Knock Off | So You Think You're Crafty

Posts Tagged ‘ Knock Off ’

10 Apr

Vintage Jar Lighting {tutorial}

Posted under Tutorials
By Missy

Tutorial by Heidi @ greendoodle for her win of the Knock-off challenge of season 16

Wow! Thanks for the votes. This project has elements of super frustration (cutting glass and photographing glass) and really easy rewarding elements (like coloring the glass). If you can get past the bottle cutting phase you are sure to have a really cool D.I.Y. light fixture.

Supplies:

bottle cutter

large bottle/jar (can be purchased here)

food coloring

colored nail polish

Modge Podge

small paint brush

automotive chrome tape

medium base porcelain socket (hardware store)

desired length lamp cord

chrome spray paint (optional)

Step One: Cut

Research bottle cutting on YouTube. Then research some more. This is by far the hardest step. I am super cheap frugal, so I only bought a glass cutter and my husband rigged up a bottle cutting device. His tool worked like a champ, but it is still very tricky to get a perfect cut.

Score the glass then slowly pour HOT water over the cut. Pour cold tap water, then HOT water again. The bottom of your bottle should fall off at this point. (Again, YouTube is your resource for this step).

Throw away the junked bottles and get ready to paint any that are to your satisfaction. (I cut three bottles with one perfect success, and one that had a large crack. When painted however, the large crack was undetectable).

Step Two: Color

Mix 3T hot water, 1/2 c Modge Podge and desired food coloring. I used 20 drops of blue and 10 drops of green. Your finished product will dry much lighter. Add colored nail polish if desired. This creates a seed glass look, however clear nail polish will be your enemy. Also, color all of your glass from the same batch. It is really tricky to recreate the exact color. Trust me.

Pour a small amount of glue mixture and slowly swirl. I found this part of the project to be really fun. Keep turning the bottle until all the glass has been covered.

Set right side up on paper to drip dry for 5-10 minutes. Paint any handles with mixture. Place in a warm, dirty oven (170 degrees) for about 30 minutes.

Step Three: Chrome it up

I was unhappy with my first attempt to trim the light with chrome. I used a chrome tape from the auto parts store, the price was great ($4) but ended up bubbling and lifting. My second try was more successful. I still used an auto chrome tape – but this time bought the more expensive product ($20). I used custom chrome flexible interior exterior molding and lays beautifully. I used 3/4″ but would have preferred 1/2″. This tape is firm and covers any imperfections in your cut.

Also, I spray painted the lid chrome (but don’t love it). The original pendant reminded me of an oil dispenser so I grabbed one from the dollar store. The look is similar, but unnecessary.

Step Four: Electrical

This step varies for each bottle. I experimented with a pendant kit ($15 Home Depot), but found the fixtures to be too big for this bottle. I ended up using lamp cord and a porcelain keyless light socket. This part was not hard, but will you will need to customize the electrical for each bottle. Best of Luck!

1 comment

05 Apr

Knock-Off Results

Posted under SYTYC
By Missy

Well, I hope you all have a great weekend planned! My two best friends from growing up are flying in to visit (and one is now my sis-in-law and is bringing my 3 month old nephew for me to meet!) and I’m so excited! But before we can get on with all our fun plans, I know you’ve been dying for the results of the Knock Off challenge this week hopefully

And the crafter/project match up:

#1 – Bel-Air Bedding Knock Off - Veronica @ Adventures of D & V

#2 – Pandora Knock-Off - Amber C @ The Craft Project

#3 – Stacking Wood Trays - Jess @ Spool & Spoon

#4 -Vintage Jar Lighting - Heidi @ Green Doodle

#5 -Anthropologie Caridad Ruffled Dress Knock-Off - Malory @ Snips & Spice

#6 -Knot a Pillow - Rebecca @ Beauty All Around

#7 – Mizone Florentine Bedding Knock Off - Lacy @ Lavender & Lace

#8 – Banana Republic Knock-Off Skirt - Amber R. @ Craft Me Perfect
#9 - PB Teen Ruched Bedding Knock-off - Charlie @ Attempting Aloha

That makes Heidi @ Green Doodle our winner again! Congrats! This lamp would look perfect right over my kitchen counter

I’m excited to see how she pulled this one together. Be sure to check back next week next week for the tutorial.

But I’m really, really sad to have to say goodbye to Rebecca from There is Beauty All Around.

Be sure to keep up with her on her blog. I know I will (I’m totally fascinated with the fact that she lives in the Galapagos Islands!). She has some really cool stuff over there (she sketched a self portrait everyday for a month, and I’m still loving (and want) her SYTYC audition piece) and I’m sure there’s more in the works

Thanks for all your hard work Rebecca!

