Hello I'm back!

Wow it has been over a year since I blogged!

Oh that is terrible of me but I have a good reason and that is I have reopened my etsy store!

But this time my creativity has taken me toward the world of jewellery or specifically earrings.

Why you may ask?

Well simply put it, I wanted people to wear tsumami zaiku every day and I thought this would be a great way to do so.

I experimented on different designs to find out what was possible and when I finally felt happy, I created my first design.

Pink Blossom on silver hoops with tiny pink pearls.

The wire for the hoop is made from wire wrapped with fine silver thread which I made myself as this is not readily available in UK however it is very therapeutic.  As for the flower and the leaves, they are folded from hand dyed habutae silk. 

I liked the design very much so I made another one in blue.

Adventures in felt kanzashi - part 8

I have a soft spot for kusudama kanzashi because they appeal to my inner mathematician.

The rotational symmetry is just nice.  

So when I brought a bag of mixed felt I knew I had to make one.

However, time is never on my side and it is only now that I managed to actually make my idea become a reality.

They are so cute and soft just like the rest of my felt kanzashi.  

Adventures in Felt Kanzashi - Part 4

So many flowers, so little time!

This is one that has been on my list for a while for traditional tsumami kanzashi because it is a flower that I see every spring!

Well I never got round to making it in silk for some reason but I had a chance today to try it with felt!

Finally I have a daffodil!

Adventures in felt kanzashi - Part 3

So far my adventures in felt have led me to make the following.

Now to make a flower that I always lived the look.  Iris!

I love the colour purple and something about the rotational symmetry is very pleasing to my mathematical mind.

Luckily I ordered a selection of coloured felt as making irises requires three colours, purple, yellow and green.

As normal, I cut the require amount and set about creating the iris.

Unlike the other flowers once the three large base petals are attached, the remaining petals all require a gentle touch.  This is due to the fact that each set of three is essentially balancing on each other.  However I have been making tsumami kanzashi since 2007 and this has taught me that with a steady hand and patience nothing is impossible and within no time this little blossom came into existence.

Is it not sweet!

Adventures in felt kanzashi - part 2

Now that I made a white rose and plum blossom I thought the next step would be to make something in a different colour.

So off to my local fabric store and I brought myself some baby pink felt.

Mmmmmm soft and fuzzy!

I had a busy week at work so I had to make these during the weekend but look at them.

The rose just perfect and my plum blossom got turned into a sakura or cherry blossom.

Well could not resist.  Pink fabric and flowers in my world implies sakura blossoms.

Adventures in felt kanzashi - part 1

For a while I had a thought of making kanzashi using different materials.

Obviously silk and cotton are the perfect choice but there must be other fabric that one can try.  Then it dawned on me, how about felt?  It is easy to cut and fold but it will create a lovely soft finish.

Differently need to give this a try so out comes my white stash and after cutting the require amount to play with here it is!

I had to tweak the rose design a little to accommodate the felt thickness but it has indeed create a kanzashi the has a soft look.

As I had to tweak the design, there was spare felt for me to try another flower.

A simple ume or plum blossom.

I think I will enjoy working with felt!

Completed kanzashi bouquet!

I have done it!

I have a rose bouquet and I love it.

This bouquet just has roses but I could have easily used other flowers which I will do next week I think but I will have to fit it in with making stock for an upcoming event called The Fine and Dandy Market at Crescent Arts Centre in Belfast.

This lovely bouquet will cost £150 and will be made-to-order as usual.  So if you are a bride and would like your own rose bouquet then let me know!

Kanzashi Update

Hello my followers ^_^

If you have been worried that I have forgotten all about tsumami kanzashi then let me reassure you that I have not.

In fact I have been doing a lot of product development and here are the work in progress photos.

Lots of roses and for what you may ask.

