A Second Hand and Handmade Christmas

This year our family is endevouring to have a second hand or homemade christmas.  It has been lots of fun so far, with many hours spent scouring op shops for unique christmas presents and pursuing creative ideas. 

My most exciting items this year in terms of the homemade element are 1. a quilt for my nephew Hugh, and 2. dish scourers and cotton dishwashing cloths. 

Hughie's quilt is coming along nicely, however I horrified the lady at GJs fabrics (the specialised quilting shop in Brunswick) when I explained that I just measured my fabric into 11cm pieces and then snipped the edge and ripped along the grain.  This approach is quick and easy to create my 11cm by 11cm squares, but not really true to the meticulousness of the quilting tradition.  She also explained to me that I need to quilt in inches not centimetres.  Never mind.  I am happy with the result. 

My other exciting homemade christmas gifts which come as a set are scourers, knitted out of garden twine or jute from the $2 shop and knitted cotton dishcloths.  I bought the cotton at Spotlight.  I know they are a bit time consuming, but I remember when my Nanna bought me a metallic pot scourer (for some strange reason) and how I thought about her every day when I used it, and how I was sad when it finally fell apart and I had to chuck it out.  So hopefully, the people who receive these special (and very practical) gifts will think of me when they use them (and will dispose of them in their compost bin when they finally disintigrate). 

Chairs

Each year our school has an art show and family and friends are invited to decorate a chair and then donate it to be auctioned with proceeds going to the school.  Chairs make a couple of hundred dollars each. 

This year my idea was to screenprint our postcode onto fabric and then recover a chair. 

I found a great stool to cover at the Tip Shop at Reservoir.  I bought the fabric at Rathdowne Remnants (it is heavy duty synthetic stretchy stuff).  I was very happy with the results. 

And then someone donated a chair to the school that I couldn't resist recovering with hessian and tacks.  It is very 2011, but I am a little concerned as to how it will stand the test of time. Whilst all the rage in current home magazines, it seems to me that tacks and hessians aren't the most robust materials when combined as a chair covering material, and I had to glue and screw the chair in the first place.  Anyway, it looks good.  Just as I imagined.  Fingers crossed.    

Father's Day 2011 - A Long Overdue Post

For Fathers Day this year at school we changed the labels on tea bags and then repackaged them to make personalised Fathers Day tea.  With messages like 'you're the best dad in the world' they are bound to cheer up any Dad that has a cup of tea at 10am at work on a weekday!

We also used our newfound soapmaking skills to make bring back 'soap on a rope'.  Could there be a better Fathers Day Present?

Picture Framing

I have recently been framing pictures that I have collected.  I bought two paintings from second hand markets.  They both now look lovely in new frames. 

I also framed some of my daughters art work from kinder - which is a long overdue task.  I picked up the black frames from a school fete (a great find), and the white frames are from Ikea.  The thing I learnt this week (from my sister) was how the cut the mats. 

It is actually all very straight forward, and as long as you have the equipment (which I borrowed from my sister) and can measure correctly, then it is easy.  You just need to make sure the blade is sharp!  So, hopefully soon all my pictures in my house will have lovely mats.  But first I may have to do another trip out to Reverse Garbage with the hope that they have more mat cardboard (I saw some there last time I went - why pay full price if you can utilise someone's offcuts).

Fancy a cuppa? It's all in the packaging ...

More ideas for things to make ...


Some fun mugs packaged with camomile tea



Body lotion in a fabulous brown glass bottle



Delicious smelling rock salt and rosemary



Bath Tea Bags

This week I have again been on the job for the school's Mothers Day Stall. I have made bath tea bags using a recipe from the home life website.    I have then sewn little calico bags to look like tea bags and filled them up with the mix of oats, epsom salts, rose petals and essential oils.  They look quite lovely I think. 

  

Making Soap for the Mothers Day Stall

I have been looking at things to make for the school Mothers Day Stall on the internet, and found lots of inspiration on the HomeLife website which got me thinking about making soap.  I looked into it a little bit but it all seemed a bit complicated to source the ingredients etc.  Then I hit upon the fantastic idea of melting down existing soap and adding stuff to it, then remoulding it.  You can add colour, smell, texture etc. and you can buy the soap at your local supermarket, or use up soap that you have in the cupboard.

To melt it down all you have to do is get the soap you want to use and grate it.  I just put it in a saucepan and added water (somewhere I read you need 1/2 a cup of water to 1 cup of soap and I loosely followed this ratio). When it melted it went all sticky.  I think that technically speaking you are meant to use a double boiler, but I am impatient, so I was very careful to watch it the whole time to ensure it didn't burn.  I then added essential oils (I also read that you can add bees wax for a honey smell which I would like to try) along with dried lavender, dried rose petals (you can also add oatmeal or ground coffee ...) and some food dye.  One lot I put in a milk carton to dry and then cut it up with a sharp knife.  Another lot I just did in a baking tray.  Apparently you need to leave it a few days to dry out before you use it.  But it looks good within a few hours.  I have used strips of the pages of an old Alice in Wonderland book that I sourced at an Op Shop to wrap it. 

