Makeover

Like always, I have been away from the blog for a very long time. Though crafts were happening in the background, I never got around to photographing or updating the posts here.

The last one month was a completely gloomy month (weather-wise) in Bangalore, owing to the Chennai rains and floods. It was always raining, drizzling, and cold. It was really hard to catch a sunny and warm day during those days. Now it is kind of back to normal with sunny, warm days.

Last week I managed to take some pictures in the evening light. So first up today, is an upcycle or makeover.

We have a red stool with metal legs. I do not know the age of it. I have been seeing it since I was a kid. It was bought by my parents when they were in the MiddleEast. When we moved to Bangalore, it came along. For the past few years it was not being used properly and was often neglected. There were some burn marks on the red leather and the metal leg had started to show signs of aging. For the past one year we never used it and it lay in the utility area.

Recently I was asked to give it away while clearing up the utility. But the sentimental side of me was not ready to. I had no clue what to do with it. Still I decided to keep it as it was still sturdy and chic looking.

This picture shows how sad looking it was.

I had a can of bronze spray paint from a previous project and decided to put it to use. I decided to give the stool a makeover.

First task was to find a fabric for the seat. I decided upon a dark/navy blue fabric. I do not have much knowledge on the fabric types but I can tell you that it is a heavy and at the same time breathable fabric. It has been lying around in my stash for the past few years. This is from my mom's collection.

Next task was to dismantle the stool and sand the legs. The legs were showing the signs of age in the form of imperfections formed on the metal surface due to the exposure to all bad weather conditions over the past few years.

Once it was sanded smooth, wiped with a soft damp cloth, and dried, it was time for the painting. We applied two coats and it dried pretty quicky. I was overjoyed with the finish.

Next I cut out the fabric and hand stitched it to the backside of the seat, pulling it taut.

Within very less time the project was completed.

I love how it looks now.

Now it rests by the bedside in the guest room. Happy to have given it a home. 

The Brown Skirt

Last Friday, was color day at my daughter's day care. And the color decided was brown. Brown!! I was thinking - Really?? I thought there would be some brown dress stashed in her cupboard, which probably was not being worn and was long forgotten. On Thursday, I pulled out all the dresses, but could not find one that was brown. Hubby said let's buy one or let's just forget it was Brown Day. Even I felt forgetting was better. I tried to forget it the whole day, it just didn't leave my mind. But I didn't want to buy one either. 

Thinking thinking thinking, I thought I should make something. But my sewing skills are bad. I pulled out the few old brown clothes we had. I could not decide what to make - a brown top? shirt dress? or what. I knew attempting any of these would need enough time to complete, which I didn't have. And it may not end up neat. I was worrying more than required.

Soon I thought - I can make an easy peasy skirt! Yes, I finalized on it. That was the easiest I could make in this short time. I browsed for some really simple, yet cute patterns. Summary of most of the patterns were - cloth twice the waist size and some wide elastic. I had both handy and started off.

Cut out the bottom portion of a brown kurta of mine. I really loved this but had not worn it for the past few years. So the fabric was ready.

Measured out the elastic and kept it ready.

Took out my sewing machine and started stitching. 

It really didn't take me much time. It was cute but too plain. And it was sleep time. So I thought let it be plain. 

Friday morning, my heart again wished that I add some cuteness to it. Before getting ready for office, I quickly pulled out my ribbons, decided on a very soft pink wide satin one, and stitched it to the skirt.

Let me show you the pic.

It may not be a perfect one. But it was quick, easy, and cute. And my daughter was also excited!

Something to make me happy again.

Unusable to Usable

Few weeks back I did a little bit of experimenting on jewellery making. Not 'making' to be exact, but I'll say 'modification'. I am not a too much accessories person. Though I love accessories, I am too lazy to change them often. So I stick to my usual regular ones often. But I have a few silver ones with me which I have not been using due to some practical difficulties. So I tried out making some changes to them to make them wearable for me.

First I took this anklet. This was a gift. I have never worn it for the past 2 years. And so I understood that I never would probably.

But I loved the black and silver beads on it. 

So I split it.

Made a small ring from a silver wire.


Added a small pendant which had been with me for almost 3 years now. 

And joined to make it a new necklace for me. 

The best part was that the length is accurate and I didn't have to make any changes to it.  

Next item, was another butterfly necklace. 

I love the butterflies on it.

But both the chain are in different lengths and are not too long either. So when wearing it, it keeps turning and twitching, which I was not comfortable with. And this had been in my box for the whole of last year. I decided to break it's curse.


Took out the butterflies from the chains.

Made the chains to equal lengths.


Added one butterfly to both the chains. And voila! A wearable new necklace for me.

