Repurposed Wood Bug Hotel

For some time now, I've wanted to make a bug hotel. But I could never quite get my hands on the right materials. Though I could have quite easily gone out and bought wood to make one (or bought a ready made one), I wanted to go the upcycled route and use something that had outlived its original purpose.

So this rather worn-out little wooden sleeve ironing board, which I found at the charity shop, was perfect!

Vintage-Style Leather Cuff

Over the past few days I've brought you leather cuffs of several different styles. Leather & chain, painted leather, and even leather using spacer bars as decoration.

This is the final post of the set (for now) and can once again make use of upcycled materials!

If you've got an old brooch knocking about that you never wear, this is the craft for using it!

Painted Leather Cuffs (Plus a Paint-Free Bonus DIY!)

Yesterday, I posted a tutorial for a leather & chain cuff, and said I'd post more ideas.

Today I'm bringing you painted leather cuffs, in two styles--plus a bonus, paint-free style, for those who don't trust themselves with a paintbrush!

These can look a little daintier, and you can go wild with colour combinations--your only limit is the colours of leather/paint you can get your hands on!

As I mentioned yesterday, this is a good upcycling project for bags/garments no longer usable, and you can use faux leather too.

Leather & Chain Cuff DIY

I started making leather and suede cuffs when I was a kid. Mum bought some suede scraps and some eyelets, and showed me an old choker one of her old work colleagues had made. Then we made our own!

This is an updated version of our DIYs. I made it back in April along with some others, after finding some leather scraps at a local market (and then I forgot to post about them...oops!)

Leather cuffs - or suede ones! - would make a great upcycling project if you have an old and knackered leather/suede handbag or garment that's outlived its original use.
Of course, you can also use faux leather for this!

These are relatively simple to make. In fact, this one is the most complicated of the bunch I ended up making. Which isn't really that complicated at all.

Here comes the tutorial!

DIY Striped Shoes

Summer is coming, and you're probably breaking out the spring/summer footwear, which is what I did recently--only to discover that all my lovely canvas shoes were totally beaten up and in need of replacement!

The frustrating part of shoe shopping for me has always been finding shoes that were a) Nice b) In my size (UK8.5-9) c) Affordable. Having big feet severely limits what I can get my hands on, and so far I have bought...men's shoes.

Men's shoes are boring.

So I jazzed up my navy canvas slip-ons with some gold paint to give myself something a little more interesting!

This is an easy little DIY that I did sitting on the floor one evening.

Free Printable: Easter Egg Hunt

When I was a child, we never had Easter Egg Hunts. Instead, my Mum would cut out different coloured teddy bears, and my sisters and I would each have to seek out the bears of the colour we were given. Once we'd found all the bears of our chosen colour, we would get a prize.

Taking inspiration from this, I've created this alternative Easter Egg Hunt printable!
Rather than hunting for eggs, each participant can hunt for a specific-coloured chick, and then cash them in for their chocolate egg once they've found them all!

This is great if you only gift your kids one egg each at Easter, but want to give them the fun experience of an Easter egg hunt.
It also solves the problem of one child ending up with more eggs than the other!

I've included two versions of the same printable in this post: one coloured, one black and white.
The black and white version is here in case you'd rather print straight onto coloured card, or want to expand on the Easter activities with a colouring-in session before the hunt begins!

Looking for Easter Egg Hunt signs? 
Find my other Easter printables here and here 

Beach Pouch DIY

Remember how, back in November, I posted about destashing?

That I claimed to have a list of project ideas to work on?

Well, my friends, I finally used some of that fabric, and made this cute stripy pouch with an embroidered nautical design. 

Summer might be months away, but dreaming of those warm and dry days is a nice way to forget about the grey skies and damp air, don't you think?!

There are a zillion and one zipper pouch tutorials out there, but here's another. ;)

You'll need:

Stripy fabric

Neutral fabric*

Fabric for lining (I used thin polycotton)

5"-6" Zip (mine was old and a weird size)

Embroidery thread

Sewing thread

Optional: thin ribbon

Tools:

Sewing needles

Sewing machine

Zipper foot

Ruler

Scissors/rotary cutter

Dressmaking pins

Optional: pinking shears

*I used some loose-woven neutral fabric, but it was a total pain in the butt to sew. I could have done with some interfacing on it! Lesson: take care in your fabric choices!

