Heart with beads

I have a lot of beads as I used to make jewellery.  

But they don’t do any good in a box, don't you agree?  

I have spent some time thinking what to do whit all of them, the small once I use to decorate clothes when mending. It's the bigger once I didn’t know how to use. 

I needed a birthday gift for a friend and I didn’t know what to give.  

But then I remembered I had some wire clothes hangers and thought they make good hearts.  

I found some metal wire that was not to thick and started. 

I made 2 large hearts  

Then I thought I would like smaller hearts too. 

And found a thicker wire and made hearts out of it.  

So far, I have made 4 smaller hearts. 

I’m putting them up in my Shop if you like to buy one  

I don’t have a real shop, so you still need to email me or dm me on Instagram   

Prices include free worldwide shipping.  

If you want to try make your own heart, I have made a little tutorial. 

You need thick wire or wire clothes hanger  

Thinner wire, you don’t need any fancy expensive one. I got mine at the florist. (we don’t have any craft stores here )  

Pliers for cutting and bending. I used my jewellery pliers, but you can use regular once. 

Beads with a large enough hole for the wire you don’t need fancy beads. A old necklace or two can be cut and you will have a lot to play with.  

The bigger hearts need a lot of beads. 

Start with shaping your thick wire to a heart.  try to find the middle and make a v shape  

I used my nose pliers. Then you need to make the half circles. 

I used an old bottle and stretched the wire around it  

Then you will need to take one end and twist it around the other  

And you should have a wire that looks like a heart. 

Then it’s time for the thinner wire. 

Cut a long piece and twist the end around the heart, then twist it around the thin wire to secure the end thread bead on and pull it over the twisted part. Make a bend on the wire so the bead stays in place.

 Keep on adding beads and make twist or bends as you like. It’s smart not to have too long span before you get to a side and twist your wire around the heart. 

Keep on adding beads. When you see your wire is running out, make sure you will have enough to reach the heart wire. End the wire opposite from the start.  Add a bead, twist a few times around the heart wire, then twist the thinner wire around itself. Push the bead over the end and make a bend under it to keep it in place . 

When you have filled the entire heart. Add a twine to hang it in your window 

Have fun making hearts . If you make a heart with my tutorial I would like to see your work . If you are on instagram  you can tag me @trollkjerringa1 or use the #2020heartsforhope
Thanks for reading 
Wishing you a great weekend 
Katrine 💗🌷🌷💗🙋

Crazy or not

I think I might have taken this heart ♥ business might have gotten out of hand...

As I was walking my dogs 🐶 🐶 I started thinking about the apple trees and how to make some more hearts 💕
Walking dogs is an excellent way of thinking about your next creative project as they rarely disturb you with a lot of talking.

So back home I found some twine and my rose scissors ✂ and got to work 👍

My hubby thought I was totally insane and left before I would come up with something worse 😜

I agree I'm a bit weird but I think it's pretty cool 😎 too 👍. I plan on making more hearts later, so it will be filled with hearts
💕

I also made a mobil out of the crochet hearts 💕
I am going to send it for a friend
I have a few new heart ♥ ideas.
But think I need to finish embroidery my hubby's jacket.
If you spot or make a heart ♥ and are on Instagram please #2020heartsforhope
Wishing you a lovely day 💚 🌹 💚
Katrine 🌼 💚

More hearts 💕 and a bit of mending

I hope you are having a lovely Easter 🌷 🐣 🌷
I have made some more hearts 💕
I crochet a few from a Pattern I found on Pinterest.

 Me and Suzie  have launched an initiative to make, create, spot, and search for 2020 hearts - to symbolise hope in 2020.   Over at our mending community Mendingmayhem at Instagram.

They can be sewn, painted, knitted, drawn in the sand, crocheted, chalked on the pavement, found in the shape of a stone or a leaf - a shadow, a cloud!

When you start looking for hope you find it everywhere, and you can make your own too!

So please will you join us in spreading hope during this crazy year? 

Share your hearts by tagging #2020heartsforhope and please tag #mendingmayhem too.

Feel free to share this initiative.
So if you are on Instagram please join us to raise hearts.

Since the weather got warmer our snow chicken melted. I still wanted to share some hearts with people passing by so I made two hearts out of some branches and put some solar light on them. I'm really pleased with how they turned out

I finally found time to replace a fabric with holes on a friend's pillow. I hope he likes the cadillac.

I also had to repair my hubby's denim jacket, it's very much worn and it got a lot of holes since last time I mended it.
First I machine darned the holes but I didn't think it looked so good and made elbow patch.

My hubby is definitely over the mend my clothes invisible 😜 as he also wanted an embroidery on the back.

Wishing you a lovely Friday
Stay safe and well
Katrine 🌼 💚

2020 hearts of hope and a huge Easter chicken 🐔

Do you want to help us raise 2020 hearts of hope during the corona crisis?
Me and Suzie 7though it was a good idea to keep the spirits up and for people to have something creative to do.
So we are asking you to make hearts for hope. Sharing them with us using the #2020heartsforhope on Instagram
You can create your heart or hearts any way you like our you can find a heart and just take a picture 🖼
We are hosting from our mending community    Mendingmayhem But you don't need to follow to share your picture.


I did crochet a few hearts, that I put up when I was walking my dogs today.
Usually I would say the finder could keep it. But I think it's not a good idea right now, so please just leave it. But you can take a picture and tag me at Instagram if you like.

