Spring-Summer Collection!

We are so excited to be preparing for our Spring-Summer Line and Photoshoot!! Catch a glimpse of a few of my photography that will be featured on our new Collection: 'Mala'

Wishing you all a Happy Easter Long Weekend!!

Freebie Fridays!

Well it's been busy here at Chobhi! We are so excited by the response so far, and all the media coverage! There will be some more in the coming weeks so keep checking back for updates. Our daytime jobs have been keeping us busy too, sorry for the lack of posting, but we hope to make up for it a bit with today's Freebie Friday! We love designing these free printables to share with everyone!

Valentines Day is coming up next week so we designed this simple cheerful card that can be printed on letter sized paper. Cardstock would be the best, but regular paper will do in a pinch! Just fold in the middle and you are done.

I'm not a big fan of pink, and I think Valentine's day should not only be for couples but for friends too! So I made sure this card was colourful and could be used for anyone! Celebrate the someone in your life who loves your weirdness!

Download Here

Back to crafting!

So for the first time in months I had time to make some jewellery. It's been so long, and I could feel the itch to make something with my own hands. I also decided this blog was due for another tutorial.

    (Click to enlarge)

1. Jewelery Findings: Large loop chain so the necklace has an adjustable length, 6 jump rings, 2 crimp beads, 2 decorative links, and 1 lobster clasp.
2. Chunky flat beads, I got these from a broken necklace.
3. Basic jewellery pliers, and a wire cutter
4. Chain (two pieces of equal length)
5. Beading wire

So I got all my supplies at my local Michaels, except for the beads. I really liked the water colour effect of the beads, and wanted to highlight them by grouping them together. You will require some basic jewellery skills and tools. For some great visual lessons go here to My Girlish Whims Jewellery Lessons.

The steps are pretty easy:

• String the beads onto the beading wire, loop and crimp both ends, similar to this technique:
  How to use Crimp Beads
   
• Use jump rings to link the beading wire to the decorative links and then link them to the chains using this technique:
  How to use Jump Rings
   
• Optional: Add large loop chain with jump ring, to make necklace adjustable
   
• Add lobster clasp to other end of chain with jump ring, and then you are all done!

Hope you enjoy this! If you want tutorials on any specific techniques, let me know and I'll be happy to do a posting!


 

Crafty Tuesdays

Starting a new job, leaves me with less time to craft, which is precisely why I love jewellery making so much! I recently made this necklace as a gift, and it was easily made while watching t.v. one evening. Again I used beads, and a pendant donated to me by friends. I have never made anything with this colour combination before, but it suited the antique gold pendant.

Link Roundup!

I've started sharing some free printables, but these are some of the great sites are where I get my inspiration.

                 | 1 designeditor.typepad.com  | 2 melissaesplin.com | 3 www.creaturecomfortsblog.com | 4 makingitlovely.com |
         | 5 www.eatdrinkchic.com | 6 ohthelovelythings.blogspot.ca | 7 justsomethingimade.com | 8 www.ishareprintables.com |

Hope you get creative with some of these printables, all free! I love free fun!

Crafty Tuesdays

Today's craft was another fun item I made for my friends daughter, a rainbow piñata!
I would have never attempted this if it wasn't for the wonderful blot Oh Happy Day.
If you need simple party ideas, great printables, or dream of living in Paris like me, you will love this blog!

Her amazing tutorial on how to make a piñata can be found here:
http://ohhappyday.com/2011/08/how-to-make-a-number-pinata/

The only thing I can add to this tutorial is that, if you don't have easy access to crepe paper sheets I was able to use regular crepe streamers folded in half lengthwise, which worked fine. There is crepe paper sheets at my local Dollarama, but not in all the colours I needed. Also I highly recommend doing this in front of the tv, all the steps are easy, it just takes awhile.

Here are my results, a bit "shabby chic"...lol...but it did the job:

Freebie Fridays!

A recent surprise note that came in the mail reminded me how nice it is to get snail mail.
I designed this so you can easily send a thank you note by mail. I like the idea of the outside being plain white, while the inside is colourful and cheerful! Use glue or double-sided tape to seal the edges. Make someone smile, and tell them how much you appreciate them!

Download Here

Crafty Tuesdays

Every week, I am going to feature some fun easy, crafts, either that I have made, or found online.

Today I am going to feature a rainbow headband that I made for my friends daughters rainbow themed 5th birthday party. I made quite a few different items for this birthday which I will feature in the coming weeks.

Supplies:

• dollar store satin headbands (comes in pack of two)
• dollar store rainbow silk flower lei, like the image below

• hot glue/thread and needle

I didn't take pictures of the entire process, as I kind of winged it, but it was quite easy.

1. Cut leia and take out one flower of each colour, tie leia back up (I wanted to keep the leia for a   photobooth)
2. Take one layer of each flower and fold in half twice
3. Sew all the quarters together, matching the bottom corner, which creates a rainbow pompom
4. Glue or hand sew the pompom to the headband (I already had a needle threaded so opted to sew)

This was the result:

I mixed up my rainbow order, but no one seemed to notice. This idea can be done in many different ways. You can take any silk flower, feathers or gems, glue it to a headband to make it your own. If you decide to make one, please send me a picture, I'd love to see it!

Link Roundup!

So I have a knack for finding great websites. I often e-mail friends with long lists of links pertaining to whatever they need help with at the time. Whether it be examples for a living room design, or how to decorate for a birthday party, I can find what they had difficulty finding. So I thought it would be great to share all these lovely links here, so I can send them here from now on. So every week I will pick a topic and list my favourites links.
I wanted to start with awesome craft blogs. These are the places I go when I want some inspiration. They always have great instructions, and modern looking crafts. Hope you find some inspiration as well!

I go to this blog everyday. She shares paper crafts, origami, cute sewing projects, and free printables, all with a modern slightly retro aesthetic.

She does it all, whether it is items for your home or crafts for teenage girls at summer camp, this is the first blog I found with crafts explained in such a way that they seemed easy.

This is the craft blog for the fashionista, or in my case the wannabe fashionista. Every craft is based on a current trend, and broken down into materials needed, and the steps needed to make a project based on the trend, all in a cute graphic! This blogger is currently a judge on the new show Craft Wars, on TLC.

This site is a great collection of craft tutorials from around the web all made with material bought from dollar stores! I am cheap, and I love Dollarama, so I am always checking this site for ideas.

This is another collection of craft tutorials from around the web. They cover everything from knitting, painting, papercrafts, sewing, you name it they have an example. They find the best every day.

This is like a large Pinterest board of crafts. It is quite similar to Craft Gossip, except that it is more visual, and using their handy navigation tools you can specify what category of crafts you are interested in seeing. I find that most of the crafts are more modern as well.

The Beauty of Recycling

About 2 years ago I went to a jewellery making class at the local bead store in Ottawa, Sassy Beads. It was a great class where I learned basic wire work techniques, and beading techniques. It turned out to be the perfect hobby for me, because projects could often be completed in one night. As a teenager I had tried to learn embroidery and knitting, but ended up with many half finished items.

Soon I realized that my new hobby was a bit expensive. So I started asking friends if they had any broken jewellery, or items they didn't use so I could transform them. I got so many items, that I still haven't been through them all. If a piece had sentimental value, I would return it to them transformed.

Below are a few examples of what I have made by recycling jewellery.

These are two earrings, which were both missing their matching pair.

So I turned them into this necklace:

I highly recommend trying jewellery making, it's great to be able to fix jewellery as well as make it, and it can easily be done while watching t.v.