Posts tagged ‘crafting’

I’m teaching this free class at the Highland Square branch of the Akron-Summit County Public Library .

Iris Paper Folding Wall Art

Come use recycled paper and Iris Paper Folding techniques to make a 5″ x 7″ frame-able wall art. Iris Paper Folding is basically layering paper in a pattern and using it as a background behind a shape cutout. Participants are welcome to bring their own recycled papers such as envelopes, junk mail, greeting cards, or discarded books to use, but a selection of papers will also be available. If attendees have a paper trimmer, they are welcome to bring it, as cutting paper strips will be much quicker.

Sign up is required, and begins August 16, at 330-376-2927.

If you can’t make it to class, I also wrote a  tutorial for this project.

I made these beads from pages of an old poetry book.  My inspiration is from a similar project in Playing with Books-The Art of Upcycling, Deconstructing, and Reimagining the Book.  The only difference was that they rolled up triangles & I rolled up rectangles, so my finished beads have more of a tube shape.  With either shape, the basic idea is to roll up a long strip of paper (leaving a hole for beading wire to go through), use adhesive to secure it closed (I used decoupage glue), cover the outside of the bead with glue (for a protective finish), & let it dry.

Here’s one of my i-can’t-type-well posts. I found the pattern for this jacket in a bag of handed down linens. It was cut out of a grocery bag and only had the words “5/8 inch seam all around” written on it.

After a little puzzling it out and I came up with this jacket in a 3-6 month size. I graded it to a 12-18 month and made one for my sweet Cressida.

It’s because I broke my collar bone playing soccer last Saturday.

For the sake of keeping blogging short (I have trouble blogging left handed) I will be mostly sharing links and photos until I get my right hand back. In the meantime I’ll be sporting this fashionable sling I altered by hand sewing a panel of upholstery fabric to the blue hospital sling. Yes, I used my left hand for this, and no, I don’t plan to do any more sewing until I can use my right hand again.

We were attending a wedding last weekend and I really wanted to dress up my outfit since it was  a friday evening wedding. I thought about a necklace, but my blue dress had a ruffled neckline so that seemed a bit too much. Then I thought I should wear a slight veiled pillbox hat, but I don’t have one! So since I know how to make fascinators, and I had some blue crinoline in my stash I went to work on this beauty.

To make it was a piece of cake. I cut a 10 inch circle of crinoline and folded it in half so that the edges did not quite match up. Then I fanned the folded side about 4 times to give it dimension, leaving the ends straight. I stitched through the fan folds and used the stitching to attach the crinoline to a head band.

Then I decided it needed more drama, so I used acrylic paint to tint the edges navy blue, and used a vintage broach as a focal point. The bonus was that the broach covered my stitches that held it onto my headband.

Apart from drying time, this really only took me 15 minutes. And I let the paint dry while I got dressed and did my makeup. It was a really fast way to dress up a simple dress, and make a subdued statement. I can’t wait until I can wear it again!

This beautiful vintage button belonged to my grandmother.  There’s only one, and I’ve been painfully particular about how to use it.  When guest blogger, Erica, wrote about making a vintage brooch into a necklace, I immediately thought about my button.  But since I’m on a hair-accessories kick, I thought I’d try it within a flower instead.

I used recycled shirt fabric & a vintage button for this flower.  It’s just like this orange flower one I made a while back.  The original pattern & idea came from a fabric flowers tutorial at Wise Craft.

We are a couple of weeks away from Kindergarten here at our house. And the rest of the country is getting all of their ducks in a row to waddle back to the big pond of school. We have a bunch of  school supplies to purchase, like crayons and stuff like that, but there are also items we need that can be bought handmade or second hand. I’ve been looking around the interwebs and wanted to share some of my findings with you!

