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!

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...

Upcycled Festive Heart Decorations

Yesterday I made these Scandinavian-inspired heart decorations for our Christmas tree. They're very simple to make, and almost completely upcycled!

The method is so easy it's guessable, so I didn't make a proper tutorial, but here's a quick run down.

I used:
Template (from junk mail)
Fabric (old pillowcase)
Filling (from knackered old pillow)
Embroidery thread (from charity shop)

Using the template, I cut out hearts and sewed them right sides together, leaving a gap for turning.

Then I turned them so the right side of the fabric was facing outwards, and stuffed them with filling.

After sewing up the gap, I threaded a darning needle with 5-6 inch lengths of embroidery thread and pushed it through the top of the hearts, tying the ends in a knot to make a loop.

Here they are on our tree! Also seen here are several homemade items I've posted about in the past:
Recycled Magazine Garland
Tin Can Tea Light Holders
Felt Doves and Peace, Hope & Joy Stars Decorations

Paper Sticks of Rock, or Beach-Themed Party Favours

Recently I made a beach-themed window display for a charity shop. No British seaside resort is complete without sticks of rock, so I made these fake ones out of paper!

These would also make cute party favours if filled with little sweets, or an addition to beach-themed décor.

Read on for how to put them together (it really is as simple as you think)

Vintage Measuring Tape Belt

Though I’ve been massively sidetracked by Doing A Thing, today I sat down and made this belt from a vintage measuring tape.

This is a project that’s been in my To Do pile for a long time, which is ridiculous considering how easy it was.

Read on for a how to. This project is simple and doesn’t take all that long: fifteen minutes at the most.

DIY Spoon Decorations

As long-time readers will know, I volunteer in a charity shop and utterly love putting together window displays! The manager had decided for the Christmas window to be done this week, so I made these unique spoon decorations from some donated spoons, to go on our Christmas tree!

Thought I’d take pictures along the way, so I can share this DIY.

This is a DIY that will require the use of power tools. Such things are scary and I am clumsy lately, so I enlisted the help of my Dad :)

Customising Clothes: Bottoms

Last week, I posted about customising clothes, focusing on tees and shirts. Here’s part two, which looks at skirts and trousers!

In some ways bottoms can be a little harder to customise, particularly trousers. There may be lots of seams, pockets, zips and goodness knows what else to work around, and if you’ve got a sewing machine like mine, sewing several layers of heavy fabric can be difficult if not impossible!

Plain work skirt gains playful feature

This skirt had already been customised by its previous owner, in that it had been made shorter, which saved me a job!

I injected some fun and colour into the style by sewing on some contrasting trim in a wavy pattern and adding buttons to the peaks and troughs of the wavy line.

Customising Clothes: Tops

In this bustling, throw-away society, it’s easy for clothes to become tired, boring, or (with fashion’s ever-brief dalliances with retro styles) frumpy.

It can also be pretty easy to bypass clothes because they aren’t quite right--perhaps that skirt has a great print but an ugly style, or that thrift-shop shirt has a stain on the cuff that looks rather permanent.

But there are so many easy ways to customise clothing that these uninspiring, damaged garments can easily be turned into something stylish and wearable, sometimes with only a few minutes work!

This post focuses on customising tops. Next week, I'll post about bottoms (not that kind, cheeky!)

Drab denim jacket into rockin’ waistcoat!

The makeover on this piece was incredibly simple. I hacked off the sleeves and then brought out my ancient BeDazzler and added a bunch of evenly-spaced gold studs from my stash!

Recycled Magazine Garland

At the charity shop where I volunteer, we were recently discussing a Christmas-themed window display. The manager, Ann, wanted a red and white Scandinavian-inspired theme! I decided to make this red and white garland from old magazines to put in the display.

Circuit Board & USB 'Dog Tag' Necklace

What do you do with a broken computer mouse? Or anything else that plugs into the computer, for that matter?

Throw it away? Toss it into a cupboard and forget about it?

Hold your horses!

Don’t just toss it, cannibalise it!

Unscrew screws, cut wires, take stuff out that you can use (and drop off any leftover metals at your nearest recycling point!). Just be careful if you’re playing with anything that might hold an electrical charge, and watch for sharp edges.

