Sigford opted to make jewelry and accessories not only because it felt like a natural fit for the materials at hand, but because she saw a fundamental flaw in the mass-produced accessories you’d typically find at the big box store: Those durable components make her accessories durable, as well, so not only is Sigford upcycling bike parts that would have headed for the landfill, she’s creating jewelry and hair pieces that will last....
Merry Christmas Eve, crafty peeps! Here at CAGW, we are decking the halls with some handmade cheer, wrapping up the last of our handmade gifts, and spending some good old quality time with friends and family. You’re probably doing the same, but just in case you want to get your last-minute Christmas craft on, we’ve got some projects for you! Last-Minute Gifts So often on Christmas eve, I remember one last person on my list that completely slipped my mind....
Got some teeny-tiny treasures? Some scrap craft supplies? How about just some of the colored sand or rice or pony beads that your kids play with? If you do (and you totally do!), then you’ve got almost all the makings for an easy, special, stash-busting Christmas ornament craft. To make this craft, you will need clear glass ornaments. You can find these anywhere (especially on big sale after Christmas!), but you can also use test tubes or other small stoppered bottles (like the glass vials that I use to make pendants), if you happen to have those on hand, instead....
It might be a little early for holiday crafts, but who can resist a Christmas sign made with vintage buttons? I know what you’re thinking. Christmas already, Bonnie? Yes, I know Halloween was yesterday, but in craft booth world, the time for Christmas is now. In fact, I’ve been preparing for Christmas this entire month. So, whether or not you are ready for Christmas, remember that you can always pin this project for later!...
I made these homemade bath salts as Christmas gifts and saved a little extra for myself! It’s Christmas day, and for folks who celebrate it means that the holidays are winding down just a little bit. If you get a little stressed out during the holidays, these homemade bath salts are just the thing! The energizing rosemary and lemongrass essential oils help you bounce back from fatigue, and the soothing epsom salts and earthy undertones calm those frazzled nerves....
This is my new favorite night cream. It’s a homemade eye cream, and it only uses two ingredients. I bet you even have one or both of them in your house already. It wasn’t until recently that I started hunting for a good eye cream, and y’all. The sticker shock. Anything that got a good review and met my requirements for safe, cruelty-free ingredients was super expensive. Shelling out $30 or more for a tiny little tub of eye cream is just not in my budget, so I decided to try making a homemade eye cream recipe instead....
Our handmade holiday is fast approaching! As I’ve mentioned before, I try very hard to craft all of our presents to extended family and friends. The gifts need to be relatively quick and easy to make, things that will be genuinely appreciated, and constructed entirely from stash. Beeswax ornaments are quite quick and simple to make. They’ll be loved by anyone who has a tree (or a sunny window!) to decorate, and you’ll love that they only require just a bit of beeswax and a narrow scrap of fabric for each ornament....
One of the most satisfying ways to sweeten up your bead stash is to make your own beads. Custom-made beads are way expensive, but you can make your own for free, and you have the added benefit of making them exactly the way you want them. Need a five-inch-long bead? No problem! A bead that says “Katie Kittycat” in teeny-tiny writing? You can totally do that! A bead made out of a colored pencil?...
Looking for some unique musical decor? Give an old guitar a makeover and turn it into a piece of art! My roommate bought a broken guitar at a garage sale for $1 with the hopes that I could upcycle it into something awesome. I use the term “guitar” lightly because it’s a mini guitar that isn’t even made of real wood. Nevertheless, we’re musicians and are always looking for musical decor....
Sometimes you want a nice, sustainable sewing project. You’ve got some T-shirt fabric to upcycle, a cool applique that you want to make… …and a bunch of gluey, plasticy fusible webbing that you feel like you’ve got to use. Mind you, I don’t think that every single project has to be 100% eco-friendly in every single way, especially if you’re upcycling (as we speak, I’ve got a washing machine full of old T-shirts soaking in enough black dye to FREAK....
Which my children did not do! For at least a full decade, I collected–and created!–wooden building blocks for my two children. For that same amount of time, my kids played HARD with their blocks. These kids built with them inside and outside, in the sand and snow and mud. They painted them and printed with them, mixed them into potions and put them into slime. They forgot them outside, spilled juice on them, and absolutely loved them dearly....
If you’re a fabric hoarder collector like me, then you completely understand that fabric is art. That being said, of course there are times when you want to showcase that beautiful fabric of yours not on a body, or even on a quilt, but instead displayed on the wall like the art that it is. Making a fabric wall hanging is a little more complicated than just nailing a length of fabric to your wall (that wouldn’t work because the fabric would pull and warp), but it’s actually not much more complicated....
Here’s a bit of kitchen decor that’s also useful–a vintage cornmeal sack that’s secretly a sachet! You can make this reusable sachet from a flour sack, or even burlap or cheesecloth, but a vintage cornmeal sack is easier to find in just the right, smaller size that will let you show off the entire thing. I was even able to save the entire recipe on the back of this particular cornmeal sack, just in case I get a hankering for skillet cornbread....
Cold-process soap is probably every soaper’s preferred method, but if I need a batch of soap in just a couple of weeks instead of six, or if I’m too intrigued by a new recipe or essential oil to wait out that long curing time, then it won’t be long before I’m setting up my crockpot. Before you make crockpot hot-process soap with me, you need to have your own recipe, because I’m NOT telling you my super-secret Crisco soap recipe, and you need to know how to keep yourself safe while working with lye....
This tutorial is part of Garden Week here at Crafting a Green World. We’ve teamed up with some of our favorite DIY bloggers to talk about all things gardening! Gardening can be scary if you don’t think that you have a green thumb. Why waste your money on expensive potting soil and plant starts, if you don’t think they’ll grow? Why spend a bunch of time weeding and watering, only to be disappointed?...
I like to do a lot of wax crafts, but beeswax is expensive, and lacking my own set of beehives, my budget can’t quite keep up with my habit. Fortunately, I also have a lot of jar candles around the house, some homemade (with more lovely beeswax!) and some gifted or store-bought (with various qualities of wax, but often most likely the cheapest). When these candles burn down there’s always still some wax left at the bottom and around the sides of the container....
Such was the case when my teenager scored an originally $90 pair of jeans for $8 from our local Goodwill. They were just the style she was looking for. They were black, to match every other piece of clothing that she owns (sigh…). They had the kind of intentional ripping that signals enough disposable income to buy impractical clothing rather than a lifestyle of manual labor. They even fit great… …until she went to zip them up, and discovered that the zipper was broken....
If you had told me that I’d be talking passionately about the 2012 Farm Bill on a crafting website, I would have never believed it, but a recent proposed amendment to the monster bill could have a big impact for green crafters by making it legal to grow hemp in the U.S. But will it pass? Wait….what? That’s right! It’s legal to import hemp products – including hemp fabric and clothing – but growing hemp is illegal in the United States....
Their artistic collections are created with “an eye to scale, balance, color and surface interest, and the end result is a strong visual statement that combines artistic statement, whimsy, form and uniqueness. We can customize to fit any space, décor, or point of view. Subtle or outrageous, free standing or wall mounted, our collections become the focal point of any room in your home or business.” Wow, what a way to upcycle old objects into art pieces....
When Willow asked for a clown wig, however, I was stymied. Post-Halloween, I can’t thing of a single brick-and-mortar store within driving distance that would stock clown wigs. And even pre-Halloween, I sincerely doubt that I would have paid full price for a brand-new acryclic/polyester clown wig, anyway. It took me AGES to think up how to make a clown wig from materials I already own, some of it trash....
