Wire Wrapped Upcycled Jar Vase

 This is what I made my mom for Mother's Day. Years ago I had torn from a catalog a picture of something similar . The photo was very small, so I couldn't really see the detail of how it was made and I think they were smaller. 
Well to make mine, I went out & got some glass beads (blue and clear) some 16 gauge blue craft wire (two 7 foot packs) and some silver wire from the hardware dept (it was cheaper than the craft wire, but will probably tarnish quicker). I had a neat jar from maple syrup that I was thinking of using, but it seemed a bit big. I then looked in the fridge & found an old jar of McCormick cocktail sauce that I don't even remember ever buying. I emptied it out (it's color was off) washed it out & then used some blue glass stain on it for color. 
I then slid a few beads onto the wire and started twisting the ends into curls and following the shape of the bottle. I wrapped more wire around the top & bottom of the bottle and looped the side pieces through them. At this point I got frustrated because the side pieces were just flopping from side to side. Obviously I didn't quite get the construction right. I used the silver wire strung with beads to attach the separate swirl pieces at the bottom and for additional decoration. To get the sides to stay in place I attached some more silver wire with beads & just wrapped it all around the two pieces to get them to stay in place. 
Now I'm just hoping that the weight the vase once a little water & flowers are put in won't cause it to come apart.

Last Minute Recycled Gift Bag

Finally a crafty post instead of a reconstruction one.

We got a last minute invitation to a birthday party for our friend's son. I managed to squeeze in some shopping time for a present, but when I looked through my stash, I had no wrapping paper or bags fit for a 6 year old. Most of my craft supplies, glues sticks, glues, etc. are all packed away in storage while we're doing our home renovation, so I couldn't make my usual upcycled gift bag. But if you save enough junk like I do, you can always find something usable. Another of my friends (who's received a few of my recycled calendar gift bags) now hands me down her calendars at the end of the year & I found one stashed in the bookshelf. I also had a Williams Senoma shopping bag. I just cut out 2 cute pages from the calendar & taped them on the bag. Since the sides of the bag said williams-senoma.com down them, I cut a strip of some used wrapping paper that said 'Happy Birthday' and taped over that too. Quick, easy & pretty cute to boot!

Featured on Saved By Love

A big Thank You goes out to Saved By Love Creations for featuring my Shag Pillow in their post on 50 Recycled T-shirt projects. It's really wonderful to be included with so many other incredible recycled projects. My favorite among them is the Pink Rosette Purse from Come Together Kids, but all of the projects are wonderful.This post has really upped my traffic, it's so wonderful that everyone is enjoying the pillow. Needless to say, they've been added to my blog roll, give them a visit.

New Flower Bobby Pin

A new flower bobby pin just listed at the Reformatory. I tried a little something different with this one. I put the flower at the open end of the bobby pin. That way if you are pulling back bangs or the front section of your hair, the flower is at the far end of the bobby pin. I like the way it looks, will be making more this way. This ones also eco friendly, all fabric is upcycled.

Miniature Rose Flower Ponytail Holders

I make loads of fabric flowers hair accessories but usually for adults. I recently started adding some for small girls, toddlers or babies. These are two rose buds, only about 1" in diameter and made of upcycled fabrics. The ponytail holders are the small elastics also about 1" diameter. Look for them and some tiny hair clips in my hair accessories section on Etsy.

Variations on Recycled Calendar Gift Bags

We recently had a family party to celebrate 4 birthday’s. I needed gift bags for most of the presents. If you’re a follower of my blog, you know that I enjoy recycling wall calendars into gift bags. Every year I buy beautiful art and photo calendars for my walls. For years I have saved them for the pictures, as I sorted through them last week I was surprised to see how ancient some of them were.

I am constantly trying different methods for constructing them, some have held up better than others. I’m hoping to put together a tutorial, but as I’m always throwing thing together at the last minute, I don’t have pictures to include and I’m sure they’d be needed. Here are the latest bags I put together. 

This was the simplest; I needed a bag strong enough to hold a big book so I covered a cardboard box using calendar pages and slices from a magazine page that matched the prints.

I also needed a bag for the shag pillow; it needed to be wide to fit the pillow. A paper grocery bag fit the task, just folded down the top to the right height and covered it with a cute dog calendar and a piece of used birthday wrapping paper. I used my decorative edged scissors to cut a strip to add on top of the calendar page as it wasn’t quite tall enough.