Amongst a heap of broken computer stuff I was given for crafting with, was a broken card reader (I think that’s what it was anyway!) Basically a bit of plastic with a bit of circuit board inside, attached to a USB plug.

I wanted to make something with a more masculine edge to share with you here, so this is what I came up with:

My inspiration was dog tags. The circuit board especially reminded me of a tag.

As I happened to have a necklace with multiple strands of ball chain, I took a strand off to use for this craft :)

Of course I have a tutorial for you too. So if you’re looking for a little inspiration or what to know how to make one of these USB and circuit board necklaces.

Tutorial: Pinbox Pincushion

I have now joined Pinterest, thanks to the lovely Suesan at Frou-FruGal! Thanks Suesan!

I'm having lots of fun pinning all the pretty things I see, and checking out what other people are pinning, too! 

You can find me on Pinterest here.

When I first started sewing, I bought a little box of dressmaking pins, which I still use. The box had its own little pincushion on top, effectively a little dome of sponge.

Like everything, it wore out through heavy use and was starting to fall off!

So whilst I was sewing my old sock pincushion, I replaced it: 

Pin It

This is stuffed with another old sock and made using a little scrap of leftover fabric (and bright pink cotton to use up what was left on the reel)

Here’s a quick tutorial on making a pin box lid pincushion--it's super-simple!

Time needed: 10-20 minutes

You’ll need:

Fabric

Old sock or toy filling (for stuffing)

Scrap card

Needle & thread

Multipurpose glue

Glue gun & glue sticks

Sewing machine (optional!)

1. If you’ve got a pin box like mine, pull off the old sponge and draw around it onto a piece of scrap card. Alternatively, draw around the lid and take off a few millimetres all around.

2. Cut out the circle you drew and use this as a guide to draw two circles onto the wrong side of your fabric--one around 1cm bigger all around, one approximately 3-4cm bigger. Cut the circles out.

3. Using multipurpose glue, fix the cardboard circle to the centre of your smaller circle and leave to dry.

4. Stitch around the edge of the large circle using a running stitch and pull the end threads to gather. At this stage, switch on your glue gun to allow it to heat up.

5. With the right side of the fabric facing inward, stitch the two circles together, leaving a gap for turning it the right way. Try not to stitch through the card.

6. Turn the right way (I had the bend the card a little to do this). Sew up the gap by hand and use the glue gun to fix the pin cushion to the top of the pin box.

Tutorial: Old sock pincushion

If there’s one thing I have lots of, it’s socks. Ankle socks, knee socks, over-the-knee socks, stripy, spotty, heart-print, cute characters--I like them all!

The only problem with socks, like other items of clothing, is that they wear out. And there’s only so much patching and sewing that can be done before a sock is no longer wearable.

Usually, once a sock is too worn out to wear anymore, I’ll either put it in textile recycling or I’ll keep hold of it and use it for stuffing small projects.

But sometimes the print is too cute to stuff into a lavender-scented heart, so I tried to find another project to use up an old sock, and came up with this pincushion:

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I only bought these socks at Halloween, so was disappointed they wore out so fast!

This was so simple to make that anyone can do it, and makes use of a whole pair of socks.

So grab your holey old (clean!) socks, wield your scissors, and check out this quick tutorial!

Time needed: 5-10 minutes (approx)  

You’ll need:

Old socks

Scissors

Needle and thread

Sewing machine (optional!)

1. Cut off the foot of the sock just above the heel and also the band at the top of the sock. Put these two pieces aside.

2. Turn the centre section inside out and sew up both ends, leaving a gap of a few centimetres at one end in order to turn the cushion back the right way.

3. Trim off the trailing threads and turn back the right way. Use the remaining sock pieces and other sock of the pair to stuff the cushion.

4. Sew up the gap by hand, and you’re done!

 

When I first came up with this, I wasn’t completely sure whether it would work, but it turns out that old sock is a great base for a pincushion! The pins slide in and pull out easily, without snagging or falling out. Success!

Come back again to see the other pincushions I made recently--because yes, a girl really does need more than one!

Tutorial: Dream catcher from plastic rings

 The plastic rings found on six-packs of beer, cider, and other delicious canned beverages serve a brilliant purpose--until it comes to throwing them away.

Six pack rings (also known as yokes) have the potential to cause harm to wildlife unless disposed of properly, the general method of which is cutting the rings up beforehand.