I have kept the other butterfly apart. It may become useful sometime in future for some other project. :-)

In Progress

As always I have a few WIP projects now. You know, I can't stick to one project for long. I need to have a variety. So want to know what all I am working on now?

My larksfoot project is progressing pretty good. I am really liking the look though it is a bit dull.

Remember the set of yarns I showed you some time back? I have started a ripple out of it.

This is something entirely new. Inspired from a project which I will share later. For now, I have some knit scraps.

And a blue mesh sheet. 

 Will post updated pictures.

More Paper Circles

After the Paper Mobile Project, I wanted more of it. So I gathered all the empty milk covers I had been collected over the past few weeks, traced out circles, and began cutting and cutting and cutting. Almost an hour later I had piles of cutout paper circles. I rushed to the sewing machine with the circles and started sewing them together. And then after half an hour I had a looooong string of paper circles.

So what do I do now. I measure, cut, paste, and hang!

Ta-daaah!

Yes, a paper circles curtain.

I was so thrilled throughout the project.

It is more than a week since I completed this project. But still my heart leaps with joy when the circle rotate in the wind.

Cute little Envelopes

Recently when I was in office, I had to make an envelope to put in some delicate stuff. I made the envelope in about 5 minutes from printer paper and stapler pins. Since it was too quick and easy, I felt I should just mention it out on the blog though there might be a lot better envelope ideas out there on the Internet.

Step 1. Gather any paper of your choice to make the envelope (I had some papers remaining from my Paper Mobile project. These were colorful and gave me pleasure at the thought of being able to recycle them.)


Any size would be fine - rectangle or square. As you can see in the picture, the papers are of varying sizes. Towards the end you can see the sizes of the envelopes also, so that you get an idea of the size to be used for your project.

Step 2. Make a fold from one side as shown. It should be a little more than 1/3rd and little less than half of the length of the paper. Let us call this as First Flap.

Step 3. Now fold in the other flap. The newly folded flap overlaps the older flap. Let us call this the Second Flap.


The other side looks like this now.


Step 4. Draw a thin line on the Second flap.


Make sure that the line is well before the edge of the First flap.


Step 5. Cut along the line and let the center portion remain as shown in the picture. The uncut portion will serve as an insert to keep the envelope flap in place. Let us call the uncut portion as the Insert.


Step 6. Now press the Second flap against the First flap and mark the corners of the Insert.


Step 7. Open the flaps and make a cut within the marks on the First flap as shown.


To make the cut you can use a retractable safety blade. You can alternatively use a pin also. Make holes very close to each other using the pin along line you want to cut and then move the pin horizontally to tear along the perforation. Or you can even use a ruler and draw on the line using the pin back and forth. A neat cut will appear after a few drawings.

Step 8. Now fold the First flap back in place and staple along the edges. Alternatively, you can also use gum/glue, tapes, or even sew along the edges.


Step 9. Fold the Second flap and slide the Insert into the cut made at Step 7.


Your envelope is now ready! Put in whatever you want - your bills, earrings, hair clips, pins, and any knick-knacks.

You can also sneak in love-notes for your beloved ones.


And make labels for the envelopes. Love the colorful splash of envelopes I have now.

Organizing!

Organizing is something I love to do. But what makes me sad is that it doesn't stay organized for long! :-( With people like hubby and me, who throw around things, how can I expect my home to be on order. Well, but every other day I would be organizing something or the other.

Since marriage, hubby's socks were a problem. After the laundering, socks are always subjected to get lost, especially when I am a person who keeps on pushing the task of folding the clothes. So I started keeping the socks in a separate box soon after drying out the clothes. Things looked okay for a while.

But we needed further simplification. When almost all your socks pairs are of the similar colors, you usually end up wearing the wrong pairs :-) So I had to come up with a better idea of organizing. After many days of thinking, I finally figured it out.

A cardboard box with compartments in it. I had seen the pretty versions of these in malls earlier. So why not come up with a simpler one on a trial basis. Yes, I was on my heels in no time.

Found an empty box, cut out some cardboard pieces to act as the separators, and glued them in place. When done, it looked like this.




>And when I folded and put in the rightly paired socks into the compartments, they looked like this. Neat!





Well, it was so easy and quick. I intend to do a bigger, better, and neater version of this soon. Will keep you posted.

Circles and circles

I have been doing some paper crafts lately. Reason - its easy and you get to see the end result quickly.

I wanted to replace my butterfly mobile with something new. I had some colorful brochures (from our home hunting last year) lying around. I picked those up and started cutting out circles in two sizes. For tracing the circle I chose a glass and a lid, in different sizes. I was so busy in the tracing and cutting that I forgot to take in-progress pictures.

Finally when all the circles were cut out, I laid the smaller ones on top of the bigger circles. Also tried to make them look as contrasting as possible. Once the pattern was set, I put my dear sewing machine to use - sewed all of them together.