The last one was for a lightweight object, so I just used the calendar pages, calendars with pages the weight of cardstock work best for bags. The pages weren’t quite wide enough, so I pieced in some white glossy paper and covered it with a magazine page too. For this bag I constructed the bottom out of a cereal box. On all the bags I used some braided yarn for the handles.

Upcycled Jewelry for a Birthday Gift

I planned to make some earrings for my sister-in-law’s birthday, so it was time to rustle through my huge collection of beads and the old jewelry everyone passes down to me for upcycling. I came across some rectangular glass beads in purple that I put aside, and then I came across a necklace with assorted types of purple beads. I thought the leaf shaped beads were nice.
I removed the bar end of the clasp to get some of the leaf shaped beads and as I was removing them, I realized there were way more beads than I needed for just earrings and that I could just rearrange and shorten the necklace into a matching bracelet. It ended up as a lovely set and Joann was really thrilled with it.

I save plenty of old gift boxes, so I had a nice one for the jewelry. But being an avid recycler, I try not to buy new wrapping paper too often. Since I was already working on recycling old wall calendars into gift bags for other birthday gifts, I decided to just use a calendar page for gift wrap. I chose one that was a fairly lightweight paper with a pretty photo of a field of flowers and mountains in the background. So, if you’re ever in need of a small piece of gift wrap (even if you don’t horde old calendars for their pictures) you can always look through the months of your wall calendars that have already passed, it works great.

Shag Pillow

Shag Pillow, a photo by b-a-boop on Flickr.

Another handmade and upcycled present I recently made. I was inspired by a photo in a book of a denim rug I saw that was similar.

I began with two 14" squares for the front & back of the pillow, cut from a purple tee shirt.

I then cut 12" wide strips from some fleece remnants left over from a top made decades ago. I cut as many as possible from the odd shaped leftovers I had.

I roughly accordion folded the longest strip forming approximately 1" loops to estimate how wide it would end up and didn't think I had enough to cover the whole front. I then cut additional 12" strips from the purple tee shirt.

I started by centering the longest pink strip on one 14" square, leaving 1" of the purple hanging out on each side for the pillow seams. I then sewed a straight seam down the middle.

I folded over a 1" loop and sewed another seam about 1/4" from the first one. I repeated this until I didn't have enough fabric left for another loop.
Since it was knit fabric and going to be stuffed as a pillow, I just eyeballed the loops & seams, some were a bit crooked. If you wanted more precision you could measure & mark each fold & seam.

I then repeated looping the pink on the other half. I trimmed off the remainder of pink strip 1/4" away from the last seam.

I then overlapped a purple strip on top of the pink 1/2" and sewed over the same seam 1/4" from it's edge. Then I continued looping the purple in the same manner. After a few inches of purple loops, I trimmed it off and started another row of pink. As I was working with remnants, some small strips only made a few loops, so I patched pieces together as I had where the pink & purple meet.

I stopped the last loop about 1" from the edge and sewed the strip down to the square with a second seam to keep it from sticking out when sewing the pillow closed.
I thought it would be easier to leave it just with the loops before making it shaggy when sewing the pillow closed. I then placed the other 14" square face down on the loops and sewed the 1" seam around 3 sides of the pillow, sewing as close too the edges of the loops as possible.

I turned it right side out, stuffed in my pillow form & hand sewed the last edge closed.

Then it was time to make the shagging. I just took my scissors and cut the loops approximately every 1/2" (again just eyeballing it) and being careful not to cut completely down to the seams or to slice the base fabric.

And wallah! a cute shaggy pillow out of recycled materials.

Industrial Chic Necklace

I relisted my necklace made from a recycled auto part at my Etsy shop.

The curved piece in the middle is called a c-clip & I think it’s used mainly on the brakes, but you can find variations of these parts for other uses. I added some dangles made from agate stones and shells and put on some old vintage buttons with beaded centers, a gunmetal chain makes the length adjustable. My husband thinks it looks African.

Acorn Earrings

Acorn Earrings, a photo by b-a-boop on Flickr.

I threw these together just this morning. I got dressed, put on a necklace to match my top & then went to my big earring cabinet & found nothing that went. Then in a dish on the dresser I spotted 2 pairs of sterling silver earrings I picked up at an antique fair about a year ago. They were both screw back earrings & I had intended to convert them.

