Estelle de Paris

I was in need of art for my walls in my new apartment and didn’t want to spend too much. So a trip to the good will for the frames, to the craft store for the mats, a little work and voila!

The good thing with frames thrifted at the good will is their price but you might not be able to find a lot of frames with the same tint of varnish or wood. With a little bit of work you can turn random and ugly into wonderfulness for cheap!

I framed pictures of Paris and prints of Mark Ryden.

What do you need?
-Frames
-Spray paint primer
-Foam paint brushes
-Acrylic paint
-Very fine paint brushes to outline the creases of the frames.
-A damp rag

Prepare your frames:
-First you need to clean your frames with a damp clothe and let them dry before you do anything else. Then sand them with a fine grain sand paper. Wipe the dust off with a dry rag.

- Coat the frames with primer. I used gray here because I wanted to paint my frames black, if you want to paint your frames with a lighter color you can use white primer. I recommend to use spray bottles more than cans, is is easier and the coats are more regular. Plus it is also really affordable.

Make sure to do this outside or in a well ventilated area away from pets and kids and proceed to the spraying fun! Allow the paint to dry as recommend by the merchant.

Paint the frames:
-It might take two coats of acrylic craft paint depending on the kind you use. It is an average $1.5 per 2 fl. oz bottle.
For this project, I bought one pure black as the main color, one metallic pure gold and one metallic silver sterling to outline the creases of the frames.

Outline the creases:
-Your frames might have creases in the wood work and because an all black frame is kinda dull, you can outline them with gold, silver or hot pink or whatever color you’d like.
To do so you need to use extra fine paint brushes size 00 or 000.

Wipe any excess of paint while still wet with a rag.

Tadda!

Vu comme il fait froid, j’ai décidé de prendre les photos de ma robe à l’intérieur. Et vu que je n’avais pas de photographes sous la main, j’ai improvisé en me prenant en photo dans mon nouveau miroir

Plis et longueur au genou donne à cette robe ajustée une touche d’élégance et de raffinement. J’ai également confectionné la petite ceinture qui marque la taille et qui cache la couture d’assemblage de la partie haute et basse.

J’ai acheté le patron sur le site de Vogue Pattern. Il vous est possible de commander depuis la France, le cout des frais d’expédition pour 1 à 4 patrons est de $7, ce qui est plutôt raisonnable ! Ne vous alarmez pas si vous ne maitrisez pas l’anglais les patrons sont en français et en anglais.

Conseils pour bien choisir votre patron :

1- Mesurez-vous. Tour de poitrine et tour de buste. Tour de taille et tour de hanches. Longueur de dos ce qui revient a vous mesurer de la naissance du cou au bas du dos, creux des reins. En général les patrons sont en taille 4-6-8 ou 6-8-10 puis 10-12-14 ou 12-14-16.

2- Ne vous fiez pas à votre taille magasin pour choisir votre patron mais bien a vos mesures.

3- Pour un patron de robe, chemisier, veste et manteaux choisir la taille en fonction de votre tour de poitrine.

-Pour un patron de pantalon et jupe, choisir la taille en fonction de votre tour de hanches.

-Si le patron inclus haut et bas pour un tailleur par exemple, choisir en fonction de votre tour de poitrine et ajustez le bas en fonction.

-Si vous êtes entre deux tailles, choisissez en fonction de votre ossature. Taille en dessous pour les ossatures légères et taille au dessus pour les ossatures lourdes.

4- Essayez votre travail au fur et à mesure. Attention, si le patron dit “très ajusté” ou “close fitted” le niveau de difficulté est plus accru, tout simplement parce que l’aisance est plus petite. Pour la robe dont les photos sont postées dans cet article, le patron indique, “ajusté” ou “fitted”. Libre à vous de l’ajuster la ou vous le souhaitez, pour ma part j’ai porte l’accent sur les hanches.

Si vous voulez réaliser cette robe, voici le lien pour en acquérir le patron : V8280

Petite vue d’ensemble pour avoir une idée de la ligne.

Le décolleté et le détail des épaules.

