Think Crafts Blog - Craft Ideas and Projects - CreateForLess

By Kid’s Craft Contributor, Gillian from the blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

Although the weather outside is cold and gray, inside I seem to have nothing but spring on my mind these days. And with our front door bare of its Christmas wreath, it seemed like a good time to welcome spring, even if it’s a little early, with a bright and cheerful wreath.

I started out wanting to make a paper flower wreath but with the inevitable rains and snows (eek!) of late winter and early spring, that didn’t seem like a great idea. What I needed was plastic. But where oh where could I find thin white plastic?

About this time I was pouring my kids a glass of milk. From a white plastic jug.

Light dawned.

The fridge and recycling bin were literally full, overflowing almost, with thin white plastic tubs, jugs and cartons. Which meant that not only could I make the wreath I had in mind, it would also be practically free!

Here’s what you need:

A Variety of milk jugs, yogurt containers and other white plastic items from the recycling bin. You’ll need more than you think so gather quite a few (hint: organic milk often comes in white milk jugs while non organic is more clear, a mix is fine but you do want more of the solid white variety)

Circular objects of different sizes to trace (cups, bows and lids work well, you want about 5 or more different sizes)

Permanent Marker

Hot glue gun and sticks

A dozen pretty buttons and/or sticky backed rhinestones in a variety of sizes

1 flat wreath form

10 inches of ribbon

Kitchen shears or other sharp scissors

Rinse all the containers in soapy water and allow to dry. Using kitchen shears, cut the tops and bottoms off the jugs and the bottoms off of any tubs, then cut a slit down the length of the remaining tube or square. You should now have roughly rectangular pieces of flat plastic. It they are curling too much, run them under hot water and lay them flat under something heavy for a little while to help them relax.

Trace circles all over the plastic, squeezing as many in as possible. Make sure the different types of plastic have different sizes of circles on them. Labels can either be soaked off or taken into account when cutting the flowers. I left mine on to add extra patterns to the flowers since from the back they just see white.

Time to start cutting flowers! Start by cutting out the circles and then cutting almost to the center at the top, bottom and two sides so you have four even sections.

From there you can continue cutting until you have the number of petals you want. You can also remove wedges at the four points (or more) to make more widely spaced petals, cut a wavy edge or free hand small round petals.

Once you have all your circles cut into flower shapes, start layering them into flowers. Experiment a little with different combinations until you are satisfied and then glue the flowers together, finishing them off with a button or rhinestone. Be sure to leave a few flower pieces unlayered to help form a base layer on the wreath form.

Set your finished flowers around the form to decide on the layout of the wreath. Mark the spot where the top will be and where any gaps are between the flowers. Set the flowers aside and attach the leftover flower pieces to the spots where there were gaps and the ribbon (measure how long you will need in for your front door) at the top. Now you can glue the flowers onto the form to finish the wreath.

Since the wreath isn’t really even specifically spring like, it’s a great all purpose wreath for the whole year. But I find myself happily thinking of spring every time I see the bright white flowers festooning my front door. What about you? What crafty ways are you getting ready for spring?

By Recycled Crafts Contributor, Anitra from the blog “Coffee Pot People”.

Okay, admit it. You were so sure there’d be a way to use those spiffy metal tins you used to get in the mail from AOL, the ones that held a CD, that you saved every one of them. Do you still have them? Because I fnally found a way to use mine, and I’m so excited about it that I’m going to show you what I did!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• CD tin
• Gesso
• Fabric
• Cut outs from old magazines
• Alphabet stickers, or the word “Recipe” cut from a magazine or book
• Small adornments–lace, buttons, string, etc.
• Glue
• Every pair of scissors you own (Just kidding, but you’ll be cutting paper and cloth a variety of ways.)
• Sheet of paper or plastic for template

First, protect your work surface, then paint your tin on all sides with the Gesso. You don’t need to paint the inside.

Let that dry. If you have a second tin you haven’t painted, you can go ahead and trace around it to make a template/pattern. (Or you could do this step before doing the painting.) There’s a bit of a bead around the rim of the tin where the top goes over the bottom, so be sure you don’t use that edge to draw around, or your pattern will be too big.

Choose the fabric you’re going to use for the background, if you haven’t already, and lightly trace around you pattern. (Placement is easier if you’ve used something transparent for the pattern–the lid from a take-out box works well, or a sheet protector.) Use pinking shears to cut fabric out.

