A Stash-bustin' Recycled Craft for Bike Month

The bicycle coalition I run recently set-up a booth at our daughter's school for their spring fair. Her school's theme is health, wellness, and environmental studies so we thought it would be appropriate to have something fun and environmentally friendly for the kids to do - that would hold their attention while we talked to them about bicycle safety. 

We had our local bike shop save old inner tubes for us for a few days (didn't take long to have a TON of tubes). We got about 200 bracelets out of about 2 days worth of inner tubes. 

 

We cut them down into roughly 2.5 inch pieces and used a small hole punch to make a hole in each end like so:

Then thread a scrap of fabric through that's roughly 1.5 inches wide and long enough to wrap around your wrist and tie (15-16 inches at least). Like so:

The rubber stretches enough to feed the fabric through pretty easily, though if you do a whole bunch of them, your fingers get really worn out! It was a great way to keep the kids hanging around the booth and get them talking about riding bikes and wearing helmets and whatnot. 

...and now we're totally trend setters ;)

Creativity Overflows

I'm sure that I am not the only parent who struggles with what to do with the abundance of art produced by their fantastically creative child(ren). I'm also probably not the only person out there with an odd corner of their home that poses a decorating conundrum.
After 4 years of living in our house, I finally solved both problems with one project.

Total cost:
About $20

Materials:
A variety of frames from the thrift store: $9
Valspar flat black spray paint: $4
Picture framing hardware, tiny eye screws, wire, and tiny paper clips: $7

How to:
I striped the frames of all the cheesy artwork, glass, and any backings, then wiped them down with a paper towel. I probably should have primed these, but I didn't. I just sprayed them all flat black with a few coats. Once they were dry, I laid them out on the floor to arrange them. (I think I need one or two more, really for the top right.) Once I had them the way I wanted them, I added hangers to the frames. Then, I attached the eye screws to the back of the frames near the top and strung the wire between them. I only did one wire, but the thought has occurred to me that you could add more wires to one of them to create a grid for little teeny bits of art. Anyway, once I got them all assembled, they went on the wall. I let T pick the art she wanted to display and voila - an ever changing display of her favorite art.



This is the "architectural detail" in my living room. I've learned that at one time it was a planter and the now bench part extended all the way to the window. Someone down the line covered the planter to make the bench and cut into it to create a nook - which now makes a lovely corner for our piano.

Fabric Garland/Advent... with Tutorial

This year, I decided that we'd countdown to Christmas a little different.... without spending any money! I love, love fabric garlands so I thought that I would incorporate that idea into an advent calendar type thing. I made 25 links, put them in a pretty glass vase, and each day in December one link will get added until it looks like the picture above. I figured out that by the end of the second week, the chain will be long enough to drape nicely. Until then, they will just snake along the mantle.

If you'd like to make your own, here's what I did.

You'll need:

-(25) 4.5 x 12.5 in. pieces of fabric (I went with random scraps, but you could be more coordinated if you are so inclined.)

-(25) buttons (I let my daughter rummage through the buttons and pick them out.... shear 5 yr old girl heaven!)

-You could use a light interfacing if you want, but I didn't.... just starched them well instead.

-Your basics - needle, thread, scissors, rotary cutter, ruler

Once you get your fabric pieces all cut out, iron them in half lengthwise, right-sides together. Then, with a 1/2 inch seam allowance, sew up the long edge and one of the short sides. Clip the corner and trip the seam allowance. You've made a tube that looks like this:

Then, carefully turn your tube inside out. Be careful about using pointy things when turning, you don't want to poke a hole in your fabric. Once they are right side out, iron them well. To finish the other end, turn the raw edges in about a 1/2 inch and press. Use a teeny seam allowance to close it up. (hint: Start stitching on the folded side instead of the seam side. My machine likes it much better that way.)

Now here is where I had to really overcome a major fear.... buttonholes. If I can do it, so can you! Mine are not perfectly perfect by any means, but they work (glad my machine has good instructions). Here's one before I opened it up. See, not so perfect. I put the buttonholes on the "pretty" end, the one without machine stitching because that is the side you are going to see when you button them up.

Once you have that done, all you have to do is sew a button on the other end!.... Easy Peasy!

This entire project took me a few hours. The bulk of the time was spent choosing, cutting, and ironing the fabric.

Happy Holiday Crafting!!!

A Quick Sewing Fix

I had a quick burst of creativity today, so I whipped up this little fabric basket. The outside is made out of a coffee bag that a friend of mine gave me. He works for Kona Cloud Coffee and hooked me up with some beautiful bags. 

If you are into coffee, you must try it.. A local doctor owns a coffee farm in Kona, ships it here, and it's roasted fresh in the back of the bike shop where my husband works.

For tutorials and inspiration for your own fabric basket, check out Sew,Mama,Sew.

My Favorite Gift-wrap Trick

Since the holidays are approaching, I thought I'd share one of my favorite grift-wrapping tricks. I learned this when I worked retail... a real budget saver when you offer free gift wrap because you can use half as many boxes! I am much better at showing than explaining so you can find lots of pictures with instructions here. You'll see how I can turn one half of a shirt box (because I'm always losing or ruining half) into a usable gift box with a little bit of folding and a couple of snips. This is my first go at a sort of tutorial, so if the instructions aren't clear just let me know.

Go from:

To this:

Finally... A Crafting Day!

I have a serious thing for online crafty tutorials.  I've been eyeing this one for cushions from Sew Mama Sew for quite some time and decided today to give it a try.  I'm not finished yet, because I just had to make it more complicated by adding some quilting to it.  I thought, though, that I'd share the progress with you fine people.  Here is the top of one of three cushions.  I pieced the top out of some new and some vintage cottons and sort of quilted it to a piece of nice flannel to make it a little more durable.  They are 19" square and 4" deep.  They'll be floor cushions for the living room.  I'll be using the brown linen I used on my little houses pillows for the sides and bottom.

One of the things about this tutorial that just knocked my socks off is the part where she shows you how to magically make tons of bias tape out of a small square of fabric and then turn it into some super fab custom piping!  It's worth checking out just for that little gem.
Now, hopefully it will not be months and months before I can show you a cute stack of finished floor pillows!

Birthdays

We are up to our necks in birthdays around here!  Thursday was my birthday.  On the great birthday scale, I would rate the day as "eh.".  It had some great moments, like my Dad coming up to visit, Jason and Taylor singing me "Happy Birthday" in the morning, and the most delicious cake ever that I made for myself.  It is my very very very favorite cake... and it looks just like the picture.  (Or, it did before we devoured it!)  There was other stuff that made the day, well, not so stellar, but that's all water under the bridge now.  I went out for a little retail therapy yesterday and that really did make me feel better.  Besides finding a cute pair of jeans that fit On Sale, I found these super ridiculously cute shoes at Target (I heart Target!).

It is also Taylor's very best buddy's birthday tomorrow.  The kid freakin' loves to dress up!  So, I made him his very own super hero cape.  I used the tutorial found on puking pastilles.  I was a little unsure of the how to draw out that shape exactly, so I made one out of paper first.  It's really like making a giant bib that you wear backwards.  I made my own applique from felt and the fabric of the cape is costume nylon that has a satin finish.  I wanted to do satin, but that stuff is so ravel-y and this sucker is going to get put through its paces, I'm sure.  Since you can't use a hot iron on this stuff I just glued the applique to the cape with fabric glue and then stitched it down by hand with embroidery thread for a cool border.

Next stop for today is a bowling party for some kid in Taylor's class.