Looking for feedback!

Hello everyone!

Sorry we've been a bit quiet on the blog front again, holidays and little people's birthdays have got in the way and we've been neglecting this part of the web but hopefully you've still been following our posts on Instagram and Facebook!

We have recently been thinking up some new products and our latest have been crochet stitch markers, but with a twist...
We've made a set of 5 stitch markers in pretty complementing colours that can also be worn on a necklace/brooch/keyring. You can buy these from our Etsy shop here:

Anyway..as mentioned at the top of the post. We want to hear from fellow crafty bloggers what you think of these beauties!

So, if you would like to review a stitch marker set for us, please e-mail us at twobirdscraft@gmail.com or comment below and we'll get in touch!

Please note this is for bloggers in the UK only!

Tutorial Tuesday: Jewellery for beginners - Earrings

When we first got into jewellery making the web wasn't as full as it is now with helpful resources for craft lovers, and we ended up buying a rather expensive kit with a DVD.

The kit was very informative and was a great starter set, but now everyone has to watch their pennies a bit more, it would be far too much of a luxury.

So, here at Two Bird's Craft we thought we'd start making our own jewellery tutorials!

We will start you at the very beginning for those of you with no previous experience.

Today's jewellery tutorial is for a pair of simple earrings, at the bottom of the page we will list some links for you to find some supplies if you need them.

Earrings are one of the first things we made and are definitely the easiest and quickest item of jewellery to make, so let's start:

To make the earrings you will need:

Two headpins in the metal of your choice

Two earring hooks.

Beads or charms to make your earrings pretty!

Pliers - round and flat nosed and

Wire cutters.

Pliers and wire cutters are essential kit!

Thread your bead selection

Step 1:  Thread your beads onto your headpin

Cut the headpin leaving 1cm space

Step 2:  With your wire cutters, cut the headpin one 1cm away from your top bead

Step3:  Next, get your round nosed pliers and grab the headpin a mm or two above your top bead and bend the wire 90 degrees.

Use the round nosed pliers

Bend 90 Degrees at top of beads

Step 4:  Still using your round nosed pliers, use the fattest bit of the plier you can whilst stilling getting a grip on the wire and from the top twist the wire into a loop.

Make a loop

Step 5:  Now, get your earring hook and your flat and round nosed pliers.

Hold the small hook on your earring hook with your flat pliers and then open it with the round nosed ones. Then hook your headpin by the loop you created onto your earring hook. Now you just need to close the hook the same way you opened it and...voila, an earring!

Connect to your earring hook

Now you need to do that all again to make a pair!

You can you any amount of beads and charms as you like, but we recommend putting a small bead or a sead bead at the bottom of your headpin (especially if they are flat bottomed ones), so that any big beads don't fall straight off! If you're feeling adventurous, you might even want to hook a few headpins full of beads onto your earring hooks! 

We've been experimenting with mixing crochet and jewellery making together, here's one of our teeny crochet flowers looped onto the earring hook - what do you think?

Here's one we made earlier!

We hope everything in the above tutorial makes sense and you all enjoy making your earrings! If you need any help or think any pictures/instructions need improving then please get in touch!

As promised, here are some suggested websites for supplies:

Pur-ple

EP Beads

Perfect Beads

Good sellers on eBay:

0kittypink0

BeadAddicts

Tutorial Tuesday: Crochet Flowers and more!

One of the first books we bought when learning to crochet was Cute and Easy Crochet by Nicki Trench.

The book is wonderfully laid out and easy to read and understand. The crochet terms, hook sizes and wool names are all UK terminology.

We have both made several things from the book but one of our favourites has been the crochet flowers.

These are easy to make and really add an extra something to whatever you're making. - We have used them for adornments to things like purses and gadget cases, and even made a pretty flower garland!

Here's the pattern to make these lovely little flowers, it's really quick and we've found you can use whatever wool and hook size you like - it will just mean you make different size flower!!

• Using your first colour for the inner of the flower, chain 6 then join with a slip stitch in the first chain to make a circle.
• Make 16 double crochet into the circle. Join with a slip stitch and fasten off.
• Join second colour for outer part of flower into fastened off stitch.
• *Chain 3, make 1 treble into next two stitches, chain 3, slip stitch into next stitch, repeat from * 4 more times  - this makes 5 petals.
• Pull tail to close up centre hole and sew in ends.

See, easy peasy! 

One of our favourite crochet bloggers, Lucy from Attic 24, has also written a post about a pattern in this book, you can read about that here - she, like us, can't sing this book's praises highly enough.