You could glue the fabric to your tin now, or do what I did, which was to cut an identical piece from an old book and sew all the way around. I find it’s easier to glue the paper down flat than fabric, to tell the truth, but I also liked the look of the stitching.

Now the real fun begins. Go through your old magazines and/or cookbooks, and find images and slogans you like. If you can’t bear to cut the actual book, you can make copies to use.

Arrange the pictures and words you’ve found on the fabric-covered tin lid. Leave room for “Recipes” if you want to include that. Glue everything down securely.

Last, use your paper pattern to cut a piece for the back of the tin from the index of an old cookbook.

Put recipe cards inside to finish. I made my own, but store-bought works just fine.

These are like potato chips for me. I just can’t stop, and I’m thanking my lucky stars these are no-calorie treats!

By Recycled Crafts Contributor, Anitra from the blog “Coffee Pot People”.

Have you noticed how popular cuffs are these days? It seems as though you see them everywhere. There’s a lot to like about them–a fun new fashion to try, the way a wide band can disguise a rather knobby wrist (mine), and the fact that men and boys are wearing them, because it gives us another gift option for the guys.

I decided to try making some, using recycled belts. This is what you’ll need if you decide to try it yourself:

• A belt with at least two rows of grommets down its length
• Electrical wire (Note: The toaster doesn’t have enough. Old computers are a good source.)
• Cord end findings (I’m using the spring type, but other styles would work as well.)
• A few links of chain
• A 1/2″ to 3/4″ lobster clasp
• Pliers and wire cutters

First cut a length of belt about 5″ long, with an odd number of grommet pairs. Five pair is good.

Now cut two pieces of wire, each a couple of inches longer than twice the length of the belt piece. Fold each piece gently into a “U” shape, and thread the ends through the first pair of grommets, from the underside of the cuff to the top:

Lace the ends of the wire down the length of the cuff, criss-crossing on top, going straight from hole to hole on the bottom:

Take the other piece of wire and do exactly the same thing, but start from the other end. You can use two colors of wire, as shown below, or a single color:

Slide a cord end on each end. If your cord ends are large enough, you can put both wire ends through one; otherwise, slide one on each of the four wire ends. You can join them together with the chain links.

Cut the wires off so they don’t show, and don’t get in the way of the open coil on the end, and then use your pliers to mash the last coil on the end nearest the cuff to clamp the cord end on. Give it a good tug to make sure you’ve clamped it tight enough, and if it slips, mash it a bit more.

Open up one link of your chain, and slip on the lobster clasp and cord end loop.

Use three to five links of chain for the other end of the cuff, and attach as you did the lobster clasp.

Some finished cuffs:

By Recycled Crafts Contributor, Anitra from the blog “Coffee Pot People”.

If I were to make a list of Favorite Things, “Books” would be right up at the top, and angling for position right next to that would be “Crafting”, especially using found/recycled materials. Imagine my delight then, just reading the title, The Big Green Book of Recycled Crafts.

And then I opened the book….oooh.

Flowers from pop cans

The book is divided into six sections: Plastic, Paper, Glass, Cans, Textiles, and Throwaways. That is, by the way, all the Table of Contents tells you, along with the page numbers that begin each section. It’s all right, though; you are going to want to leaf through page by page anyway. Be sure to have a stack of bookmarks handy for all the projects you’ll want to do!

Pumpkins from dryer vent hoses

Each project has it’s own page, sometimes two, with a photograph, materials list, and very clear instructions, with copious illustrations and photos where mere words might not suffice. Sprinkled throughout the book are extra tips, and at the end of the book are full-sized patterns.

Who doesn't have a bunch of CD cases lying around?

This is a book I’m going to use a lot. I found myself thinking, That would really be fun for the Crafting Week with Mama! or Wouldn’t that make a great gift for the grandkids! There were projects I wanted to make as gifts, projects I wanted to make for myself, ideas I wanted to share with various relatives, and ideas that sparked the creative brain waves for new projects of my own.

My prediction: This is a book that will garner a lot of fans.

An elegant throw from recycled sweaters

Blog Contributor, Crafty Mom and Writer, Gillian, from the Blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

When my son went off to school for the first time two years ago, I encountered the whole “lunch packing” thing for the first time as a mom. Aside from the all important cool snacks vs healthy snacks dilemma, I was also concerned about the sheer volume of plastic bags I was set to go through in a single school year. Since I am a) as cheap as they come and b) a sewer, I decided to make a few cloth wraps and bags to hold my sons food though the year, no baggies required. Fast forward two years and one environmental movement that has finally reached the masses and lunch wraps are everywhere these days.