2 comments

29 Jan

Anthro Jacket Tutorial

Posted under SYTYC
By Missy

Tutorial by Catherine @ CathGrace from her win of the Knock-Off challenge of season 14

Oh my gosh you guys! I am so excited to have won for my Anthro Knock Off! I really love how my jacket turned out, and have worn it a lot since I finished it, and I am so pleased that everyone else liked it too!

This jacket was made entirely from my stash, I have actually been carrying the blue cotton velvet around for YEARS, and was so pleased to find such a good use for it! I drafted the pattern myself, but if you wanted to make one, I am sure you could adjust a shirt pattern to overlap a little in the front, and have the right neckline. I serged around all of my pieces with a 1/4 inch wide stitch, and then sewed the shoulder seams together.

The next step was to fold the serged edge in, and use it’s width to gauge the depth of my blanket stitch, I used a brown worsted weight 100% wool yarn to do a double blanket stitch around the edge of everything.

the double blanket stitch (I have no idea if this is what it really is called, I just keep calling it that) is where you use the same hole in your fabric twice rather than moving on to a new section for every stitch. (not sure if that makes sense, but I think you can see what I did in the pictures.) I just used a large darning needle for the stitching.

Next I dyed some cream worsted weight wool in green, and yellow (the only two colors I didn’t have in my stash.)

for a grand total of red, brown, yellow, green, light blue, and dark blue.

for the sleeves, I started by single crocheting through my blanket stitch in red, with 2 rows around the sleeves. I used a size 6 crochet hook for this, simply picking up stitches that fit the fabric, without packing in too many, or so few that it pulled too tightly.

That was all the crocheting that the sleeves took before I finished them off by hand stitching brown micro-fleece to the inside, using a very small blanket stitch.

I then used blue yarn to whip stitch the sleeves into sleeve tubes.

for the body, I began by going all the way around with a single crochet row of brown, then red, and then I focused only on the collar, by single crocheting green, dark blue, light blue, yellow, 2 rows of lt blue, dk blue, green, red, dk blue, 2 lt blue, yellow, brown, and then red (this is the same order as the original jacket) then back to going all the way around the jacket again, came green dk blue, lt blue, and then yellow for the final row.

at this point I had a bit of a panic, as the colors were too bright, so I actually stick everything into a pot of pale purple acid dye (it was scary after all that work) the red became a nice maroon, the green was slightly saddened, the dark blue and light blue became a little warmer, and the yellow was made to be a little browner (since purple is the complimentary color to yellow, it makes it brown when added.) Because the dye was an acid dye, it didn’t affect the cotton fabric, because it only clings to protein fibers. (a lot of the pictures are after being dyed, so for the pre-over-dyed colors you could look at the yarn picture to see the brightness of the red, etc.)

next I hand stitched the brown fleece lining (again using a blanket stitch.) I didn’t take off any of the 1/4 inch seam allowance, so some of the fleece goes onto the crocheting.

The crocheting is completely overlapped and hand stitched on the sides, and sewn 4″ down the side.

The sleeves were then whip stitched on in the pale blue wool (I dyed some extra lengths of yarn in the purple the same time as the jacket, so that I had some for the tassels and the stitching.)

here’s what the tiny blanket stitch looks like in the fleece.

on the inside of the jacket, I used 3 small antique mother of pearl buttons, one for a hand stitched loop that holds the cross on the inside, and the other two prevent the ties from ripping through the body.

the button loop was made from thread, that was blanket stitched around, it’s a traditional way for making a good quality loop in clothing.

this picture shows the open sides pretty well,

The ties are made through chaining the light blue wool, and then adding simple tassels to the end, 2 of the ties are sewn through the fabric with the buttons over the top for stability, and 2 are sewn down to the crocheted edge.

and you can see the knitted cuff here, I simply used 4 size 5 double pointed sock needles to knit a cuff in the round (2 rows of green, 5 of dark blue, 3 of light blue and 10 of yellow.) in a pearl, knit rib. the blue whip-stitching shows pretty well too!

the shawl collar lies fairly well against the neck because I shaped it by feel as I went, around the back of the neck, I would skip a chain every now and then to pull it in, I am afraid I pulled out a row every now and then to get the shape right, but it was entirely by feel so there wasn’t a plan per say.

The cuff knitting was just picked up by the loops in the crocheting and knitted in the round.

I hope that all of this makes sense! this entire jacket was made with blanket stitches, whip stitches, single crochets, and plain/pearl knitting – not anything a beginner couldn’t work their way through.

I’d like to thank my husband for taking most of my pictures, it’s not his thing, but he was really great (and my best cheerleader!) The fleece lining has been perfect for our freezing winter here in Korea! and I just love the easy fit!

Thank you SOOOOOO much for the votes, and I am so excited for the rest of the competition! (If you end up making your own version of this jacket, I would love it if you would come over to cathgrace and share it with me)