Jan 6, 2011 | DIY
Yesterday I mentioned it as a more realistic alternative project to the New York Times‘ labor-intensive 3-hour DIY (!), so today I’m going to show you how to make it. It’s DIY in 5 – minutes, that is. The easiest, quickest ways to take a piece from blah to fab and update it to current trends.
Wherever I go I’m always on the lookout for clothing, accessory, or jewelry components that can be used in quick ‘n’ simple DIYs. That’s why
these silver cuffs I spotted in the jewelry-making section at Jo-Ann Fabrics, from the brand-new
Dazzling Geodes line of findings (from Plaid Enterprises) caught my eye. (Technically they’re supposed to be used as a base for adding geode slices and embellishments.) And incidentally, like most of the fashion- and culinary-obsessed, I am a frequent visitor to Luxirare.com. and the Dazzling Geodes cuffs reminded me a lot of
the arm-cuffs she sells in her web-store.
A Luxirare Cuff.
$95 for one of these cuffs is pretty reasonable considering she designed these and has these custom-cast with embossed LUXIRARE logo, and they look pretty hefty and durable…but if you’re in the market for something similar you can use 2 of these affordable findings to make your own version.
You Need:
*2 silver cuffs from the Dazzling Geodes line (available at Jo-Ann Fabrics & Crafts stores)
*silver-colored dead-soft jewelry wire
*wire cutters/pliers
How-To:
1. Cut 2 short pieces of wire.
If your wire is kinked at all, close the pliers on it and drag in order to straighten it.
2. Line the cuffs up side-by-side and wrap a wire piece around the outer edges where the two cuffs meet.
3. Weave the wire around the edges (I made a “V” shape as I wrapped), trim the ends down, and use the pliers to push the sharp ends back out towards the outside of the cuff so they won’t scratch you.
3. Cut a longer piece of wire and secure the center of where the cuffs meet. Twist the ends around each other on the inside, pull ends towards the outside and trim appropriately.
You’re done! And it may have taken you all of 10 minutes.;-)
Wear with minimalist clothing, sharp contrasts, and architectural details…and stay cool, calm, and cagey with this on your wrist.
Happy DIY’ing!
xoxox
Carly
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Jan 5, 2011 | Media
all photos by Kava Gorna, NYTimes.com
Or at least the blame shall fall to Chelsea Zalopany, who wrote the Dec. 30 article “Feathered Friends / D.I.Y. Headbands.”
Oh, New York Times. I appreciate your efforts to make DIY more accessible to everyone, I truly do. But you’re approaching it wrong.
To make DIY appeal to a large audience, you need to showcase something that’s easy and that anyone can do (at least to start off with; though you can totally go off on a tangent into cray-cray complicated projects once you’ve whet the appetite).
The opening paragraph is almost a contradiction in terms. How many of you spend the time between Christmas and New Year’s “just sitting around?” Me, I spend it with family, running to New Year’s get-togethers, send out thank-you cards for Christmas presents, exchanging gifts that were the wrong size or broken when I opened the box, cleaning out my email inbox, taking down the decorations, throwing out all the extra Christmas cookies…and that’s just for starters. But even in the spare time I do have…if I’m considering a DIY project, well…
It takes Behr three hours to create each spring 2011 twig headpiece, and she’s broken it down into four easy steps. Now that’s time well spent.
Now there’s one sentence guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of anyone even dabbling in DIY…and enough to send me back to my Christmas cookies.
Why spend 3 hours on a single hand-dyed, hand-shaped, hand-wrapped feather headpiece? (Unless you enjoy the process that much.) I’d rather use those 3 hours to make:
*2 Polka-Dot Shoe-Clips
*1 Magazine Clutch
*1 Cage Cuff
*2 Scroll Earrings
*and a Woven Ribbon Bow Tunic
Kind of like the 12 Days of Christmas. You can even set it to music (start with the tune from the “5 Golden rings” part), if you like.;-) [And all these quick-and-easy projects are coming up here on Chic Steals…stay tuned!]
And all that will probably only take an hour and a half, so you can also make a feathered headband using my tutorial here, just for good measure.:-) [Use a “hat pad” instead of hand-gluing all the feathers like I did; there’s some great choices here.)
So leave the involved, 4-step process using unbleached coq feathers, setting with vinegar, drying with a hair-dryer, steaming over a kitchen teakettle, hand-stripping, and hand-wrapping painstakingly in wire…to the experts. That’s what you pay $148 for. (But if you ever wanted to attempt it, now you know how the designer actually does it.)
The NYTimes also needs to interview someone who actually understands how to translate a hand-crafted, couture piece into something satisfyingly simple (and cheap!) to replicate. (Probably not the original designer of the piece, unless they can design for the budget market. It’s a different skill-set to address the questions of “how can we imitate the luxe look and where can we cut corners? How can someone make this at home easily, with readily-available materials?” These aren’t usually questions up-market designers are asking themselves as they design, which makes someone like this probably not the best source when it comes to a post-holiday DIY.)
And for the love of Mike, have someone modeling the finished product. A designer (and writer!) should know that the hesitant reader (and DIY’er looking for her next project to tempt her away from those cookies) can be swayed by a well-executed $$$money shot.
What do you guys think? Are you DYING to try this 3-hour DIY? Or does it negate the meaning of D.I.Y….a veritable contradiction-in-terms, if you will?
xoxox
Carly
P.S. Thank you all for your kind words and well-wishes to my mother during this difficult time for her and our family. Regularly-scheduled blog content will return tomorrow. Thank you.
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Jan 3, 2011 | Life
A bit of a depressing post; you’ve been forewarned…
Do any of you know someone who is a perfectly good person but who just seems to attract bad luck? I do.
She’s a well-meaning, kind-hearted woman who could never be cruel, vindictive, or deceptive towards anyone, yet tragedy always seems to befall her. Whenever something seems to go well for her, life steps in and gives her a good kick, as if to say “And you thought you were going to be happy.” It’s some cruel joke, some sort of effort the Forces that Be constantly make in order to cut down someone who really did nothing except maybe be a little naive and believe that this thing called Life was finally working out for her.
This woman has had so many tragedies in her life it seems that if one were to write them into a script, it would instantly be rejected by Hollywood, with everyone saying “This is so unbelievable!! You can’t have this many things go wrong in a person’s life! It’s impossible.” But it indeed is very possible.
That person is my mother. Someone very near and dear to her just died today, after a sudden diagnosis of cancer and 6 weeks in and out of the hospital.
Needless to say I am not feeling particularly able to blog much right now.
xoxox
Carly
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1. Cut 2 short pieces of wire.
2. Line the cuffs up side-by-side and wrap a wire piece around the outer edges where the two cuffs meet.
Happy DIY’ing!
