Denim Coaster

Upcycling is creative fun. 

My dear daughter(DD) gave me a pair of jeans. She doesn’t like it anymore. 

It came to my mind to make a round coaster with denim  I traced a circle on a piece and cut it out. Decided to crochet around the edge  

To add crocheted edging, I need to put holes on the edge  Or I can do a chain stitch around the edge and use it as the foundation for the crochet  

I am not good at making marks equidistant on fabric. My embroidery cannot be trusted to make even stitches  So the next idea was to crochet a length of chain and stitch around the denim piece.

The crochet chain is stitched by hand-sewing  

Then I decided to do a petal shape for the edge  

The pattern used is 3 dc, skip next chain slip stitch on next, skip one and repeat  

Sometimes, you may have to improvise to make the pattern fit the circle  But mine was going good  

That is the end result. This is a washable coaster  

I am seeing a lot of decorative possibilities with this  Any ideas coming to your mind? Please share with me in the comment section  

Bindu

Crochet projects and ideas

Crochet granny squares are so popular. 

I made granny square blankets and bags. Now, can you just crochet a rectangle using the stitch blocks and chains?

Yes! I made that:

It is a lined crochet bag! For a first try, this is looking good. What do you think?

 

Bindu

small Projects

Last week didn't go as planned regarding blogging. Yet it was a delightful time to indulge in other creative pursuits. I did crochet, embroidery and some book reading. It was a good week. 

I delved into making scrunchies. I made three, yet I was able to save only one. 

The brown and green went well. Now, I stock up on elastics and determined to whip up a few more in different colours and patterns. 

Then, I took on a creative challenge on a new top bought last December. I carefully shortened its length. then added a line of Chevron stitches topped with a threaded running stitch. Now I am contemplating adding more stitch lines to make the top more interesting and unique. What do you all think?

The highlight of the week was a crocheted purse. It turned out to be my best creation. The excitement reached new rights as this was my first attempt at adding a zipper to a crocheted item. The fusion of crochet and functionality was a rewarding experience, and I couldn't be more satisfied with the result

Which one is your favourite ?

How do you express yourself?

 

Bindu

Crochet again!

I am still in love with blue and white.

Also, loving C2C crochet. Learning C2C granny square! What a fun thing for a crafter, right?

I found this video on youtube:

Then, the design ideas come to life!

This is the cushion cover I mentioned in the previous post. It is finished now. I made the back in a different way. 

The opening is in the middle. If time permits, I will make a detailed post about how I made this one later on.

Now, I am starting to go back to working (dental assisting). Crochet is an expensive hobby. So, as much as I love to stay home, I have to do my day job too. Thankfully, my health is fine to start working again. 

 

Bindu

Blue and White

I bought some yarn from Amazon. 3 balls of  Redheart Supersaver white and 3 balls of Redheart soft turcoise. It costs around $45 including taxes. 

First, I made a granny square bag. The pattern and tutorial are from YouTube. Since I know how to make granny squares, I didn't follow instructions precisely as in the design. I mainly was interested in the assembly. 

There is no lining for this bag. 

 

I want to learn to add lining and zipper.  That will be for another day.

I was working on a cushion cover. I designed it myself.  The center is a granny square. Then two c2c squares in blue. To keep everything together, added granny stitches around it.

The back is made up of another granny square panel. 

There is one more cushion cover in the making, with the same colours in a different pattern. Turquoise yarn is softer than white. 

How do you like the blue and white combination?

Bindu

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Mixed media card with embroidery and crochet

I was playing with cardstock and paint.

Got something not very happy about.
It was almost got abandoned, till the idea of stitching over it come.

 Now the plant and the flower pop up even though it is rainy and cloudy, right?
I added yellow ribbon to give it kind of more attention. 
The card needs a lining inside to cover the stitches though.