Paving

Here is a project that took up a good week of our family time - paving our backyard.  We have used old bricks that were piled up in the corner and 45 cm concrete pavers to create a sitting area outside our back door.  It was a lot of work and created quite a lot of mud, along with two large piles of dirt (one in our front yard and one in the back corner of the backyard) that are still there, but it had made a real difference to the outlook from our lounge.  Before it was even finished my 2 year old was busy doing 'mud cooking' on a section of it, and yesterday morning all the kids took their drawing stuff outside to sit in the autumn sun and be crafty.

Pin cushions and leather purses for the Mothers Day Stall

Over the last month I have been so busy doing that I have had trouble documenting.  Mainly I have been thinking about mothers day.  This year I am helping out with the school Mothers Day Stall and have been busy trying to come up with things that kids would like to buy for mums that mums might appreciate.  Inexpensive to make, handy and/or use-up-able (and thus disposable) are my priorities when choosing projects.  To get some inspiration I did a trip to Reverse Art in Ringwood and filled up a bag with all sorts of goodies including brown glass bottles, quilt wadding, timber offcuts, cardboard, leather offcuts, elastic and other bibs and bobs. 

The first project I undertook was to make some pin cushions.  This involved sewing together two circles of fabric and stuffing them with some tubular foam shapes from Reverse Art.  I then sewed all the way around the outside and in doing so sewed up with stuffing hole. 

They look quite cute, and I would be happy to receive one for mothers day, which I think is my fundamental criteria.

My next project was making some leather purses from the brown leather offcuts that I got at Reverse Art.  I cut out a basic rectangle and rounded the corners on the top edge.  I sewed along the bottom edge.  I then folded the bottom edge a bit more than 1/3 of the way up the leather to create the purse.  I started on one folded corner at the bottom and sewed all the way along the sides and top to the other folded corner at the bottom.  Then I just put on the embellishments (different sized circles made of olive leather and floral silk ) which helped to hide the velcro that I sewed on to keep the purse closed.  I like these little purses.  I did make some last year in vinyl, but I think they look a little classier (although admittedly still rustic) in leather.

A first attempt at screen printing

Today I had a go at screen printing for the very first time.  It was easier than I thought, and created minimal mess (which is always a good thing) - I did it on the kitchen table and managed not to get any paint anywhere.

I did three shapes, a vase of flowers, an elephant in a black box and a toadstool in a black box (I didn't like this one so much).  I cut the stencils out of newspaper and followed some online instructions (I googled 'screen printing' to glean some advice). 

I printed on to an old white sheet - I think my mum got it when she was married. 

The prints are not really perfect, but that is OK - I am not patient enough for perfection, but I quite like the effect of the simple shape in the black box - I think some letters would look good printed like this - I will give it a try at some stage.

I have ironed the paint to set it, and added some detail (flower centres, elephants ear) with some material that I zig-zag stitched on.  I have now turned the screenprinted fabric into wheat bags. 

I wonder who will be the lucky recipients of these gifts?

Today I made some vintage tea towel cushions

Today I made some cushions for my lounge room out of old tea towels that I have been collecting.

 

 

Fairy toadstools

Yesterday I went to Ikea and bought some plastic coated red material with white polka dots.  I also bought some 35cm square pillow inserts.  I woke up this morning at 6.30am and fitted in a bit of sewing before the kids emerged for the day.  I have made 4 fairy toadstool cushions to sit on top of the logs out in the garden. 

 

The kids are now dressed as fairies, and with their dolls in tow, are enthusiastically playing imaginary fairy toadstool games.  My oldest is keen to use the cushions for musical toadstools at her next birthday party.

Finally ... you can tell it is a wooden sink

We have been away for nearly all of January, relaxing at the beach, and I came home with a new enthusiasm for organising my house.  Last week I finally hung the pictures in my loungeroom, and also fixed up our outdoor sink.

The sink used to be painted cream to match the house, and was covered with paint and splashes and dirt.  I have now stripped back the old timber sink surround and waxed it, and I have repainted the cupboard gloss black to match the gully trap which I painted a few months ago. I forgot to take a photo before I started, so it is hard to understand the difference, but since this blog is about  documenting my projects, I thought I would include a photo of the finished project for my own sake.

Given that this sink has hot and cold taps that hoses can be attached to, I am now on the look out for a suitable outside bath.  Just before we bought this house I found a fantastic claw foot bath for $50, but gave it to my sister for her garden ... I think about it all the time ...