While there are a variety of choices out there from metal tins to canvas wraps, I still prefer to make my own, largely because my son have very specific requests regarding what they look like. Last year it HAD to be dinosaurs but this year they just wouldn’t do, space was the theme of the day (or hopefully the year!) While buying them break the bank (and in fact, you’ll save a bundle over the span of a year from not buying baggies) they are even cheaper to make and can be done in a short afternoon sewing session.

In order to make two sandwich wraps and two snack packets you will need 1/2 yard of fabric, anything non stretch would work but I have found that quilting fabrics are a fun, economical option. 1/2 yard of mid-weight clear vinyl, a package of stick on Velcro and optionally four buttons and some elastic cording.

For the sandwich wraps cut two 12 inch squares out of each of the vinyl and the fabric, out of the remaining materials you should be able to get two six inch square for the snack packs.

With the vinyl on the wrong side of the fabric sew around the edge leaving a half inch seam allowance and a two inch opening for turning. Trim the seams to 1/4 inch, leaving the area around the hold at 1/2. Iron with the fabric side up on your lowest setting to assure sharp edges before topstitching around the edges to close the hole and to help keep the shape during repeated use.

From here, the sandwich wrap can be completed in two ways. The best way to determine where your fasteners need to be is to try it out with some slices of bread. Particularly if you use the same bread week after week, this way the wrappers suit your needs specifically. The first style of closure has the bread sitting in the center of the wrap with the points up and to the sides (so it looks like a diamond) Fold in the sides over the bread and then the top and bottom over the sides to close the wrapper. Mark where the top hits the bottom and stick a Velcro tab or dot in the correct location. For this style I also added a second piece of Velcro two inches closer to the point. This allows for larger or even multiple sandwiches to be packed in the same wrap.

The other option (actually there are many styles, but these are the two I prefer) has the wrap on the table like a square with the sandwich in the middle. Fold the sides in to make a rectangle then the bottom up and the top down marking a spot on each where you will sew a button. Before you stitch the top button on, add a two inch loop of elastic cording that will stretch around both buttons. This style also allows for larger or multiple sandwiches as the elastic make is very adjustable to shape.

The snack pack closes much like the first wrapper with the addition of Velcro on the sides as well as the top and bottom. THis creates a much more secure closure for loose snacks. Again, the best way to determine where your Velcro needs to be is to throw in a handful of snacks and stick a Velcro tab in the best spot.

Once you’ve determineed the positioning of the Velcro, stitch them in place with either parallel lines of stitching or an “x” across the tab.

And as a side note, BPA free vinyl is available to order online, however, these are easily cleaned with a quick wipe down so they don’t really get heated up, which is where the concern with BPA comes from. I have used the BPA free which allows you to just throw the wrap in the washing machine when it needs cleaning but found that I rarely needed to wash the whole wrap.

The average elementary school student produces about 100 pounds of waste per year and while certainly much of this is the food our kids throw out, baggies account for a good deal of that as well. If you replace two bags a day with reusable wraps you’ll save about 400 baggies from going into the landfill each school year!

Click here to read more of Gillian’s blog.

Blog Contributor, Crafty Mom and Writer, Gillian, from the Blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

We eat a lot of eggs in our house. This is in part because we are lucky enough to share eight beautiful hens with our neighbors so there are always plenty of fresh eggs just a few steps from our door. But even before we had hens, we were big egg eaters. Our most popular egg meal is probably Egg Soldiers. It’s something I grew up eating on a regular basis and I’ve never met a kid who didn’t love it. It’s pretty basic, soft boil an egg, tap off the top to reveal the runny yolk, cut a slice of buttered toast into thin strips (soldiers) for dipping. My kids devour it, scraping every last drop of egg out of the shell, which leaves me with a lot of stripped clean egg shells.

Now admittedly I throw most of them in the compost heap. Even I’m not crafty enough to think of a use for half a dozen empty egg shells each week, but every once in a while we use them for some kind of craft. A few weeks ago, the kids were eating a pair of particularly pretty brown eggs and I just couldn’t bring myself to toss them in with old orange peels and last night’s dinner scraps so instead, we decided to make a couple of mini planters out of them.

Our Egg Planters

I read somewhere recently that nothing brings out your inner kindergartener like a sprouting seed. I think that’s absolutely true. When I was a teacher we used to sprout Lima beans in wet paper towels and I think I peeked more often than the kids. It’s just one of those miraculous things that never get old. For this seed sprouting experiment we dug out some of last spring’s left over seeds that were both quick germinating and pretty, radishes and chives.