Bindu

A 3D wall Art DIY with a recycled box

I always look things which I can make myself. My talents are limited. I can crochet, I can make my own jewelry, and I can play with paints ( but, I cannot make a great painting or anything like that...)

The bog Once Upon a dream aka Craft a doodle doo has ton of ideas, which I can try with my limited budget.
On Nash's blog, I stumbled on this awesome 3D wall art idea.

She is very creative and crafty. I decided to copy her idea and to work on my project.
I was given an Elizabeth Arden gift box for Mother's Day. The box itself is very pretty. So, I kept the box to do something with it. But, didn't have an idea...
I do have a lot of crochet flowers from my Etsy days. Decided to use few of them. 
The markers and the patterned paper..few beads... some glue... (My Glue Gun needs more Glue sticks and I have to wait to purchase anything..Ya, too bad.. Oh, cmon.. I have some tacky glue which can stick the beads...So, I used that  liquid glue for this project)

 The project on my working table aka the foldable Ikea dining table.

I wrote the words using sharpies. (No, I am not paid by the Sharpie company). I used a red color pencil on top of the mesh onion bag to get the texture. The craft scissors gave the wavy cuts.  The words are separated by sticker bindi's I bought from India. 

The plants are hand drawn using markers. Some sticky 3d acrylic embellishments are prettying my plants. 

The butterfly is crocheted using a pattern from Crochet Today Mag, I believe. (FYI, they are not paying to put their name too).


Crochet flowers are my made with my ideas in the past.I glued the patterned paper with all my embellishments on the inside of the box.

 I am loving it. Thanks to Nash and Craft a Doodle Doo.
I put on the dressing table near to my jewelry.

I am still looking on my finished project and enjoying it. 
Do you like my Box art?

Bindu Designs

Trying to make both ends meet...

I am still adding more to the shop.
There are 160 items now.
The month is just slow still...
I said in the title, I am trying to make both ends meet. That is right. It is sad, the work is not paying off...
Just feel that I am a bit off balanced....
Hubby called from work place to tell me about the lay offs happening at their company. Then he told me bad news that  the remaining staff has to take a pay cut for next 3 months.
That is making me scared. Here I am trying to make my Etsy shop a success, depending on his income.
Now that is also going to be reduced.
Thinking of it, I am not sure where to cut the expenses, because, it is already been so tight and we are keeping the scare to ourselves.
So, if there is no more sales, I am not buying anymore raw materials for crafting.
Whatever comes to the store is going back to the store itself.
May be I will do more marketing and less making, may be..
I added this today though. That is making me glad.

The flowers are added with a button. Then I stitched the flowers to the cap to secure them enough. The white flowers of the green cap make it very adorable. 

That bracelet will sure go with the cap. Right now, there is one scarf also, in the shop, to make it a complete set.

Now, that is a great set. When i put all of them together, my mood is getting better.

So, to keep up with the things, I really need to have the positive thinking. When you look on nice things, the mental self depreciating talk will getting slower. 

Bindu Designs

Path to success on Etsy.

I got a custom order from Bethany lee of Projectwhitespace.com.
She is a great motivator for me.
Just finished that one. I still needed to list it.
There was a little draw back. I sent one item to Hawai. Even after one month, it didn't reach there. So, I had to send it again.
Now the packaging ideas are getting better. It is important that I sold one cap offline too. That is great achievement.

Yesterday I got a message asking about ordering 10 gift card holders like the ones below.

I send the details. But the buyer backed off today morning. It made me feel bad. That made me determined to create more of those similar bags. I am going to stock up the cotton thread I used for these. So, when some one comes up with a big order, I don't have to think twice. 

The problem is storing the inventory.

I needed to get more space. Is that going to happen? 