Okay, on with the tutorial!

Crystal & Thread Choker DIY

 

Today I want to share this crystal and thread choker, which I made recently.

Most of the crystal pieces I make use bold colours, but this time I wanted to go for something a that incorporated cool tones, for more of a wintry look.

This is a really simple DIY and you don't need any jewellery-making skills to do it!

Letterzines Inspiration

When I shared 6 Ways to Repurpose Old Christmas Cards, one of the methods I mentioned was Letterzines.

If you like writing letters but want to get more creative with what you send, this post is for you!

A letterzine is a cross between a letter and a magazine. Along with the usual hellos and how-are-yous found in a letter, a letterzine is filled with images and information, hand-decorated and tailored to each individual recipient! This is a fun way to reuse or repurpose wrapping paper, magazines, or any other paper-based imagery.

This post is intended to give some inspiration for what you could include in yours.

6 Ways to Repurpose Old Christmas Cards

It's the New Year, and you're probably taking down Christmas decorations, and amassing a huge pile of Christmas cards to go into the recycling.
Maybe you're looking at some of the artwork reluctantly, thinking, "It seems such a waste to just throw these away..."

You're right. 
Which is why I've been beavering away to put together this post of 6 Ways to Repurpose Old Christmas Cards.
For the most part, these little crafts are easy--if you can cut and stick, you can do these!
Some of these will also help you save some time next Christmas.
Some are best done now, whilst some are worth leaving until closer to the festive season, when - provided you've dedicatd some time to chopping up old cards this January - you'll have all you need to crack on with some Christmas crafting (without having to fork out for expensive store-bought stuff).

So, starting with the most obvious...

11 Jewellery DIYs to Start Your Year with Style

Christmas and New Year may be looming, with mulled wine and turkey still to go, but it's never too early to plan your crafts for next year.
After all, there's only 10 days left of 2015...

I've dug into the archives for this roundup of past tutorials.
Here are 11 DIYs to start your 2016 with style (or at least a trip to your favourite crafting store!)

Starting with the easiest--if you want more of a challenge, or something more time-consuming scroll to the bottom and check out my Pompom Necklace and Metal Disc Necklace DIYs!

 

Amethyst Collar DIY
Level: Easy

If you can glue one thing to another thing, this is the craft for you.

Despite being so easy to make, this is a great statement piece!

In Case of Hoarding, Smash Stash.

Recently, Samantha of At Home With Mrs H began 'The Big November Destashing', in which she encourages us fabric hoarders to destash and - radical idea - use some of that fabric!

Considering the frightening mess that is my scraps collection (above), it sounded like a great idea, so I rolled up my sleeves and set to work!

You wouldn't believe the amount of stuff I had ferreted away!

DIY Vintage Buckle Pendants

Today I want to share this really straightforward DIY for making pendants from buckles!

You could incorporate these into a great gift for any vintage fan or family history nut--see below for how I used mine!

DIY Boot Covers

Recently I've been sewing cosplays for a future event, and realised, "Hey, if I take photos whilst I make this, I can post a tutorial!" Radical idea, huh? ;)

So after a long (long long long) break, you lovely readers of Unfortunately Oh are getting a new DIY! Thanks to everyone who stuck with the blog (and doubly thanks to everyone who followed me over to Doing A Thing, where I post about books, chocolate, cafes and...doing things!)

Without further ado, here it is: How To Make Boot Covers (or spats. Or even gaiters. I don't know. I'm going to keep calling them 'boot covers').

This is a great method for fancy dress or cosplay, to make existing footwear more appropriate to the costume. Plus, it doesn't damage your boots :) It's especially good if modifying cheap footwear isn't an option due to your shoe size or medical conditions that restrict the sorts of footwear you're able to wear.