To end the post, here's a picture of one of our creations from the book which was easy but also very satisfying to make - a lovely crochet purse with the pretty flowers we mentioned already. 

Happy hooking!

TBC xxx

Make and Tell Monday

What we have been making this week...

Hello everyone, 

Hopefully you all had a great weekend and are fully charged ready for the new week ahead. If you need just one more hit of something pretty to stand you in good stead, take a look at the two birds creations of the last week.

In the experimental stages we are looking at little stuffed hearts. The self striping colours on this worked really well we think! We will be looking at ways to use these and other colour combinations and finishes this week.

 

Also in the works are Jubilee coaster sets! We started out with solid colours to test the pattern and then stumbled across this amazing striped jubilee wool! Please comment and let us know if  you think we should have a set of four striped coasters, or a set with one of each solid colour and a fourth striped one. We can't decide… Perhaps we will try both!

Something we were trying out a few weeks back was the tiny crocheted owls. We now have a complete rainbow of the little creatures all ready to adorn your keys! Each owl is made with 100% cotton and decorated with a patterned cotton tummy and cute, button eyes! They all turn out just a little differently and have developed unique personalities!

Our little rainbow owls are available for purchase in our Etsy shop right now so take a look! If you would like a particular colour which has sold out please email us direct and we would be happy to commission another for you.

We have lots more ideas queued up but if you have anything you would like us to have a try at making for you please email your suggestions.

Lots of love,

TBC x

We want to hear from YOU!

We love telling you all about the things we've been making, but we'd also love to hear what you've been up to.

We'd be happy to help feature and promote any fellow crafter's websites/Etsy shops via our blog and Twitter.


Whether you've got a long term labour of love, like our crochet blanket, or you've just worked out a new pattern for something - get in touch!


e-mail: twobirdscraft@gmail.com
twitter: www.twitter.com/twobirdscraft
facebook: www.facebook.com/twobirdscraft


Have a great weekend everyone, we'll see you back here on Monday!

What we're up to this weekend...

What a week it has been!

We've only been up and running since last Saturday but we have been amazed at the amount of followers and page views we've acquired so far!

Thank you so much to everyone who's taken time to read our posts and tweets, we hope you've enjoyed them.

We are loving our new blog and being a new part of the crafting community. We have met some lovely people online already and hope to meet many more.

This weekend the two birds are getting together for a good old shop for some more supplies in the morning, then we will be having a brainstorming session over lunch, followed by some crafting in the afternoon.

Top on our making list this weekend are:

- Animal Keyrings
- Pretty Hairclips and..
- Buttony Bracelets


Please check back with us from tuesday for some information on our new creations! No doubt we'll be posting pictures of our progress on Instagram as we go.

Have a brilliantly long Bank Holiday weekend everyone!

Love
TBC xxx

Rave Reviewers

Are you hatching a new product, pattern or idea? If you have anything craft related which you would like field tested or reviewed by real people, we would be happy to have a go and let you and our followers know what we think. We would give a fair and unbiased review and promise we won't peck it to pieces!

Our specific areas of expertise are Crochet, Knitting, Jewellery Making, Felting and Beading, but we are constantly expanding on that range so if you have any books, kits or products which are targeted at beginners in a particular craft then we would love to have a go!

Get The TBC Rating!

Contact the birds by email, twitter (@twobirdscraft) or comment on this post to talk about your ideas and see if we can help.

Two Birds Craft

Welcome to the online home, or the nest if you will, of Two Birds Craft.

We are Anna and Jennie, two birds originally from Preston and Reading, who are now residing in lovely Devon.

In the past year we have both caught the crafting bug and decided it was about time to show off our crafty skills to the world! Our hobbies range from crochet, knitting, jewellery making and gardening. We hope to be able to include all of these on the blog!

Our blog will contain tutorials and pictures of things we’ve been making, reviews of things we’ve been using and links to other crafty sites we’re enjoying at the moment.

We’re also opening an Etsy shop soon where you will be able to buy our handmade creations including home accessories, jewellery, baby items and any other treasures we feel like making!

If you like the look of what we do but would prefer a different colour, a bigger bead/button, or the addition of customised hand stitching then please let us know and we will try and cater to your needs.

We are also on Twitter and Instagram. Our username for this is: twobirdscraft or you can e-mail us at twobirdscraft@gmail.com

Please keep checking back on our blog as we will be updating it regularly with what we’ve been up to.

Thanks for visiting,

Anna and Jennie