But before we could get planting, we had to get decorating! Because an egg planter isn’t and egg planter without a little something added to the mix!

Pick out your decorations

First, we needed something for our little guys to set in. Egg cups were the obvious, and we certainly have a bunch of those lying around, but they didn’t seem very fun. Instead we turned a couple of bottle lids into mini egg cups by hot gluing a scrap of ribbon around the edge. Next we glued buttons on for eyes, noses and a mouth (my sons has no mouth, it’s a robot egg, and apparently robot eggs don’t need mouths). With that done, it was time to plant.

It's takes a lot of concentration to glue decorations on an empty egg shell!

We packed some potting soil into the egg shell, sprinkled on the seeds and then it was time to wait. The trick here is to give them just enough water, since there is no drain hole you don’t want to flood the egg, but you also don’t want the seeds to dry out. After a few weeks, the seeds begin to sprout, making fun tufts of hair for your egg planter men.

The kids love them and are lobbying for a transfer from kitchen window sill to the playroom and while I’d love to oblige , I don’t think I can give up having those happy little egg faces smiling at me while I do the dishes each day. Good thing we’re having eggs again this afternoon!

 Click here to read more of Gillian’s blog.

Recycled Sweater Vest Bag

I love felting wool sweaters and making them into stuff.  I’ve made tote bags, purses and patchwork blankets and jackets. Here’s a quick project that you can make out of a man’s sweater vest in about an hour!  One of the neat things about felting your own wool is that you can control the density of the fabric by the amount of time it spends in the hot wash cycle.  For this project, you want dense, substantial felted wool. 

I used the “Whitest White” setting on my washing machine (about 60 min.)   After a quick trip in the dryer, my sweater was the perfect weight to make an unlined bag.  It’s important to start with the largest sweater you can find, because they shrink A LOT.  My size large sweater shrunk to a small child size!

Here’s what you’ll need

•  A wool sweater vest (I like lambswool or merino wool)
•  A pair of sharp scissors
•  Rotary cutter
•  Small square ruler (I like Creative Grids because they don’t slip)
•  YLI Jean Stitch Thread (or other heavy weight topstitching thread)
•  All purpose thread to match fabric
•  Sewing machine
•  4 decorative buttons

Step 1

Start by cutting off the binding around the neckline - I save all this stuff for some future project that might need a little black edging.

Step 2

Using chalk, draw an enlarged neck opening that is squared off at the bottom.  The bottom edge of the opening should be level with the bottom of the armholes.  With the sweater laying flat on a cutting board, cut along the chalk line through both layers.  -The opening, together with the armholes, form the handle of the bag.

Step 3

Lay sweater flat, with the side seams centered.  The side seams are now the center front and back of the bag.

Step 4

Create a box bottom. Using a small square ruler draw a 2 ½” square in each lower corner.

Step 5

Cut the squares out.  Pin the bottom edges together. 

Sew bottom edges using a ½” seam allowance.  Press seam allowance open and use a triple zig-zag to topstitch over the seam.  This will reinforce the bottom of the bag and hold the seam allowances open.

Step 6

The stitching sinks into the nap of the felted wool to make it virtually invisible.

“Pinch” the square opening closed so that the bottom seam is centered.  Sew across the diagonal opening using a ½” seam allowance. Press seam allowances open and topstitch like you did the bottom seam.

Step 7

Define the bottom of the bag by folding the bag and topstitching between the seams sewn in step 7.  Using chalk, draw a line across the front and back of the bag connecting the ends of the seam created in step 7.  Fold along the line and topstitch 1/8″ away from the fold.  The fold is the very base of the bag and the fabric between the two folds forms the bottom of the bag.

Step 8

Give the bag a unique shape.  Form a box pleat centered on both sides of the bag between the armhole openings. The width of the pleat should be about 1 ½” and take up all the space between the armholes. The pleats should be facing inside the bag.  Use Jean Stitch or other heavy topstitching thread to hand sew the pleat in place.  I whip stitched over the top edge.  Sew a decorative button at the center of the pleat.

Step 9

To finish the shaping of the bag, form a smaller pleat at the center front and back of the bag.

Step 10

Whip stitch the pleat in place.  Add a decorative button to the center front and back. 

Finished!

Click here to read more of Jennifer’s Blog.