Les fronces des épaules.

Voila! Ma première robe!

I have been knitting for almost 2 years and I always felt that the sweaters I made had too much of a “I made it myself” look, lacking the right attention on the assembling and finishing side. It took me a few mistakes and trials before I was able to knit a piece that gave me entire satisfaction.

I knew that I would be able to make beautiful garments at some point but was not sure when it would happen, I know I made the transition from ugly scarves to beautiful gifts pretty soon after I picked up the needles but making a beautiful sweater combined so much techniques, it was really intimidating. From specific loose cast-on, ribbing, shaping, short rows, picking up and knitting the collar, drafting and blocking, so much to learn!

So far I always bought acrylic, cheap supermarket yarn because I always considered that my knitting was an offense to beautiful yarn haha I think it is time for an order at knitpicks.com for my next project!!! I can’t even imagine how much more beautiful this sweater would have been if knitted with a merino wool or an alpaca.

The beautiful sweater I just finished is a very original and feminine design from Vladimir Teriokhin published in the 2007/2008 winter edition of the very inspiring magazine Knit.1.

I knitted it with a new Red Heart yarn that is really soft and the color was just exactly what I was looking for this fall. I call it split pea soup sweater haha

How did I end up having so much magazines???

When I moved to my new place a year ago, the post office offered me free magazine subscriptions. Hooray! Free stuff!!! I was excited to open the first one and read it, I then just opened the second and left it on the coffee table shelf and the third one ended up unwrapped until today!

In the mean time I started collecting Coke caps to redeem rewards on mycokerewards.com and I ended up getting more magazine subscriptions!!! You’d think I learned my lesson! Not to mention that I also buy some at the store once in a while.

My coffee table shelf was so crowded I couldn’t add anymore magazines so I went through them and picked up the pages that inspired me to make envelopes and cards.
Some will go to my Etsy shop, some will be sent to my friends for the new year. But with Halloween coming up you might as well try to make some spooky ones!!!

So take all these magazines and let’s start! You can also go through your posters, illustration books, children books, even your junk mail!

What do you need?
-Magazines
-An X-Acto knife or a pair of scissors
-An envelope you take apart or a template you made in illustrator, photoshop or that you draw.
-A fine point or ultra fine point sharpie
-A ruler and/or a triangle. Triangles are neat to mare square edges.
-Glue
-Craft paper, card stock, Scrap booking supplies, stamps, you name it!
-Optional: Lick & Stick Envelope Glue 1.5 Oz. Remoistenable or scrapbook/photo mounting tape You might consider getting some if you sell them or if you give them as a gift

Note:
-I use 3 different size templates that I lay on the illustrations I preselected and use the one that covers the picture the best.

The Envelopes

For this tutorial I’ve selected a painting from the magazine Antique, one of my favorite source for making those fancy envelopes of mine.

1.Lay your template on the picture and outline with a pencil.

I personally prefer to cut paper with an X-Acto knife as it makes the edges perfectly straight but if you don’t have one, scissors work fine.

It should look like this

3.Fold the flaps.

It should look like this.

4.Line the inside. (Optional) You can line the whole envelope or just the flap, it’s up to you. Just note that lining the envelope makes a thicker material that would not rip easily. It can be a good idea if you consider mailing it.

First, make a template of the desired size. I copied the envelope template and cut it.

Glue your flap.

5. Glue the side flap and the verso of the envelope.

Recto

Verso

You can make tons and tons of them!

The cards

Depending on your selection you can make one that opens like a check book or one that opens like a regular book or a single sheet one. Here are a few examples.

For this tutorial, I chose 3 pictures that I thought were matching the style of the envelope and decided to make a “tryptich” card. It is up to you and what you have to work with. I find it easier to make the card with preselected images rather than make the card and illustrate it afterward.

1. Make the card 1/8″ smaller than your envelope all the way around. It is very important to do so or your card will not fit the envelope!!!

2 Outline your picture with colored paper or card stock.

3.Glue the pictures on the card and voilà!

Please come back and share the cards you made