Container UPCYCLED crafts

 

Ok, today I was a busy bee. I was in my master bathroom when I realized, we REALLY need a bathroom rubbish bin. I starting thinking about going to IKEA and getting one that MIGHT match by bath decor or would fit in the small space in general. My pocketbook started to groan a bit at me. Then I remembered I had a popcorn tin that we had given my partner. (ok. the intent was for him but the kids and I partake before he got home. Sorry, honey!) I decided I would decorate it.

I thought about the covering it with paper from the stationary project that I had done but decided that might be bad idea because it might get damaged in the bathroom. I ended up using and old white cloth shower curtain that I had.

 Now I ended up using Spray adhesive ONLY because it was what I had on hand. I don't think Mod glue or Elmer's would really work well on the metal to be honest. I use the Spray adhesive for my photos so this is  a product I use frequently. In lue of the spray you can just wrap the fabric around twice and then tie in front with a knot to be a bit decorative. It should stay on just as well.

Next I cut it the the same height at the container when folded, because I didn't want the holiday design to show through. I left a two itch variance at the top to give it a seam less look later. I did notice that the glue left a greenish stain in spots where i sprayed to much or it seeped through. But I'm not really concerned about that. Then I sprayed the container and rolled it along the cloth, with the bottom of the rim at the folded edge. Once I was done, I smoothed it down with my hand to make sure that the cloth layed flat on the tin. Next, I folded over the excess top and sprayed the area of the tin beneath them and clipped them down. Here I use clothing pins but any binding clips will work. Just as long as the cloth makes contact with the tin so the glue will stick.

When the glue was dried I removed the clips GENTLY. I then placed a plastic grocery bag in side the container and to keep in place, I fold it over slightly of the edges, wrapped the top with scarf (that just happens to match my bath decor) and wala! It hides the "bag" look and looks still feminine too!

*********************************************************************************

My bag tot here is actually from a book that I found recently called Big Green Book of Recycled Crafts . I have to admit there are some REALLY cool ideas in here. Some are just, probably won't happen ideas but some I think are adjustable to my style. So I won't lay claim to this creative solution to grocery bags.  I can't tell you EXACTLY what I did because of copyright laws, but I can give you the gist. It took me about 18 bags to do this project. Considering the amount of bags I had, this was still worth it. You fuse 6 or more bags (depending on how thick you want it) together with an iron. You have to place paper under and on top of the bags so they don't melt all over the iron. Next you cut them into pieces. You can make it any size you want. For my bag the bag height was only 12 inches so to make it square I made 2- 12x12 pieces for the front and back, 2- 2x12 pieces for the handles, 3-5 1/2x12 pieces for the sides and bottom. I added the top design (which wasn't in the ordinal instructions) from an iron on t-shirt to emphasize the bag was "earth friendly" now. 

I'm looking forward to other projects in this book. I also found Craftcycle: 100+ Earth-Friendly Projects and Ideas for Everyday Living. I think I might give that one a look over too. I'm still working on my crochet a day projects. With school, I just haven't been able to put as much time into it as I want to. Hopefully, I can get it done soon!  I will post when I have more.

Cheers!

Gin

Slow Cooking CHICKEN WINGS!!!!

Ok. So in an effort to reduce some cost and SSSTTTTTRRREEEETTTTCHHH  that money I spend on meat (I SO need to go back to being vegan, ug!) I purchased a Slow Cooker with my Target Gift card that I got for Hannukah from my parents. I bought a 6-qt Hamilton Beach 33966 Set 'n Forget 6-Quart Programmable Slow Cooker since we have a BIG family. The Programing was a must for me and the Probe for the meat was the decision breaker. I made chicken in the oven one time and a tummy ache later, think I undercooked it. For my FIRST meal, I made Easy Honey BBQ Wings...here is the recpie.

1-large jar of Fry's honey bbq sauce

3-lbs or more chicken wings

1 cup water

Directions: Cut wing tips and and joints to seperate wings. (So one wing will yeld two "wings" similar to what you get in the restraunts.) Place in crockpot. Pour entire bottle of bbq sauce and a cup of water in crockpot. Mix to cover.Cook on Low for 5-6hrs.

The kids LOVED them!!! I only did it for 5hrs, which was good becuase the meat was falling off the bone but that is what the kids loved about these wings. They were juicy and sweet! YUM! 

So far this was a nice introduction to slow cooking. 

Cheers! 

~Gin 

Recontructed T-shirts and Crooked Crochet!

So if you remember I got the Generation T  book and my daughter, Amie, was willing to try some items out. We only really got to one The first thing we did was a bit of dying some things to what we thought was black, but they ended up coming out a sort of purplish gray??? In either case, the results of the new dye jobs that came out were really kewl...I'm sorry. But I don't have any "before" pics only the resulting piece...In this shirt was a bit stained down the front so we dyed it that "black". I cut the neck off and the arms and hemmed all the edges so they were smoother and not jagged. (I've posted picures but if your reading this via Facebook you will need to click the hyperlink that allows you to see the orginal blog to see the photos, i think) So I took a pic of the after project. Front and back. We left the arms the orginal color since they were still rather white.

I rather like how it turned out and Amie even wore it to school. I think we will try some more ideas when we get the chance.

I'm very disapointed in the Crochet CalenderCrochet: 2011 Day-to-Day Calendar that I got. Although I'm not able to get the same yarn on some of the projects I am able to fudge most of them. However, some projects required some highly specialized yarn that I was only able to get from Italy, they do not ship to the US, AND its discontinued. How annoying. I did manage to make the first scarf. It wanted me to use a speclized metlic yarn but I was unable to find anything that would subsistute it so I just got something made with similar materials and the same yarn weight.  What came out was a the green keyhole scarf you see. The reason they call it a keyhole scarf is because it criss crosses through the hole in the middle of the scarf. Its suppose to be alot longer, but I'm not a huge fan of overly long scarfs. Plus, if I was to spread this out you could see the hour glass wobbly effect i had from lack of straight lines. SOmething I feared if I kept at doing crochet by hand. What I think I might do then is stick to my looms and convert the projects with the loom. I might redo this same pattern but with the loom this next time. Right now though, I recently received my sock loom and I'm already starting on learning how to do my socks. I'm following the directins from Isela Phelps  Loom Knitting Socks book as I got one of her families EFG Wonderlooms at DaLooms. I will post pics when I'm done.

This will be a busy month for me with school starting and with all the projects I plan to do to keep me busy. At least I should have plenty of "homemade" presents to give out. :)

Until then!

Cheers!

~Gin