8 Strand Spiral Braid

A basic spiral braid is a great technique to know - it's useful for anything from making friendship bracelets to making color matched cord for button loops or shoelaces.

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Swarovski Jewelry Kit Giveaway

We are happy to announce a Swarovski Jewelry Kit Giveaway! Swarovski graciously sent us one kit to use for a project (see: Crystal Decorated Shirt Collar) and a second kit to give away.  

The winner of the giveaway will receive this kit of Gray and Black Swarovski Pearl Elements.  The kit includes instructions for one project designed by Swarovski or you could turn these pieces into a lovely Charm Bracelet.

Have you checked out Swarovski's Create Your Style App yet?  It is a color carousel app designed to show tons of great color combinations in harmonious and contrasting palettes.  You can even save your favorite colors to refer to again later.  

Here Is How To Enter the Giveaway:

1) Download the Create Your Style by Swarovski Elements App: Facebook | iTunes (web based version)
2) At the Bottom of This Post (click here) Leave a Comment including the following:
•Your Favorite Main Color (include the number so everyone knows what you picked!)
•Your Preference of the Pearl color, Harmonious Palette, or Contrast Palette

Make sure you include a valid email address with your comment so we can get in touch with you if you win!

The Giveaway Closes on Monday February 11, 2013!

Crystal Decorated Shirt Collar

Swarovski makes some of the most beautiful jewelry in the world.  For those of us who love to make our own jewelry we are fortunate that Swarovski Crystal Elements are available as individual pieces for us to pick and choose the best shape, size, and color crystal for a project we are working on.  They even have a Create Your Style with Swarovski Elements Color Carousel app for helping you pick the best colors for your project! Check it out here on Facebook and iTunes.  Swarovski sent us 2 beautiful jewelry kits -  one to use on a project and one for a giveaway.  This is the first project made from one of the kits and another project will be posted soon. 

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Project Presentations for Craftsman Tools

The authors on How Did You Make This are avid makers of all sorts of things.  We are both active on Instructables.com (See Technoplastique | Kris's profile, and Antibromide | Carly's profile) and through that site had the opportunity to work with Craftsman to present projects for the Craftsman Youtube channel.  Here are the videos that the Craftsman production team created for our projects.

Kris | Technoplastique - Hidden Treasure Box
  

Carly | Antibromide - Travel Bar

Both authors work on projects outside this blog.  If you want to get to know us better here are a few places to find us:

Kris - 
Technoplastic's Portfolio
Technoplastic's Instrustructables Profile

Carly -
Antibromide's Portfolio and Blog
Antibromide's Instructables Profile

Two-in-One Bag - Make This

Having 2 bags that work together or separate can be incredibly handy for quick changes from day to evening.  When getting ready to go out for the evening or on a quick trip save yourself the time of transferring your wallet, phone, and other small necessities into a small bag when you can simply attach your handbag inside your larger day bag for easy reach and quick exchanges.

If you don't have a lot of sewing experience but still like the idea, you could add a few loops with hooks and rings you pick up at a craft store to a handbag and tote bag you already own!  In this post I will show you how to make both bags from the beginning to end.

This post is graciously sponsored by London Times Fashion.

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Basics of Seed Beads

Seed beads offer endless options for making jewelry, apparel and home accessories, but they can be complicated. We've posted some projects that make use of seed beads and have received a lot of questions about sizing, finishes, shapes, and styles. This should help answer a lot of those questions.

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Update A Sweater With Hand Stitching

A lot of us have basics in our closet that do their jobs, but aren't particularly interesting to wear. When London Times Fashion came to us for ideas about how to enjoy the new year by updating your wardrobe I knew this would be a great fit. It's so easy to dress up boring looks with very little investment!



This post is graciously sponsored by London Times Fashion.

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