Terre Mum has lots of eco-friendly items in her shop, mostly food related. But if you’ve got to pack a lunch this year, absolutely stop by her shop for one of these great snack bags. I especially like that they are just linen lined with cotton, which doesn’t help keep pretzels from going stale, but will keep chemicals from leeching onto your Kiddo’s snack. I am definitely buying a few of these.

Made By Rae has a great pattern for a Toddler Backpack on her site which I would love to try  to make. For the seamstresses out there, this would be a great way to help your Kindergartener feel personally invested in her first day of school. Picking out the fabric for your own backpack is one step above picking out the first day of school outfit.

Olivia has to wear a uniform to her school so I have been looking for cute belts and socks to give her some freedom of expression. That’s how I stumbled upon Ivan and Mary and this Alligator Belt in her shop. I love the little alligator and how it reminds me of the preppy school polo shirts. What a perfect belt!

And since lunch seems to be the one thing I am most obsessed about (I’m so worried about my child eating her food at school!) lets look at lunch bags. Deerpath Designs‘ Personalized Lunch Bags look adorable. And, the one I’ve featured here already has my daughter’s name on it! Taking into account the prices for bags I saw at Target today, $21.99 is very reasonable for a handmade bag.

I hope everyone’s transition into the school year goes great, no matter what grade your kids (or you!) are entering. And if you have, or you’ve seen, an awesome handmade item that’s great for back to school you’d love to share, please leave a link in the comments.

I have always thought it would be fun to have a Photo Gallery of post-craft hand pictures. Like the time I was using a knife to carve into wax and cut into my thumb but there was a bunch of wax in the cut so it didn’t bleed (OK maybe not that one). Or after making my magazine coasters how I had a ton of dried glue all over me. It’s sort of like the hand picture could be a project in itself.

Well, these hands are dyed with fabric dye. Really really badly. This summer’s craft at Vacation Bible School (which I did not pick but was left in charge of executing) was to tie dye 50 kids’ shirts in five 20 minute long groups. Let’s just say that after changing my gloves 15 times only to find a new hole in all of the available pairs I gave up on the gloves and went for the bare-hand approach.  The only way to recover from hands this blackened is to go swimming in a chlorinated pool, by the way.

So, if you have some crazy hands after a project consider taking a picture. And if you do, let us know you did it by posting the pictures in our Flickr pool.

My husband told a friend recently that I’m a “house hacker”.  With embarrassment I asked, “Did you tell him what I did with the windows?”  (Ha, ha that might be for another post!)  But I am a hacker when it comes to my home.  I’m always trying to make something run more smoothly, resourcefully, or efficiently.  And the goal is to be aesthetically pleasing (or at least acceptable) as well.

You can probably guess that my little sign to the left is for dishes.  My husband begged for clarity on the state of the dishes.  He suggested buying a magnet.  I thought, no I can make a magnet.  So I made a magnet but soon realized my dishwasher isn’t magnetized.  Then I was going to drill a hook into my tile, but thought that was too permanent and risky if I didn’t like it.  Finally, I used a sticky hook and made this sign from two laminate countertop samples (from Zero Landfill).  The holes were already punched in them.

It’s useful & it works…dishes clarity!  And it doesn’t look too bad.  Plus, I could remove the sign for special occasions, and the little hook isn’t too conspicuous.  Do you have any interesting kitchen hacks?

Our flower gardens are in full bloom. And if you have  little girls, like me, then all of the floral bounty is probably turning their imaginings to the subject of fairies.

This dish, filled with water, became the paddling pool for some fairies on our dining room table this week. I let the girls cut the flowers from my hostas before I trimmed them down to use in decorating the pond. They also clipped some lamb’s ears, some pink flowers (I don’t know what they are!) and some of the petals from my day lilies. The day lily petals made great boats.

The bonus feature for this “craft” is that it makes a wonderful variation on a center piece. The flowers remained vibrant for about 5 days before I needed to remove them from the table giving us plenty of time to enjoy the arrangement, and plenty of time for the girls to retell Thumbelina around the dining room table.