And finally hung it on an empty wall near the kitchen.

What I love about this mobile is that when we switch on the fan in our living room, the circles start to twist and turn showing the colors.

I completed the project on Sunday evening and could not wait till the weekend to capture pictures of it at day time. So I clicked the pictures in the dim light itself.

I actually wanted to give the title to this post as 'New Paper Mobile' but then thought people might start thinking of it as a new mobile technology or gadget.

Something Floral

Ever since I started browsing through the creative blogs online, I have been fascinated by the pin cushions. I love the creativity and amount of detail people put into it. I started realizing the need of a pin cushion when I started blocking out my crochet stuff. Then finally when I started stitching, I found it very difficult to proceed without one. And that is how my first ever pin cushion was created.

Remember these flowers?

These are from my flower hanging project. After the project, two of these flowers were left over. And like the other flowers for the project I had stuffed it up with cotton and had the puffy look.

And then it occurred to me - why not use it as a pin cushion. And from that moment onwards, it is full of pins :-)

What I love the most of this crochet pin cushion is that how much ever pin pricks it makes, it doesn't leave any marks on it. The cloth pin cushions get a worn out look after using it for some time.

While I was away for a month...

Whoa! It's real long since I blogged anything here. But I have been doing things all along. I didn't click any pics and kept postponing it. That is the sole reason why I have not been blogging anything till now. Even now I haven't clicked any pics. Thought I'll just update you guys on what all I have done till now.

I made a big crochet granny square. The colours are maroon and green. It looks like an accessory for Christmas. Well, I made it atleast a month back and it now is in place for where it was created - on my fridge. I'll click a pic and post it soooooon!

Next were my experiments with my lovely sewing machine. So pathetic of me that I have not clicked a pic of my sewing machine yet. Anyways, the first few days I used it to learn and refresh my sewing lessons. Straight lines, curves, zig zags, and on it went for a few days. Then I sewed up a hand clutch. Yes, I did it! Though not a perfect one, I just loved it.

Then I sewed and sewed and tried to learn stitching necks for dresses. It took me a while to learn it. And once I learnt it, I jumped on to a kurta project, for me. I cut an old big dupatta and within a few hours, my first kurta was ready :-) It is not fit to be worn out because it is a bit crumply at places owing to the nature of the cloth material. But yes, I am wearing it at home :-)

Later I had the courage to create a kurta from a lovely FabIndia cotton dupatta I had for some time now. It did not take me long to finish it and the end result was really pretty. And I wore it out as well. Few said it was nice, though nobody knew I had stitched it ;-) I was thrilled with the result.

After the success of the FabIndia dupatta-kurta, I have now another on In Progress. It is a lovely orange shaded fabric. Only the neck needs to be completed and a little bit of shaping up. Then the kurta will be done!

On the crochet space, I did have some green, yellow, and off-white yarn left from this project. I started making granny squares out of it to make a small throw for the winter coming up. But I am out of yarn now. So I have gone back to my old Big Pink Blanket again. I completed 3 more rows of shell stitched on it yesterday. It is almost over 2 years since I started on the project. I don't know how many more months or years I'll take to finish it. Being a long item, it is a bit difficult to sit on the chair and sew. Let's see how it goes.

Framing

This is the first time I attempted a framing project. Almost all walls in the house we stay at are empty. We haven't hung up anything or put any pictures. All are dull yellow painted walls. So we decided to print out some pictures of ours and hang them up. So the prints were ready. Now the question was how to frame and put them up on the wall. Putting the frames on the wall meant drilling, nails, hammering, chipping paint, and such stuff. So we came up with this DIY idea - to make frames out of used cardboard boxes.

I pulled out the boxes we used while shifting, started the measuring and cutting. Meanwhile hubby bought the papers for the framing. It took me around 5 days (only my spare time in the evenings) to measure, cut, stick, and let dry those 11 pictures. Sunday evening, we spread out the pictures on the floor and tried the layout. After few crazy layouts, we decided on the final design. And by late in the evening, the photos were finally up on the wall! Phew! That was a lot of work.

Now time for some photos... Kindly excuse the poor quality of the photos. I couldn't wait until enough light was there to take the pictures. Was way too excited.

That's how the wall looks now.

See how pretty my butterfly mobile looks.

I loved the texture of this brown paper.

Only when you look from so close do you realize that these are simple cardboard cut-outs.

Things I learnt from this project:

• One needs lot of patience to complete such a project.


• Always attempt this craft only in a spare room; never in your living room or bedroom. It leaves behind a lot of mess, which you wouldn't be interested in cleaning up ;-)


• Your hands will be all guey and sticky.


• You need some ones help to arrange and stick up everything on the wall in straight line without putting any marks on the wall.

Altogether I loved and enjoyed this project a lot.