44th project completed - A buttercup ring

I have noticed lately that there is a fashion for large plastic rings around at the moment so I thought I would have a go at my own. Here's mine .........

A buttercup ring made from the 'butter' tub!

Materials

• Yellow plastic butter tub
• Ring blank or Gold wire and a scrap of yellow craft foam
• 3 light green seed beads
• Super glue
• Needle & thread
• Small sharp decoupage scissors

Instructions

1. The first step is to remove all the borders from the tub so you have flat sheets of plastic to work with. Then cut a small simple 5 petal flower shape from a piece of the plastic.

2. Now cut a small circle from another piece of the tub which looks the right size to make the centre of the flower and cut slits around the edge towards the centre as shown above. Now using a heat gun gently heat the edges of your circle so they start to curl up slightly and separate. You will need to hold down the centre of the circle with a pair of tweezers and do the heating in short bursts to avoid a melted mess!

3. Using the super glue, stick the two parts together and leave to dry. Once completely dry, glue 3 light green seed beads onto the centre of the flower using super glue and set aside to dry completely. 

4. If you do not have a ring blank (like me), you will now need to make a ring. Wind a length of wire around your finger 3 times make sure it feels comfortable and is not too tight. Now neatly bind the 3 strands together tightly with some more wire making sure the edges of the wire are covered.

 

5. Cut a small circle from a scrap of yellow craft foam and stitch it firmly to the wire ring.

You now have a ring blank - of sorts!

6. Now glue your flower onto your ring back and there you are a cute little flower ring! 

I could have painted out the printing on the back of the flower but I thought it was actually quite nice to leave it there!

37th Project completed - A metal work pendant

Hello again!


Wow this week has past quickly, last time I looked it was Sunday evening and now it is Saturday already. As you will know from the previous post, I decided to play about with an old metal paste tube. 


I knew that as the metal was nice and soft it could be easily embroidered on a machine but I must admit to never having tried it myself. I have discovered that I love it. It was so much fun to do! So here it is a metal work pendant made from a purée tube! 

Materials needed

• Empty purée tube
• Small scrap of felt
• Sewing machine
• Thread
• Ball point pen
• Multi purpose glue
• Spoon

Instructions

1. Open out your empty purée tube by cutting off the top and bottom then cutting up one side. Clean thoroughly and place onto a folded towel, iron out any wrinkles with the back of a spoon. Mark out a rough design with a ball point pen.

2. Cut a small piece of the tube to the desired size of your pendant and back with a piece of felt, then with your feed dogs lowered and an embroidery foot fitted to your machine start stitching in random small circles. I used 3 colours of thread separately: yellow, orange, red and merged them together.

3. Returning to the towel, working from the rear colour in the motifs with the ball point pen to emboss the design. Then trim.

4. Cut another piece of felt to cover the back of your work and glue into place with the multi-purpose glue. Trim into the finished shape once the glue has completely dried.

5. Securely stitch a jump ring to the top of your pendant, it is now ready to be threaded onto a piece of cord or a chain ready for wearing.

35th project completed - A Quilted Penguin bag

Well what do you make with an old pillow?

A quilted Penguin bag of course!

Some of you may be wondering how I come up with the ideas and the process I go through to decide what to make each week. This weeks challenge is a prime example.

The first step is to work out what the item to be recycled is actually made of. In this case the pillow was made up of some poly cotton fabric and some polyester hollow fibre filling. Quilting obviously came to mind as a way of turning the raw materials I had into something new. 

A very similar process happens every week for example; a plastic bottle is just a thin sheet of plastic. We all know that plastic melts when exposed to heat, it is easy to cut and does not fray. Equally, a tomato purée tube is really just a thin piece of metal once opened out, and can be cut and embossed easily. It is a very soft metal so it can also be sewn through with care. 

So why not take a look around the house for things to use rather than using something new?

Materials

• An old pillow - well washed of course
• 2 x A4 sized inkjet Tee-shirt transfers
• An inkjet printer
• Sewing machine
• Thread
• Scissors
• 2 x A4 sized pieces of felt
• 1.5m Wide ribbon

Instructions

1. Print out 2 x Tee-shirt transfers with a design of your choice

2. Cut open the top of your pillow, remove the filling and cut out 2 pieces from the case about A4 in size. Iron on your Tee-shirt transfers.