I found a heart too ❤️

Yesterday we got so much snow 🌨
Very annoying, since we would rather have spring. But instead of being annoyed I thought I would make some fun with my family.

And we made this huge Easter chicken out of snow.

Most of the heavy work, was done by my hubby and his atv 😘as I can't manage to shovel so much snow anymore.
Bossing around by teenage son, who claimed to be to old for such things 😉🤣
Though he helped painting.
It's good exercise too 👍


Thanks for visiting ♥️
Have a lovely Sunday friends ❣️
Stay safe and healthy
Katrine 🌼 💚 🌼

Friday 🌻

Yeah, it’s Friday! 

Here in Norway it’s the last day of home-school before Easter Hols  

I can't remember I have looked so much forward Easter Hols before. 

This bog is really supposed to be about happy and my joy of creating and mending. 

But I found out I need to let out what's on my heart , so I might as well say it here. 

I find myself to pull the I’m chronically ill card all the time. 

Something I really don’t like to do, but at the moment I don’t feel like I have any option. 

Struggling with SLE and chronic fatigue is not  something I think everyone needs to know. 

But now I’m still choosing to post it here  

I’m tired of explaining why I can’t do everything people expect from me , because they don’t understand  And yes I do look rather healthy  if you see me walking my dogs or  maybe you saw I was in town you would propably think I looke fine .

Lately I don’t have much energy left after helping out with home school for 3 weeks. 

I  miss out on  my friends . I  miss following up on my online friends , they are mostly  all my social life since I rarely have the energy to maintain other friends . People get tired when you have to cancel all the time  because you are not felling very well .  And I’m not really a very social person in the first place  

I haven’t been very creative this weeks, it’s worse than anything ,as it works as my lifeline and keeping me   sane . And I forget I have pain and that I slept poorly due to pain several nights in a week. 

Having an invisible illness is difficult for healthy people to understand.  

I tell my other chronically ill friends this all the time . 

You can maybe try to imagine, but as a healthy person you would never have  the prerequisite to understand .  

As healthy people do get well after being ill . Thay can’t really grasp how it would be to  not have any chance of getting any better , or actually might getting worse. 

You learn a lot of new coping mechanisms when you are chronicle ill    

First of all I usually try to pretend I’m healthy, that gets me out of a lot of silly questions and a lot of have you tried this or that. Or even you just have to pull yourself together. 

I’m an expert of avoiding people I know  when I’m in town  as    meeting 3 people who would like to talk  even for a little while, will drain my  energy so I cant get around to do what I really was supposed to do .  

No one see me after being a little trip to the grocery store totally exhausted. 

No one see when I’m in too much pain to manage to get out of bed. 

No one sees then I’m so exhausted after a day that I cant read a knitting pattern because it all gets blurry and the letters float around. Or when I’m so tired I feel asleep while I was crocheting. 

You have to have a lot of humour and self-irony to get through the day . 

Thinking about things you can’t do any more isn’t something I do anymore as it’s just depressing. 

I’m trying my best to stay positive and enjoy the things I can do. 

This home school business makes it really hard though . 

I find I constantly don’t manage all the things I need to do . 

I do stretch and stretch, but it never seems to get me across the finish line .  

And I really shouldn’t have stretched very much in the first place as it could result in a flair up. 

In the back of my head I can hear the hospital say , we are coming to get you  if you don’t slow down now . 

But I think it’s bloody unfair for my child . 

I understand it’s frustrating and difficult for a lot of people in this crisis. 

At least social distancing is not very difficult for me, as I mostly do it all year around, because being around people drains my energy . And as I said in my previous post I barely manage my everyday life  on a regular day . It’s actually so bad I get annoyed if people come over unannounced, because  they are tempering with my schedule. It’s almost hysterical don’t you think  ?

But where did my humour and positive attitude go ?  

I already let the elephant into the room.  

I have yelled at teachers, I have refused my son to pick up plastic wast , that actually was a task from school. But i didn't think it was a good idea do the the corona virus.

But instead my son got to do a visible mend. 

Hopefully not destroying my newly planted potato field in our living room.  

It’s snowing here again , and even if I really would like to have a bit of spring I don’t need to worry about the garden work jet  . 

I had great fun crocheting some leaves for a very good friend.  

I do hope she doesn’t get sleepy looking at them as I fell asleep several times crocheting them  

I also manage to make a colourful mandala for Easter. I’m gifting it to a friend that needs some joy and happiness in her life. 

Making other people happy is one of my favourite things .  

I don’t feel I have been that girl this past  three weeks .  

And I have left most of the responsibility of our mending community  Mendingmayhem to my dear friend Suzi, who actually have more than enough on her plate than to do my share of work . 

But today we have a lovely guest post from Eva Kittelsen , who is a visible mending actevist , and  known to most Norwegians from symesterskapet (sewing bee) .  

Just pop over to read the post here

I have been so busy and tired I didn't even see my orchid got a baby 

And I totally forgot about the 5 minutes of sun ☀ yesterday 

I very much enjoyed all of the 5 minutes 😁

I hope you all will have a lovely Easter Hols  

And I hope this will be my last post about being chronicle ill . 

Hopefully I can go back to pretending to be healty and just post happy mending and creating stuff . 

Thanks for dropping by  

Katrine  🐣❤️