Well to make a lovely bouquet.  I always wanted to make a rose bouquet as the real thing are so pretty and I wanted to create a tsumami version.  Each rose used 15 squares of white cotton lawn as I wanted the rose to have that lovely soft look you get from real roses.  Then I estimated I needed 19 roses to make my bouquet so after cutting, folding, and gluing 285 fabric squares which took two days to complete I finally had all the roses.  To my surprise, I actually only needed 17 roses for the bouquet so I have two extra flowers to use to make a kanzashi or maybe a boutonnière.

I still need to decorate the underside of the bouquet but that is my task for today.

Ivory Bridal Kanzashi Hairband, Wedding Hair Flower, Bridal Hair Accessories

A wonderful bridal kanzashi for someone who wants something different for their special day

--- Kanzashi Description ---

* Colour - ivory (alternative colours available please convo for details)
* Size - 8cm (wide) by 11cm (height) by 3cm (depth)
* Mount - metal hairband
* Suitable for all hairtypes and hairstyles
* Suitable for vegan
* Made to order

This kanzashi has been designed so you can position the flowers as high or as low as you wish on your hairband. There by allowing you to place it anywhere you desire in your wedding hairdo.

Available now here!

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/150806289/ivory-bridal-kanzashi-hairband-wedding?ref=shop_home_active

Lilac Tsumami Kanzashi Hair Clip by Kitty Kanzashi

Look what I have found in my finished kanzashi box!

I must have made this wonderful kanzashi and left it in my finished box secretly keeping it for my own pleasure to look at but alas it does need a good home.

As you can see these are medium sized kanzashi and you can just wear one for everyday or two if you are going for something fancy.

In fact these will be perfect for a bride who wants something simple yet stunning at the same time.

They are attached onto alligator hair clips which have been road tested by myself and I can safely say these will not move an inch unless you want them too.

So why not head over to my etsy store if you are interested in them.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/129251467/lilac-tsumami-kanzashi-hair-clip-silk?ref=shop_home_active

Kanzashi experiments turn in reality.

Remember back in February I was experimenting with the tsumami technique to create regency style flowers?

Well one flower I played with was this one.

which the tsumami version of a lilac.

Pretty close in petal shape would you not say and you can read all about the design of this flower in the following link.

http://kittykanzashi.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/what-does-kanzashi-maker-do-on-rainy.html

Well it was about time I actually make them properly and give them to my partner in crime for this project.

I was so eager to send them to her that I completely forgot to take pictures for myself to these are her photos that she took when she received them.  I only made two of them to make sure that she liked them and lucky for me she absolutely loved them!

Now to make a few more for her to enjoy and maybe I will supersize the flower to make a bouquet out of them.

Kusudama madness

Lately I have been making half kusudama i.e these ones!

which is available for purchase in my etsy store here.

However it has been ages since I made a full one.  I have to admit there are only two examples in my personal collection which are .......

which were both made a long time ago so it is about time I made another one.

So should I make another one which is similar in size as the two above or shall I try something more challenging.  Challenging in this case is making a itsy bity one.  

YES you guess I decided to make a tiny one which is only a bit bigger then a two penny piece.  Obviously I had to use smaller petals and in this case I had to use 1/2 inch squares!  I swear my eyes are going crossed eyed from staring at the petals but I persevered and the end result is this little darling!

I am not joking it is tiny compared to the other complicated kanzashi I make.

I think I will turn it into a phone charm / obi kazari but now I am going to stare into the distance to get my eyesight back @_@

Crane kanzashi part two.

Buoyant with my success at the tiny crane kanzashi.

I thought it was time to super-sized the crane!

Which means it will be bigger and use a load more petals.

Over the years I have collected a lot of pictures of crane kanzashi so I have a good idea of the number of petals I have to use and the size of them so here is the first one!

I started off making a medium sized one which fits nicely in my hand.  Even though it is small in it size it still uses 34 petals in total.

Then of course it was time to make it even bigger.  Something that will really standout and here it is.  52 petals in total and it looks like the parent of the one above.

