Finding Craft Inspiration

Do you have a favorite store, a place you go to look around seeking inspiration? I have a few places I visit to encourage new ideas. One of my favorite places is Anthropologie. They always have something beautiful and frothy, I love the composition that goes into their fancy embroidered skirts and dresses. I’ve seen some beautiful sweaters, jewelry, shoes, and handbags as I’ve wandered the aisles. I walk through the store and come away with ideas and a strong desire to make a new stop at a thrift store to try and concoct my own treasures.

Another favorite place of mine is the fabric store. I get a high from just looking at all those beautiful fabrics. We are very lucky to be in the Virginia area right now where the nearest fabric store is G Street Fabric. They seem to specialize in designer fabric and some of their evening wear silks and fancy embroidered fabrics are just amazing. Inside I still get lost in the idea of wearing barbie type clothing – completely impractical and suitable only for an Amazons – but so very, very pretty.

Online I like to go to a few sites when I want some new ideas for things to do, or just to see beautiful colors. I think it’s a great idea to see someone elses’ work and put your own spin on it. If you’re on the lookout for some pretty things to enjoy, have a little tour through the following links:

Sally Jean Alexander
Anahata Katkin
Anthropologie
Teesha Moore

I hope you took a look at at least a few of them, if not now maybe when you feel like you need a little inspiration.

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Tarnished Bracelets

I had a little fun at the thrift store the other day, I bought a few cheap little necklaces and broke them down for the raw materials.  I made up a couple of little tarnished charm bracelets with the pieces and a few other little bits and pieces.

Using the chains as a basis for the charm bracelet I added some of the upholstery charms, a couple of mother of pearl buttons, and some of the fun little metallic beads from a really bad graduated bead necklace.  I like the tarnished look, it would work well for an everyday piece of jewelry.

One of the best things about this project, the cost of the necklaces was a few bucks, not nearly what it would have cost to purchase materials from the craft store…

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Another Recycled Scrap Quilt

I finished up a couple more of my little scrap recycling quilts yesterday. These have been really fun – I’m enjoying them so much I want to do more.

I look through my scrap box and see what they remind me of. The little tree quilt was left over triangles from a bird ornament.  Next time you cut out something, save the scraps, you might find that a little scrappy quilt is in your future.

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Wild and Crazy Catalog Recycling – Christmas Wreath

So the other day I was walking with my daughter past some of our neighbor’s doors, and she is very focused on the displays of Christmas going on around us. She loves the doors with the beautiful wreaths on them and my neighbors do have some very pretty things up on the doors – very welcoming etc. Well the other day sans babies I went on a little trip to stock up on some necessities and found myself wandering the Christmas aisles looking for something bright and cheery to put on our own door. I saw some beautiful things, I saw some things that were very tempting and would have made me very popular with my daughter. They would also cost me way more than I am ready to spend…

So here is my funny little photo documentary of what I put on our door… one day my daughter will be old enough to do the ‘Oh mommmy…. (sigh of exasperation)’ but she isn’t yet – so she still thinks I’m way cool. I am cool – in a really weird and ‘special’ way. Enjoy – and if you happen to wander by my door give us a knock…

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Recycled Upholstery Fabric Flowers

I’m trying something new, you’ll have to tell me what you think. I found a bunch of upholstery fabric swatches and am converting them to flowers. I combined these poppies with some lace trim from a grab bag at the thrift store, and some black lining from one of the tweed jackets I cut up for the Recycled Christmas Ornaments. I used some wire – which I have to admit I didn’t get from a recycled source – I thought about using hangers, but really didn’t want anything that clunky…

Recycled Fabric Flowers, All Recycled Materials.

I’m thinking that this will be a full time project over the weekend, I’m getting ready to use some advertising space I bought on the 10th in Etsy, look for me on the showcase pages…

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Cutting Down T-shirt, creating Amigurumi

I found a really great orange t-shirt at the thrift store during my last trip and thought it would be fun to do a Before and After kind of thing. So the following is a recycled t-shirt transformation. I cut the shirt into ribbons and then crochet them into a cute little octopus. I love recycling something that yeah – had a great color but wasn’t all that cool , into something I love, love, love. Next time you are looking to recycle old clothing, or you want a cheap little craft – try your hand at a little recycling craft.

