Showing posts with label upcycle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label upcycle. Show all posts

Monday, January 10, 2011

Welcome Back Mojo

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JC's Loft

At least for now. I’ve missed you, and still think you were locked in the garage with the empty Christmas bins, now filled and returned to their home for the next 11 months. I was in  a Valentine’s mood but this is something I can keep up all the time:
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Guess how it started out? No?
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Pizza. Box. Lid. Yup.
Drew and cut a heart shape out freehand and covered with scrapbook paper.
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Then I made layered paper flowers from some more of the scrapbook paper ( Paper Pizazz…Tan Swirly Flowers…that’s the real name) and hot glued those around the heart:
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I had a coffee filter medallion left over from some book page wreaths I’d made and decided to plop that down in the middle. Plop is a technical term.
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Then I added various brown buttons to the center of each flower, added a gold rhinestone on top of those and finished the whole thing off with a brown ribbon bow. I’d been debating doing neutrals for my Valentine’s décor…think I’m liking that idea.
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Saturday, September 11, 2010

Stashbusting September Project #6: These Boots Are Made For Witchin'



So my husband had these pants. Got your attention? It is about a pair of my husband's old pants that a couple of months ago, he put by the door to go to Goodwill. I thought they were too far gone for GW because the hems were all frayed but rather than toss them, of course I saw them as fabric. For what I didn't know...yet.

Since I've been doing some Halloween prep, I decided I wanted a pair of witch boots. Just seemed like a fun idea. I figured I bust some of my felt stash and then I saw the pants! They're nice cotton twill..perfect for witch boot stockings right? Out came the scissors and off came the legs. I now have a pair of shorts left. Any hoo... I downloaded a pattern from the internet and lengthened it a bit because while I'm short, my imaginary witch is tall!

Sewed the basic boot together :
Kicking Up My Heels!
Got busy with some embellishments, including a pair of earrings that for reasons I will never know were included in a jar of old chandelier crystals I bought at an antique store. I had some fabric flowers left over from another project so on those went. I had some fabric scaps sitting around so those became some more flowers. I figured I was on a flower theme here so out came some paper flowers from my embellishment bin and on those went. Of course what's a witch without some bling, so in the middle of the flowers went buttons and in the middle of the buttons went rhinestones.

Ripped some strips of scrap fabric to make "belts" for my boots and here's where the earrings came in to dress up the "belts".


Finished them off with some raffia handles so I can hang them up. I may leave them here on my end caps:

Or I may add them to a garland I've yet to make for my mantle.
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Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Stashbusting September Project #4: BOO

I keep seeing all these great ideas for Halloween around blogland and it's getting me in the mood to decorate. Since my husband would look at me even funnier than he usually does if I asked him to get the Halloween bins down this early ( I'm short, he's tall, it's the way it is) what's a crafter to do? Make something of course!

I've actually been pretty good the past several years not buying a lot of new decorations. We don't really get any trick or treaters and especially since our teenager has been able to drive (away from us!), we really don't have much Halloween activity at our house so it seemed wasteful to buy or make more stuff. BUT...I keep swooning especially over vintage or more sophisticated Halloween stuff . Especially since I see more done in classic black and white!!! Ooohh la la.

So since I can't buy anything this month , I went to the mystery closet and pulled out these:
Bundle O Wood Plaques from Michaels $4.99 Before Coupon
Unfinished Wood Candlesticks Goodwill $1
and picked out some shapes from the Bundle O Plaques. Painted everything black:
I've been collecting Halloween images from The Graphics Fairy and chose a very cool skull image. Might be too creepy for some, but I'm twisted that way and don't have little ones who might get scared. The big ones can just deal.  Printed two skulls and some text on clear Avery label paper.

On the round and oval plaques, did the "white glue crackle" technique from Stashbusting project #1 and then over that with cream paint. Dried it with my hair dryer because I'm impatient and one of you wonderful people confirmed it enhances the crackling. Trimmed the skulls ( I feel like Temperance Brennan from "Bones"), put them on the oval plaques, hot glued silver pipe cleaners around, glued them to the candlesticks. Then glued the round plaques to the top of the candlesticks ( it will make sense when you see if until then, don't judge), and plopped on some clear self adhesive rhinestones around the edges:
I like the effect of the vellumy label paper over the crackle paint. It's kind of ghosty.  Dug out a couple of glass votive-bowl thingies which I'll put black pebbles and candles in later) and trimmed and adhered the text I printed out on the label paper.

Here's a closeup of the skull plaque. You were warned....eeek....scary:
Thank You Meg!
A Little Knick Knack

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Friday, September 3, 2010

Stashbusting September Project #1

It's three days in and I haven't set foot in a craft store! Yeah me! That may also be because I haven't left the house but.....pesky details. I went to the closet of magical mystery and pulled out some stuff that I picked up to be used "someday".
ONLY THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG
I decided on a project using a cabinet door I picked up at a salvage place. Everyone keeps cabinet doors on hand for no reason right?
I had some vinyl left over from my "Wish Upon A Tray" project and the lightbulb went on. So I painted it black. The cabinet door. Not the lightbulb.
FIRST COAT
added a second coat and then tried the white glue crackle technique. "Make The Best of Things"  has a great tutorial on this. I will NEVER buy crackle medium again! Love this. Best part was that during school supply shopping, I bought a half dozen or so bottles of white glue at Staples for maybe $2 total. Less than the cost of a small thing of crackle medium.
SMEARED IT ON W/FINGERS
After it gets tacky but not dry, add another color of acrylic paint and wait for it to dry. Or not...I was not patient so used my craft dryer ( aka an old blow dryer) to speed things up and I can't be sure, but I think the heat made it crackle more:
I just did the edges so it would look like a frame if that makes sense. I added a couple of strips of scrapbook paper on the raised panel in the middle; used my "dream" vinyl leftover from my earlier project; added an embossed metal strip from the magical mystery closet (which means it was something I picked up on sale somewhere that I knew I'd use someday) along with some dimensional flowers (Jolee's Boutique I think) from another project which I dry brused w/ gold paint and silver Rub n Buff; and a butterfly from a bag of ephemera I'd bought at a stamp show. And: 
STASH BUSTED! OK, TINY DENT MADE!

You can check out the other projects in the T Shirt Diaries "Stashbusting September" challenge here

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Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Getting Ready To Bust Some Stash

You may have noticed a buttton on my sidebar that identifies my blog as participating in "Stashbusting September". This is the brainchild of Robin over at her blog The T-Shirt Diaries. Robin hosts a regular link party called Upcycled Awesome which, as the name implies, is focused on projects that are re-purposed, re-invented, upcycled, etc.

A logical extension of re-using stuff is using the stuff we already have and the worst kept secret among those of us creative types is we tend to have tons of ahem, "stuff". And I don't know about you, but as much "stuff" as I have, I can always buy more. So I was hesitant at first to sign up for Stashbusting September, wondering whether I could resist the lure of the JoAnn's and Michaels 40 and sometimes even 50% coupons, or the pull of the Dollar Tree and Goodwill and I decided I definitely should, and I could. We'll see about that! No new craft supplies or thrift store pickups in September! EEEEK!

There's still time to sign up to be a "Stashbusting" blog...You can check out all of the details and see the other 34 bloggers who are participating  here.



And Robin knows we are mere mortals so she's made provisions for an "oops". Not that I'm planning on needing this button or anything.