You'll need:

For the pattern:

• Your boots/shoes
• (If applicable) the trousers you'll wear the boots over
• Cling film (plastic wrap!)
• Sticky tape or packing tape
• Marker pen
• Scissors
• A friend to help (optional)

For the boot covers:

• Pattern (see above!)
• Fabric
• Zip for each cover*
• Scissors
• Matching thread
• Elastic (approx 1/2" wide)
• Dressmakers pen/pencil/chalk
• Dressmaking pins
• Sewing machine (or a needle for hand-sewing and lots of patience)

* Either open or closed-ended zips, dependent on how long you intend the boot covers to be. In the past I've used open-ended ones the length of the covers, but this time I used shorter ones as I was making over-the-knee covers and didn't think I'd find zips that long!
Edit: Seriously use long zips. Zips that let you unzip the cover entirely, if possible. It makes these so much easier to get on/off!

Note: This is a LONG tutorial, though it's relatively easy to make these. So I've put in headings:

• Making the Pattern
• Making the Boot Covers
• Putting Them On
• Other Examples

You can click these to skip to the necessary section :)

New Items at Little Deer Daydreams!

A new DIY shall be coming soon soon sooooooooooon, but today I have been mostly updating my Etsy shop, Little Deer Daydreams!
Here are just four of the eleven new necklaces I added today.
I love them all!

Vintage Picnic Window Display

Today I pulled together yet another charity shop window display, for Humanity at Heart.
This is another one that has been planned for a while, which gave me time to make a few things to enhance the finished 'look'.

The theme this time was 'Vintage Summer Picnic'. The manager and I envisioned chintzy china, picnic baskets, pom poms and flowers a plenty!
Over the past months, the shop has collected donations specifically for the window, so there were plenty of items to put in the display. I particularly loved the big basket, and some adorable Minton cups and saucers (which sold before I had a chance to take photos!)

The yarn pom pom garland was put together a few weeks ago on a day that I found myself at a bit of a loose end. The pom poms were from a massive batch that Samantha (At home with Mrs H) sent me forever ago! (I finally used them!!!) I simply used a darning needle to thread them onto jute string.

I spent an evening last week making the tissue paper flowers/pom poms, which I hung from pink ribbon left over from another project. It was no good for sewing with, but perfect for this! 

I hung another of the tissue paper flowers in the entrance of the teepee.
The teepee was constructed using bamboo sourced from the shop's garden and donated fabrics. I decorated it with some retro-styled felt flowers, which I made using donated and leftover felt.
I also made the self-standing retro flowers using the felt and some old wire coathangers.

This window turned out really nicely, and shows what a difference it makes to plan ahead.
Hopefully it will encourage more people into the shop, to look at all the lovely stock available!

To see some of my past window displays, check the window display tag.

Anyone for Tennis? (Or Pimms?)

Summer is the time for tennis, and with Wimbledon just around the corner, I ended up creating a tennis-themed display for the charity shop!

It seemed like a fun idea to set up the window as if it were a tennis match, so I got to work with sports gear, and lots and lots of balls...

20% off at Little Deer Daydreams!

As it was my birthday on Wednesday, I decided to share the love and set up a discount code that you can use on my Etsy store, Little Deer Daydreams!

Enter the code BIRTH20 at checkout to get 20% off your order!

This applies to all items on Little Deer Daydreams, and the offer is valid until 13th May 2015.

Green Gardens - A Window for Spring

...This has become something of a 'window displays' blog, hasn't it?

Here is the latest display that I created for Humanity at Heart, a small charity based in Sussex. This time the theme was 'spring gardens', and the spring weather came along just at the right time for it!

Some of the flowers from our plants section bloomed at the perfect time for the window display. Spring has truly sprung!
I made the little flowers that can be seen amongst the daffodils, using the sleeves of an old jumper, disposable chopsticks and ribbon leftover from other projects.

Easter Window Display

Last week was the window display changeover at the charity shop where I volunteer. The manager and I had decided in advance to have an Easter theme, as Easter is on its way!

After giving it some thought, and looking at the stock we had for the display, the theme ended up being along the lines of an Easter Egg Hunt!