Here is my sweet little baby giving the original t-shirt a little love, yeah I don’t think you can call it recycling if you just turn the shirt over to the baby as a chew toy.

This is after sitting down with the fam and doing a little crochet as we watched a movie. I put the eyes together this morning with a little felt, embroidery floss and a couple of antique m-o-p buttons.

T-shirt makeover – guaranteed customer happiness…

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New Projects

So, I went out Thrifting today and I found a few t-shirts to work with, a few wool sweaters and a great dress. I was really surprised by the cost of a t-shirt here in the DC area, I pay only half the price when I am home in Colorado and trying to make new t-shirt crafts. So – I was thinking the next time I need raw materials I should offer to buy my friends and neighbors old, worn t-shirts – maybe I could put a sign up in the building. So my question for you is should I offer to pay 99cents or just tell people I’d like their old clothing to recycle it? What do you think about 99 cents?

Most of the time I have plenty of raw material but here in DC we are in temporary housing etc and I only have half of my ‘toys’ (serger, colored threads etc). I have already been through all of my husbands, daughters and my own clothing looking for things that we need to declare garbage – and available for recycling crafts.

-wink- I’m trying to refrain from stealing and cutting down some of my husbands jerseys… but that’s another blog all together.

I love to come up with new recycling ideas for t-shirts, the weave is great and does some really fun texture if you cut it into the strips. I’ve started working on a few more recycled Christmas ornaments, this time the base is made from newspaper or old phone book paper wrapped with recycled t-shirt ribbons. I’m trying to embroider fun little sayings on them to finish them and tack down all the t-shirt ribbon.

Back to the thrifting – tonight I also found an old handmade dress of this great polyester brocade that I am going to love turning into an evening bag… we’ll let you know how that goes.

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Junk Mail – Recycling craft ideas

If you’re like me you get a dozen different catalogs and pieces of junk mail each week. These catalogs come from all kinds of sources and are so difficult to stop. I could go on at length about how disappointing the practice is but I’m guessing you know, and there are other bloggers out there filling that niche. So – how about an idea for a homemade craft to recycle the junk for yourself?

Recycling craft ideas – photo of recycled envelopes.

Click here Recycling idea, Junk Mail Envelopes for a free pattern and some simple instructions for the Recycled Craft – Junk Mail Envelopes.

I was planning to use this recycling idea for my Christmas cards this year, you can use the free pattern as it prints or scale it up or down to fit your Christmas cards, gift notes, etc.

Enjoy!

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Gingersnaps and Hand Made Christmas Ornaments

I’ve been working with a lot of felted wool lately. I keep a couple of boxes of old clothing especially for recycling projects and when I can get a great wool sweater at the thrift store for 99 cents I pick them up. After finishing off the bird ornaments I’ve been toying with the idea of a few wool ornaments for my Etsy site. A couple of weeks ago I ran a load of wash and deliberatly shrunk a few wool sweaters to use for recycling projects.

For these ornaments I’ve used recycled materials again, this time it’s old wool sweaters, stuffed with packing paper I saved from our last move.

After our last move I kept the paper because it made such good scratch paper for my daughter when we packed up from Bogota. I didn’t realize I’d find my own uses for it as well, I balled it up to create the foundations for the ornaments.

The embellishments are old Christmas trims picked up at garage sales- thanks for the donation Aunt Julie! I love the old foil paper medallion sewn to the bottom of the light blue ornament. The buttons are antique mother of pearl. I like the idea of recycled wool on a Christmas tree, very reminiscent of walking around in the snow or enjoying the first run down the slope.

It’s a great time to cook a few gingersnaps, just to make the house smell like the holidays. Have a great Thanksgiving!

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Recycling Cardboard, Green Ideas for Childrens Toys

The other day I came across this great idea for recycling cardboard. This artist created a cardboard oven and range for her daughter. I have an enthusiastic 3 year old who is waiting anxiously for the results of her own mommy’s attempt to replicate this great idea. We just moved from overseas and I had 3 large triple strength boxes waiting for a purpose.

Amazing, wonderful green idea, a great use for old cardboard boxes. The creator of this idea is Forty-Two Roads is selling the plans on Etsy, click the link if you are interested. Now all I need to do is come up with a cardboard refrigerator and mixer. My daughter saw a popular store’s catalog and a refrigerator and mixer are vital to her sucess, so she assures me. I’ll let you know how that goes… ha ha ha.

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