Nespresso embellishment tutorial

I've been looking at my Nespresso pods for ages, admiring the beautiful colours, and wondered if there was anything I could do with them instead of just binning them when the coffee was used. Then it hit me, I could try to empty out the coffee and make some card embellishments with them.

This is one of the first embellies I made.... and I was so pleased with how it turned out, so I thought I'd show you how I did it... well, at least the first step...

I start with removing the foil lid and emptying out the used coffe grinds from the pods. I wash them and let them dry thoroughly.

When they're dry, I pinch/crunch the top a bit with my fingers, like so...

I then take a wooden spatula and flatten the pods as much as I can.

And to make them really flat, I put them under a wooden chopping board and stand on them... lol....

et voila... gorgeous, flat, colourful metal disks, ready to decorate with flowers, ribbon, buttons, twine, beads etc.

Here's a card I made with one of the nespresso pod metal disks....

(Digi image by Fred she Said, coloured with Promarkers. Martha Stewart punch, paper flower, twine, Nespresso pod)

Hope this was useful... If you try it out, I'd like to see what you do with your pods. Please leave me a comment with a link to your project.

Crochet flowers

A few people have asked me how I make the crochet flowers I use on my cards, so here's how:

You only need a few metres of yarn for each flower.

I use different size hooks for different size flowers.

ch: chain (luftmaske)

sl st: slip stitch (kjedemaske)
sc: single crochet (fastmaske)
dc: double crochet (stav)
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ch 4, join with sl st to first ch to form a ring.
Round 1: sc in ring, *ch 3, sc in ring*, repeat * to * 3 more times, ch 3, sl st to first sc to join = 5 ch-3 loops.
Round 2: *sc, ch 1, 3 dc, ch 1, sc* repeat from * to * in each ch-3 loop, sl st to first sc to join = 5 petals.
Fasten off, and your flower is done!

Hope you understand my pattern. If it's unclear please let me know and I will try my best to help you out. Please don't post my pattern anywhere else, make a link back to my pattern instead if you want to share...
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I would LOVE to see a picture if you make and use my flowers on a project... (just leave a link in my comments).

New dress

Finally... It's washed, and Maja's not been allowed to wear it until I was ready to take a photo. I made this dress a couple of weeks ago, but before I'd gotten my camera out, Maja had gone and got the dress dirty... that's 5 year olds for you...

Aaanyway... I found this tutorial for making a toddlers dress from an old shirt, and I thought this was such a brilliant idea that I wanted to try it out myself. And since I had just made a dress/pinafore for Susie, I figured I'd try and make this for Maja. I just got a bigger shirt to make it fit my 5 year old (instead of a toddler). It was really fun to make, and quite easy too.
It's not easy to get her to behave when there is a camera around....

The front of the shirt makes the back of the dress... brilliant solution... I didn't have to sew a single button hole...

I used the sleeves of the shirt to make a pair of trousers to go with the dress.

The best thing is that when I went to pay for this shirt (which I bought in a secon hand/charity shop in town) they told me they had "buy one, get one free" on all gent's clothes that day, so I got two shirts for the price of one... which was virtually nothing... hehe, I love a good deal. I've already started making a dress of the other one as well. I'll show you when it's finished.

A pinafore for Susie

I bought a lovely pear fabric at a secon hand shop the other day. I suspect it is vintage, but I can't be sure (how can you really tell??). I like it anyway. The big question was what will I make out of it? I decided on making a cute pinafore for Susie. It was a huuuge piece of fabric, so this little pinafore only dented one corner... so I got plenty left.... hehe... what will I make next?

Ok, so here it is;
It's a bit hard to get Sus to stand still long enough for me to take her photo, but I managed to trap her between the telly and the curtain...

The pinafore crosses over at the back.

Since little monkeys gets easily dirty, I made the pinafore reversible. I paired my pear fabric (!) with this floral fabric.

The shoulder straps just ties on the shoulders (I love this pic by the way). Easy peasy...

And the best thing is; Susie seems to like it. She would stand completely still when I was trying it on to get the pattern to fit her. And she will also stand still long enough for me to tie the straps on her shoulders... she doesn't usually have time for standing still that long.

Now I will have to make something for Maja as well. She's asking for a pinafore like Susie's, but I can't be bothered altering the pattern to fit a 5 year old... I've got something else in mind... stay tuned...

Edit: Woops... I forgot to say that I used this tutorial as a starting point for my pinafore. I've altered the pattern ever so slightly to make it my own though.

Ballband dishcloth

I've wanted to knit the Ballband dishcloth ( Mason-Dixon Knitting by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne) ever since I saw it in a blog, but didn't know how. I did a search on the net and found the pattern for it HERE. These dishcloths were really quick and easy to knit, and fun as well....and they are definately gonna look much nicer in my kitchen than the old store bought dishcloths I already have...

They're made of 100% cotton and they are really nice and thick. I don't know if they're any good, but I hope so. I'll give one of them a try tomorrow.