3. As your pillow has been washed, no doubt the filling will have bunched together a bit. Pull out a thin layer and flatten out to use as a wadding.

4. Layer up 1 x printed piece of fabric and a piece of felt with the wadding in the middle.

5. Take one 'sandwich' and using your motif as a guide, lower the feed dogs on your sewing machine and using straight stitch sew through all three layers to quilt (Quilting purists look away now!). Repeat with the second 'sandwich'.

6. Once both sides of the bag are quilted, place right sides together, pin and stitch about 1cm from the edge down each side and across the bottom. Zig-zag over the edges to protect the edges.

7. Now turn down approx 3cm to hem the top and stitch. Turn the bag right side out and set to one side.

8. To make the shoulder strap, fold your length of ribbon in half and stitch the sides together using a zig-zag stitch over the edges. You can then add a few extra rows of stitching to add strength and a decorative touch.

9. Sew the strap to the bag and there we have it a cute little bag. I am going to keep the rest of the filling to use as stuffing and other projects.

Other ideas - You could add a fringe (as I did) or tassels to the bottom of the bag or use some extra printed fabric to make the strap. 

30th project completed - a pair of simple flower earrings

Good evening all,


I think you will like this project, it is so simple yet very 'cool'. this week I have made a pair of cute flower earrings from the leaflets, some craft foam and some earring backs I had in my jewellery making kit!


Modelled here by my beautiful daughter!

Materials needed

• Coloured junk mail leaflets
• Hole punch
• PVA Glue
• Multi use adhesive such as UHU
• Earring backs
• Scrap of craft foam
• Pair of very sharp small scissors

Instructions

1. Using the hole punch cut some tiny circles out from coloured areas of your leaflets

2. Glue them onto your scrap of craft foam using PVA glue to make small flower shapes and leave to dry

3. Once dry, cover with a thick layer of PVA glue to protect them and leave them to dry completely.

4. Once dry, cut out your shapes and glue on an earring back with the multi use adhesive. There we have it some cute flower earrings.

14th project completed! A small Easter basket

Well I promised something with and Easter theme this week, and here it is. A small easter basket, ideal for giving as a gift, full of mini eggs!

Materials used:

• Scraps of thread etc. left over from previous projects
• A couple of scraps of left over heavy water soluble embroidery stabiliser approx. 7" square.
• Thread
• Sewing machine
• Warm water
• Gold netting
• Mini eggs
• Small drinking glass
• Cling film

Instructions

1. Randomly lay your scraps of thread on top of one layer of water soluble stabiliser. Now add a top layer of stabliser and pin to secure.

2. Stitch vertical lines across your fabric about 1/4" apart then turn your fabric 90 degrees and stitch lines again.

3. Once the fabric has been completely covered in the stitched grid, place in a bowl of warm water and agitate carefully to remove most of the stabiliser. You need to leave a little to help with the moulding in the next step.

4. Cover a small rounded drinking glass or similar in cling film. Turn it upside down, then carefully mould your fabric around it as shown in the picture above.


5. Leave to dry.


6. Once dry remove from the mould and carefully trim any loose ends etc.. I did not tidy my edges too much as I liked the as they were. You can of course, neaten up the edges as you please.


7. Place a small amount of gold netting or tissue paper in the bottom of the basket and fill with chocolate mini eggs, making sure that you try a few to make sure they are OK!

I have set myself a new challenge! Starting on the Sunday 2nd of January 2011 I will make at least one new item a week using items retrieved from my household's rubbish.

The rules for the challenge are as follows:

1. Each item should be useful, decorative or both.

2. Each item must be made almost entirely from recycled / reused materials which would otherwise be discarded.

3. A small amount of materials such as beads and threads which are not recycled may be added but this must be kept to a minimum and must be from your craft stash i.e. Not brought in specially.

4. The items and materials to be used must be photographed at the start of each project.

5. A photograph of the finished item and a set of instructions must be published on the blog by the end of the week.

By Julie Williams - July Textiles