DIY lace and ribbon shoelaces

Winter is knocking on our door which means scarves, gloves, coats, hats and most importantly boots! I happened to walk into a shoe store the other day and I found these on sale for $27.

 I wanted to make them a bit more exciting so I thought I would make some lace shoelaces.

You will need ribbon (in the colour of your choice), lace (in the colour of your choice), matching thread and a needle (or sewing machine).  I used 10mm wide ribbon which was perfect for these shoes.

• I cut the ribbon to the length I wanted and cut the lace to 10cm longer than the ribbon.  The lace was cut to 2cm wide.

• Since the holes in the shoe were quite small I decided to thread the ribbon first and then hand sew the lace onto the ribbon, leaving a lace bow.

• I started to sew the lace about 5cm from the base of the lace, leaving enough room to loosen the laces.  I had to figure out the hard way that I needed to leave room at the top.

As you can see, my first attempt was lopsided.

• I did a few folds at the start of the laces to give it more texture and then I continued to sew the lace straight against the ribbon. 

This is the end result. 

Voila! Simple but funky! I also wore these shoes in my photo shoot here.

For my best girl Evelyn

It's hard to imagine that one year ago tonight I was in hospital, being induced to have my baby, and from the unknown I would have the most amazing, fun and clever girl.  I know that time goes quick and you need to savour every moment, but I had no idea how quick that was going to feel until it happened. 

I remember going for the last walk with just me and my partner, knowing that in a day, there was going to be a little person in our life that would always be around and need us to hold her hand.  Although this day was full of love, it was the most frightening day of my life, half because I had to go through induction and half because there was definitely going to be a baby out of it. 

A long night of induced contractions led to my very comfortable baby to become stressed and we had three separate occasions when baby's heart dropped out and the birthing suite was suddenly filled with midwives and doctors.  You can imagine the horror on my partner Trent's face when he saw the room full of strangers telling me to move different directions while they searched my belly for a heartbeat.  Unfortunately he is more scarred with these memories than I am, with my memory loss a direct result of the gas I was sucking in for most of the night.  Eventually I was prepared for a cesarean section in case I needed an emergency cesarean and ironically I slept like a baby for a couple of hours until morning shift change.  Ten minutes after shift change and baby's heart dropped out again.  It was at this point that they said they wanted to do a cesarean section.  I was very frightened about having major surgery as I have never had any before, and when Trent finally met me in the theatre he very kindly made up a story on the spot to distract me, although in the back of my mind I was waiting to hear the cry of our baby.  Trent had gotten into the story he was telling and being the funny and cool person that he is, he was trying to think of an awesome ending to the story... When a doctor said, "would you like to meet your baby?", and for a moment we were confused.  When Trent came over to me with the baby and told me it was a girl, all of a sudden the world was right again and all the events of that night had for the time being, disappeared into the ether.

Fast forward through the most hardest and sleep deprived year of my life, and I have realised that I have also had the most rewarding year of my life.  And I am generally not a sap (at least not in public), but I truly feel that way.  My little Evelyn is more than I could have hoped for and a year on she is no longer a baby any more.  Evelyn is already turning into a little girl!  Almost running around with a little scientist mind of her own, trying to figure out of things work and learning from me every day.  Whenever she learns something new it blows my mind.  I can't wait to see her grow up into a free-thinking human, hopefully being the best person she can be.

So to my baby girl, Happy 1st Birthday!!  This drawing is for you :)

copyright cassandra bynder 2012

Dress-ups In The Forest

Dress-ups In The Forest

I went down south to my home town of Busselton over the weekend and while the grandparents were happy to spend time with the baby, I took advantage of my spare time by spending it creatively. 

(Audrey Rose Photography)

One of my best friends, Mallory, behind Audrey Rose Photography is building up her photography portfolio, so we drove out to the tuart forest to play dress ups and get some shots.  And I must say, as much as I like doing this sort of thing, I still get really shy and self-conscious and almost talked myself out of sharing these photos with you, but here they are :)

(Audrey Rose Photography)

(Audrey Rose Photography)

(Audrey Rose Photography)

(Audrey Rose Photography)

If you like these, check out her page on facebook - www.facebook.com/AudreyRosePhotography 

All photos copyright Audrey Rose Photography

Cass

hello there! hope you have a wonderful day.

Morning world.  It is raining today and Evelyn and I are stuck inside, so while my girl is sleeping I have been going through some photos of projects that I want to share with you all in the future.  While going through my photos I came across one I took last year at my bus stop and it never fails to make me smile.  I hope you all have a great day and see something that makes you smile!

Photo Frame Creation

A couple of years ago I bought a few plain wood photo frames from Ikea.  They were totally boring and needed to be decorated, but I just didn't know what to do with them.  And I have never been the kind of girl to have mountains of photographs of me and my man Trent around the house.  But then I had a baby girl which led to thousands of pics of her, and then a light turned on in my head.  Lots of baby photos... frames just waiting to be decorated... HUZZAH!  I can finally use the ugly frames and do some painting at the same time!  I have a few pics of the nearly finished project, but I am not certain if I am going to add anything else to them yet.

I found some small letters at Spotlight and decided to join the frames together with her name.  I wanted to do something pretty but not too babyish.  Using acrylic paints I chose to go with three different background colours, then I painted on a pattern over the top.  I dry brushed some metallic paints over the top of that just to try and make the pattern sit more in the background.  Then I went with a flower detail on the edges of the frames.  The whole structure is not quite strong enough so the frames will have to be reinforced in some way, maybe with some balsa wood or something.
.

This is the flower detail up close.

 

I feel like something is missing, maybe a 3D flower somewhere - I'd love to hear your thoughts :)

Future Projects

There are quite a few unfinished projects floating around my house at the moment, some for my baby girl Evelyn, some for me (sometimes I just can't stop myself).  There are also some I am itching to start and following are the culprits causing my multi-project predicament.






Scrabble magnet board - My plan is to do a magnet board for Evelyn that I could have in the living room based on this design.

 

Via The Twice Remembered Cottage

Chalkboard Paint - I am going to use this tutorial to make coloured chalkboard paint for future projects.

  

Via The Idea Room 

Sorry, having trouble posting, I will finish this post later.