Bindu Designs

Path to Success on Etsy

I was having a BIG headache yesterday. It still continues today too. But, I am working on a new infinity scarf It is a very soft grey. One of the Crochet teams on Etsy mentioned Grey being the favorite crochet color.
The yarn is very soft to touch. That is why I bought it. To give the scarf some personality, I think, I needed to add a bit of color.
Getting back links to the store is very critical for the success of online shop. So, I got this advice to add links to the shop on my blog.
In a way to help my fellow Etsy sellers, i will be adding some interviews on Bindu Blogs too. the fist is with the shop, A Word Fitly spoken.
I made a new treasury yesterday though. The clicking team gave it a lot of clicking. I tweeted and Facebooked it. So the Brown treasury got a lot of views.

Bindu Designs

Path to success on Etsy

The weekend was dedicated for family and not for Etsy. So, the not so busy evening was dedicated to create this beautiful treasy named as  "A Sea Of Blue Scarves" . Send messages for the list owners to let them know about this great treasury. I am so glad I made this very inspirational blue scarves. The blue Infinity scarf by Bindu Designs is also added to the collection.

That is the main thing done for making the shop success today.

Bindu Designs

Path to Success on /Etsy

 Today I wrote answers to the interview questions on a blog.It will give me another link. Glad about that. My orange scrunchie is showing up in the browse and got couple of views from it. So, i decided to add few more scrunchies. Linking them to each other and linking to matching items...That kind of helping the customers.
Reduced the price of soap savers.
Also, posted new items to shop. Right now I checked and found that 95 views for me. That is great, I guess. Usually it will be around 70.

So, today, I took photos of caps.

Then the scrunchies, I put them on my hand as bracelets for the picture. They will make nice bracelets. I love them

They are added to the shop. 

Blue, Grey and burgandy are added to the shop. The multi color ones may go tomorrow. It is too late to take pictures. That is it for Bindu Designs today.

Bindu Designs

Path to success on Etsy

I created a new banner for the shop. When I say weekend, you may think a regular weekend. My weekend is usually only Sunday. The Sunday should usually be devoted for the chores of the home. Then some running around for shopping... It will finish soon and I will be like, ya, it is ove... where the time gone?

But, this weekend, somehow, I got about an hour to play with things and was able to make a banner.
I didn't made any interesting things other than that.
The day was cloudy. So taking pictures of the finished scarves for the shop was not an option.

When I checked today, I won the treasury challenge by EtsyBitsy team. That sounds good.
Then, My hair tie was featured on another treasury.
But, I haven't got a sale yet. Hopefully, I will get one soon... since several items got expired on the shop, I needed to renew few items to keep the numbers higher. If I will be listing the last two infinity scarves as well, then I should have 119 items for sure.
Still a lot more to make to reach 200.

Bindu Designs

Today's Progress

I was pushing myself to finish few soap savers. So finished 2 pink ones in one stretch.
Since it is so dull and dark, I cannot get nicer pictures to add items to the shop.
But, to mark my progress, I took a picture any way.

They are of 31/4 inches wide and 5 inches long. 

I needed to explore using different stitches now, because, it is boring to make in the same way. 

Just feeling a sense of accomplishment with finishing those ones. May be my positive thinking can make me do a bit more today. 

Now, it is lunch time and I need to eat some food. 

Blog, I am glad you are here to listen what I am doing. 

By the way, the work got cancelled too. That is the fate about being a dental assistant. When patients cancel, the dentist cancel the dental assistant. 

But, I think, I am a bit happy about that today. I was feeling reluctant to get out any way.

So, blog, I will give an update later. 

Bindu Designs

Apples for fruits

After the Niagara trip, I was looking for a nice pattern to try my amigurumi skills so I bought this poly-fill two weeks before. I found the apple pattern on Planet June - her descriptions are very accurate, and to make her patterns even more delicious, they're free!

We bought this foldable dining table from Ikea a couple of months back, which is nice for the saving-space-condo-style. Guests are amazed every time we open it up. When it's closed, I keep a few black dollies like these on top.

Add caption

I made the apples in red acrylic yarn, stems in black. 

Looking fine. But I have a better idea.

What do you think?