him a bed of green yarn that I used fabric glue to attach to the base of the ornament. The deer fit perfectly into the ornament – I just dabbed a little bit of glue on his feet and stuck him right in! For the finishing touch I added some white glitter to give the appearance of snow when I shake it.
I would love to have a whole tree decorated with ornaments like this – with little woodland creatures and scenes living inside!
For my next ornament I filled it with some fake flowers and added some glitter for a little sparkle :) I think this would look really pretty with real flowers too – dried flowers would look so nice!
For the third ornament I used different colored fake feathers – I like how this one looks different as it turns at different angles, and almost like tie dye :)
As a finishing touch, I love the idea of hanging the ornaments with neon thread!
If you guys have any other ideas for what you can do with these clear ornaments, I’d love to hear! I’ve seen some pretty neat ones made into mini terrariums…
We have a very exciting event taking place this Saturday at our Cambridge store! I will be there from 12-3PM with lots of fun crafting supplies to make some of our favorite DIY projects from the blog! As the holidays approach, there’s really nothing better than crafting something for someone you love with your own two hands :)
We’ll have lots of fun supplies and embellishments but feel free to bring your own stuff too – maybe you have an old shirt or jeans that you want to spice up, or a Christmas stocking that you can personalize FP-style… the possibilities are endless :) Put your crafting cap on and come out and join us – you can RSVP on the facebook event page here.
I’ll have more info on one of the DIYs later today but here’s a little peek at what we’ll have on hand this weekend…
Shirts seem to be a trend everyone is diving into right now, including me. That preppy school girl is becoming cool again but there seems to be a twist. I’m seeing people buttoning their shirts right up to the top so the collar becomes a feature (see blog post here) and they’re not scared to get adventurous with it either. So here we’ve made our very own DIY where we’ve made the collar a little more decorative!
What you will need;
Measure the length of the collar and cut trim to size
Sew the trim around the collar
Then style as you wish, we love it under cropped sweaters
And here’s a little idea to jazz a shirt up a little for holiday season; buy some iron diamond, decorate the edges and shine on!
I’ve been really into themensweartrend lately – I love taking pieces borrowed from a boy and giving them a feminine twist. Then I saw this photo on tumblr and inspiration struck! I knew my next DIY project would be customizing an old denim shirt by adding a pop of colorful pattern.
What you need: collared button-down shirt of your choice, pretty fabric of your choice (try old clothing you don’t wear anymore or thrift stores!), scissors, needle, thread and safety pins.
Lay the shirt flat with the collar folded up.
Place the fabric on the shirt, and you can either mark on the shirt where you want the fabric to cover, or you can cut a piece of fabric that is slightly larger than that area – this is what I did. I wanted to make sure I didn’t cut too small of a piece, and i figured I could just trim the edges later on, which ended up working perfectly.
Use safety pins to attach the fabric to the shirt so it doesn’t move around as you sew.
Start sewing! Sew along the seams at the top and shoulders of the shirt, and then straight across the back.
Once the fabric was sewn to the shirt, I went around the edges with my scissors and trimmed the excess fabric.
And that’s all there is to it! I’m pretty stoked about my “new” shirt!
We have some shirts online right now that would be great for this!
The lovely and creative Geneva of A Pair and a Spare contributed this amazing guest post for our blog!
Fishtail skirts have dominated the recent SS12 runways and are oh so sexy. What better way to jazz up a thrifted skirt than by creating your own fishtail style? Follow my steps below, it’s incredibly simple!
You need:
A thrifted skirt (I picked one with some subtle pleating)
A pair of scissors
needle and thread
an iron.
How to:
1. Put your skirt on and mark where you want the front, and shortest, part of the skirt to finish.
2. Take the skirt off and fold in it half down the front of the skirt – so rather than the back and front lying against each other, it’s the two sides that face each other – the way you might fold trousers before you put them on a coat hanger. Make sure the fold is directly in the middle of the front of the skirt.
3. Lay the skirt on the floor and cut out the front of the skirt – you want a straight line for the first 30cm or so to create the mini part of the skirt, then tapering down to the back and bottom of the skirt.
4. Try the skirt on to see if the cut out is big enough. I did this a few times, cutting more away to suit what I wanted it to look like. It’s always best to take this part slowly and do small amounts at a time.
5. Once you have a cut out that you like, fold over the edge of the skirt about 1cm and iron. You may want to double over twice but my skirt was made out of a fabric that didn’t fray too badly so once was enough.
6. Sew a small stitch all the way around the hem.
7. Iron flat again.
Voila! All done.
Now wasn’t that simple? I absolutely love how this style moves around when you walk! Now that I’ve tested the process I’m going to make a few different coloured versions too.
Amazing!! thank you so much Geneva!
For more DIY Fashion Inspiration visit her blog: A Pair and a Spare. Also be sure to check out our new DIY Projects category!
A few weeks ago I told you about a little installation we started in our lobby. Well most of our objects have been hung by now and it’s so fun looking at them and trying to guess what belongs to who! Here’s a little peek at some of the things we love about our jobs :)
