Making a miniature tutu skirt

I wanted to share the process of making Odile's tutu skirt, which I made from scratch. The best thing about this technique is that you can actually apply it to real people and not only dolls! I have a lot of tulle at home, and am planning to make a full size tutu for little moi in the near future.

I made the skirt from beautiful golden tulle I got from a friend, using a non-stitch technique I picked up on YouTube. It's actually very easy to follow, just requires some patience. It was quite a tedious task, and took almost two hours (while watching TV, I admit). Here is the tutorial, easy as pie!

So, I cut several dozens of thin strips of tulle and tied them to a satin ribbon, in matching gold color, which I later used to secure the skirt to Odile's waist.

Tying thin strands of tulle to a satin ribbon

The tying is complete, fitting Odile's waist

Placing the skirt over the satin bodice

That was the base of my work. After that came embellishments, jewelry, hair and makeup and tiny golden shoes I ordered especially et voila - the little ballerina was ready!

I am very grateful I found this simple tutorial, and am actually eager to make some more little ballerinas. My friend also gave me red and white tulle, which are waiting to be made into something beautiful.

Last but not least, I almost forgot! I got a flattering review of on custom made Flutterbride and Fluttergroom on Urban Brides Magazine. Here is a little excerpt for you guys (in Hebrew).

 

Have a nice week everybody! And please comment, I love reading what you guys think.

Etsy on Sale - Application tutorial

Etsy on Sale is a wonderfully useful third party application which enables you to have a limited time sale on your Etsy shop in a few short steps. It is free for use, is the winner of the 2010 Etsy handmade code competition, and requires a login based on your Google account. Nice and simple!

Here is how to start a sale on your Etsy shop:

1. Go to Etsy on Sale and click on Sellers.
2. Login with your Google account.
3. Click Settings and select your time zone. Now click Authorize access to your Etsy account. The application will then take you to the Etsy login page, where you should login to the account whose shop items you wish to discount. Click on the Allow Access button.
4. Back on the application website, click on the banner of the shop you want to select.
   
5. Click on Sales Events and select New Sales Event.
6. Give the sale a meaningful Name then select which Listings to include, from the available sections drop down menu. You can select a specific section or the entire shop.
   
   You can create a section especially for this sale if you want, then select it here.
   
7. Select the Start Date and End Date for the sales event as well as the start and end Time.
8. You may either select a Percentage Discount Type (which means you will have to enter the percentage by which the items' price will be reduced) or Amount (which means you will have to enter fixed the amount of $ that will be reduced from the price of each item on sale).
9. Enter a Listing Title Prefix - the text that will be added to the title of each of the items on your sale. You may, for example, enter the text ON SALE to the beginning of each of the sale items (the item called "Teddy bear" will be called "ON SALE Teddy bear" till the end of the sale). This prefix will be removed once the sales event ends.
10. Click on the Schedule Sales Event and review the details of your event. Click the Go Back button to change the setting or check the I have read and agree to the terms above box and click on Confirm.
11. That's it! Your sales event is set.

You can review its details by logging in to Etsy on Sale, selecting your shop and clicking on Sales Events. All scheduled events will be listed. You may start your sale immediately, by clicking the ► button or cancel it by clicking X.

If you want to add more events, click on + New Sales Event. Et voila.

Honestly, it will take you longer to read this than actually create a sales event, it sure took me longer to write this little tutorial. I wish you all lots of glorious sales!

How to add a Facebook like button to your Blogger entries

Like many others, I recently finally gave up and started using Facebook. I really don't like it, but one has got to follow the trends I guess. Once the did was done, I had to add a Like button to my blogs so readers can share them with their Facebook buddies. There are many explanations for this on the web, so I figured, why not add another simple one. So here goes.

In order to add a Facebook Like button to your Blogger posts:

1. Go to your Blogger Design tab and click on Edit HTML.
2. Check the Expand Widget Templates box.
3. Find the <div class="post-header-line-1"> string and add the following code right after it.
   
   <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'&gt
   <iframe allowTransparency='true' expr:src='"http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=" + data:post.url + "&layout=standard&show_faces=false&width=100&action=like&font=arial&colorscheme=light"' frameborder='0' scrolling='no' style='border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:40px;'/&gt
   </b:if>
   
   
4. Click Save Template and you're done.

This is how it looks like

There are several customization possible, instructions to which you can Google. This is just the super basic option. Enjoy and do click the Like button on the top of this post