Here is a photo for you to compare the sizes.  They still need to be mounted onto hairpins and a little bit of colour still needs to be added but they are done!  Lets see if I can tweak the design again so that the crane's wings are more wider and not so curved up.

Crane Kanzashi

I see crane kanzashi very often and I have always wanted to make one so I decided to make a mini one first before I make a big one!

I have to say for a first attempt it isn't too bad!

The actual kanzashi itself is only 10cm tall but it took a whole morning to make.  It is a little bit cold here in Belfast and the glue was refusing to dry properly.  Lucky music was in the background so time didn't go too slowly.

It is very sweet but I am bias.

Now I am going to ask you the audience a question and please be honest.  How much would you pay for this?

Here are some things to consider, this one took 4 hours to make but I can probably refine the method to 2-3 hours.  It very delicate work and all the wire has been hand wound with thread.

What does a kanzashi maker do on a rainy day? - Part 1

It is beginning of February and all I see out of my window is rain, rain and more rain.

Well that spoilt my idea of wandering out for a walk so instead I got my thinking cap on and created some more kanzashi flowers.

Inspired by my friends re-enactment I decided to concentrate on flowers that are popular in the regency period.  You wouldn't believe how hard it was for me to find a list but I managed it and I picked three flowers to start off.

The first flower I thought I would recreate is this one.

This is a white lilac and as you notice, it is a four petal flower with a little yellow centre.  

My first thought was to use a round petal and create a narrow petal but somehow this does not look right.  It has the slight curve at the edge but the centre just does not work.

So I had a thought and decided to use a petal design that I rarely used.  The folded pointed petal, it starts off life as a pointed petal but then you fold up the edges to create something similar to the round petal.

Anyway the results are this!

This is much better then the first design as it gives the impression of a concave petal and the best thing about this design is that it naturally creates a trumpet shape in the centre.

What do you think?

New kanzashi design!

So I have been toying with the idea of making a rose kanzashi for a long time and after a conversation with a good friend of mine, I have decided to make them.

Another reason why I made them was that fact that the weather has once again forced me to stay indoors.  It is raining cats and dogs right now!

Here were my trial ones.

The first one was one made using round petals and give a soft romantic rose.

Whereas this rose design is made using opened pointed petals.

Both are very cute especially the second design which has a modern feel to it but as I am making these for friend of mine who is into reenactment I went for the first design.

So the next stage is to make them with proper fabric.  I had some soft white cotton fabric leftover from a dressmaking project which I thought would be perfect as I wanted the kanzashi to fit in with her reenactment.

Now I need to get them into some hair to see how they look.

It has been so long since my last kanzashi post!

Hello my followers!

Things have been very hectic for me in the last couple of weeks.

If going home for Christmas was not stressful enough, I had to organise a tiny relocation.  Tiny being that I moved all the stuff from Sheffield to the lovely city of Belfast!

Yep everything had to be packed away and it was a bit sad moving away from Sheffield as I did love living there but my partner got a job here in Belfast which he couldn't refuse so off we went.

It has been just over a week since we got here and so far to good.  We have located all the shops which we need to survive and found the most efficient route to his new work place.

For me, I still need to re-organise my work table but it will slowly be done.

Anyway Kitty Kanzashi is back in business but now operating from Belfast!

Don't forget you can buy any of the following kanzashi from my etsy store.

Midnight Sparkle
https://www.etsy.com/listing/88859163/kanzashi-navy-blue-hairclip-midnight

Union Jack Kusudama
https://www.etsy.com/listing/96383555/tsumami-kanzashi-union-jack-kusudama

And as it is Valentine Day coming up how about some valentine day kanzashi?

Two Hearts
https://www.etsy.com/listing/92459099/kanzashi-red-fabric-flower-hairclip-two

Intertwine
https://www.etsy.com/listing/92459099/kanzashi-red-fabric-flower-hairclip-two

Side by Side
https://www.etsy.com/listing/91564668/red-heart-kanzashi-hairclip