But why throw them out anyway if you can do something with them?

As a teenager, I used the rings from a six pack (okay, four pack) of my Dad’s cider to make a very shoddy dream catcher. It hung from my cupboard door for years until eventually it became lost within a drawer.

Recently I rediscovered it, cringed at how badly it was made--and took it apart to remake it:

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Though it takes a little time to make, dream catchers are fairly easy to put together and a great stash-busting project!

To make this, I used the yoke from a four pack of cider, a length of rather worn bias binding given to my by my Nan, beads and embroidery thread left over from previous projects, leather cord from a tag, plus feathers and sheep’s wool picked up on walks in the countryside.

Here’s how to make your own:

Time needed: 45-60 mins (approx)

You’ll need:

Plastic rings from six pack or four pack

Ribbon/bias binding/similar

Thread or string

Beads, feathers and other embellishments

String or cord for hanging

1. Cut the yoke into separate rings, trimming off any excess bits that stick out and stack them together. This will be your frame. Wrap your ribbon around the rings. If you don’t have ribbon, try bias binding or strips of fabric.

2. Loop the ribbon around itself at the back of the dream catcher to secure, and cut off the excess.

The next three steps follow a very similar method to that in my Hanging Heart Dream Catcher tutorial, but use knots instead of crimps.

3. Cut a length of thread (I used around 1m) and tie the end to the frame of the dream catcher. Make a loop by tying the thread around the frame again, leaving a gap. Repeat until you have gone all the way around the frame of the dream catcher. This is the start of the ‘web’.

4. Create another row of loops, smaller than before, by knotting the thread onto the centre of the loops you created in step 3. At this point you can also start to add beads to some of the loops.

Depending on the size of the loops you created, you might want to make a third row of loops connected to the second.

5. To finish off the web part of the dream catcher, pass the end of the thread through all of the last loops, pull to tighten and then secure with one final knot. This should make the web tauter.

6. So far, it should look a little like this! My plastic yoke was a bit misshapen, so it’s more of an oval shape.

7. To fix on feathers and other things:

Slide feathers through the loops of thread and/or ribbon at the back of the dream catcher.

Tie on other embellishments such as wool, bells, etc, using some of the same thread as the web.

I had a little gold leaf on a tiny safety pin, this I just pinned into the web.

8. Loop on some cord or similar to hang the dream catcher.

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Tutorial: Trash necklace (part 2)

Pin It

Following on from part one, this trash necklace tutorial uses leftover fabric and haberdashery to take the design one step further.

Pin It

This time around I made two necklaces, one using scrap paper rings and one using rings made from toilet roll tubes.

Time needed: 30-90 minutes, depending on materials used

You’ll need:

Scrap paper and/or toilet roll tube rings

Ribbon or cord for necklace

Greek springs with loops (optional)

A clasp (optional)

A selection of:

Leftover fabric

Ribbon

Embroidery thread

Wool

Bias binding

Trim

Anything!

1. If you haven’t done so already, make some rings from scrap materials as explained in part one.

 

2.  Cover the ring frame:

• For a wool or embroidery thread-wrapped ring, tie the end of a length of wool around the loop (knot on the inside). Wind the wool around the ring and tie off with another knot on the inside once the whole ring is covered.

•  For fabric, cut into strips first. Seal the edges if you don’t want a frayed look.

• For flat things such as bias binding, ribbon and strips of fabric, use a dab of glue on the end to secure to the inside of the ring. Then wrap around the ring, sticking down the other end inside the ring (you may have to trim off a little!)
  
• To get a more decorative look, glue or tie contrasting trim or thread around the covered rings.

4. Either thread onto a length of ribbon to complete the necklace...

5. Or use thin cord: cut three lengths, longer than you want the necklace to be. Knot the ends to the length you want them and trim all but one of the ends.

6. Attach a greek spring with a loop to each of the longer ends of cord. (I needed to cut the longer piece down a lot more than I showed in the previous picture!) Add a clasp to the end.

 

7. Thread on your covered rings and go show off your cheaply-made but fresh ‘n’ funky necklace!



Had a nice email just yesterday, the long and the short of it being that my Ancestry of Tibet necklace tutorial has been linked to over at All Free Beaded Jewelry! Yay!

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