The acorns matched my top, so I just got to work. I had intended to nip the screw backs off at the screw and twist the piece into a loop to dangle them from, but the 1st one just snapped of immediately because it was just glued on. Perhaps a bad repair, cause the other one wouldn't pull off, so I just snipped it off  then hung them upside down with a jump ring. I wanted to add a bead & found an old necklace I could take a few off of. I just opened the loops on the ends to removed them & added them to the ear wires.

Nice to make something for myself now & then, especially when it comes together quickly instead of my usual hemming & hawing over which items to put together.

Upcycled Find of the Day

Today on etsy I found this lovely Hidden Treasures Vintage Boho Necklace from tomrass4. A beautiful shop with jewelry upcycled from vintage parts and a french inspiration. I particularly like the way she patinas some of the old metals. Lovely stuff in her shop.

Found Objects Coral Table

coral slab occasional table, a photo by BaubCat on Flickr.

My brother-in-law created this incredible coral table from discarded items he found. The broken slab of coral was perfect for the tabletop. He also removed the nice mid-century modern legs from a tossed-out table. He attached three of the four legs, thus enhancing the beautiful freeform edge of the slab. It looks beautiful in the natural setting of his patio. Chalk one up for another talented recycler.

Upcycled Tommy Hilfiger Laptop Case

I finally got around to making another recycled shirt & tie laptop case. I’d had the shirt & ties hanging around for a while, but I let other projects get in ahead of it. The wonderful Tommy Hilfiger shirt & 2 neckties were found in thrift stores. I also lined the bag with an upcycled sweatshirt. I was happy to find an Oleg Cassini button in my collection that matched perfectly for buttoning it  closed. If it doesn’t get snatched up at the Odd Duck Bazaar this Saturday, then it will get listed on Etsy next week.

Photography Related Upcycled Giftwrap

Today is my husbands birthday & in honor of his great talent in photography, I wrapped his presents in that theme. I created a gift bag by recycling two pages from an old Ansel Adams wall calendar. Inside I added two pillow boxes recycled from pages in a photography book. I think he was wishing each of those antique cameras were in the bag.

Schoolbook Tote Bag

This is the tote bag I made for my niece. She wanted one strong enough for her schoolbooks. Her favorite color is purple, so she chose the few pieces of fabric in my collection that had purple in them. I combined them with recycled jeans and lined it on the inside with remnants from a fleece sweatshirt I made myself many years ago. The handles were made from a thrifted belt. The one downside of using fabric samples and remnants is that I can’t make multiples of the items. I really really really liked this tote bag and had a hard time giving it up to her once it was done.

Latest Upcycled Handbag at the ReFORMatory

My newest handbag was made by upcycling a placemat I recently bought. I loved the colors in the print. I found a nice cotton quilt remnant from my mother-in-law’s stash that coordinated nicely. I incorporated it into the sides, handles & inside pockets. I also used a corduroy remnant for trim. Look for it on Etsy.

Earrings Upcycled into Pendants

I turned some old earrings into pendants. My friend gave me a big bag full of old jewelry she no longer wanted & I was inspired to turn some post earrings into pendants. I made the 1st one for her for her birthday, also incorporating some beads from other earrings in the bag. Then I made a second for my shop. The other 2 are still to come, don’t have enough of all the beads to repeat these two.

Upcycled Necklace formerly Earrings

Upcycling again. This one of a kind necklace began life as a lovely pair of earrings. The tiered gold oval earrings were dotted with smokey colored rhinestones, but didn’t strike me as particularly special as earrings. So when I laid them down slightly angled toward each other it inspired the necklace. I connected them with a small piece of gold chain adding some beaded dangles made of multi-colored iridescent glass beads. The same gold chain finishes the back of the necklace. Available on Etsy or Artfire.

Hairband with Buttons

I recently made this as a birthday gift for one of my dearest friends. 

Upcycled from used denim and old buttons, it took more time sorting through my overwhelmingly huge button collection and deciding which to use then it did to whip it up.

I Love Repurposing Things

I was thrift shopping last week and spotted a cute summer top, it was even 50% off, but it was too small for me. I was going to put it back, but was just in love with the print.  I also decide I liked the gathered straps and then decided it would make a cute shopping tote. So I brought it home, ripped out the seams and remade it. Look for it in my Etsy Shop. I hate plastic bags and I’m so into the  reuseables now, I keep 2 in my purse all the time and hope to make some more for my shop soon.