A few months ago I knitted these longies with matching hat for Greer from wool that I’d dyed myself. Being that her things were newborn-sized I had a little ball of wool left over, sitting sadly in my knitting bag where it was likely to languish unused. So! A little tutorial for you to find a use for all those little scraps of yarn whilst saving some crap from landfill

When I was at school some of the kids in my year would use pringles tubes as pencil cases and now I use the mini tubes for keeping marbles and rubber bands in. I reckon with a little bit of embellishing these could be quite cute for tweenagers to keep art supplies in or indeed for anyone who just needs a little bit of extra storage. Best of all, the materials are dead easy to come across.

This is the end product:

Before you start, give your tube a good rinse with the strongest smelling liquid soap you own. The pringles tube I used didn’t have a completely even top so I glued some cotton twill tape around the top. Sticky tape would do the same job if you don’t have twill tape.

Now there are two ways you could do this – either cover your tube in double sided sticky tape and wind the wool directly onto it, or do as I did and coat your tube with pva glue. Leave the end of the wool hanging so that you’ll cover it with your winding, then wind your wool onto the tube. Take care not to pull the wool too tightly because it’ll thin your strands out – you want them to stay thick so no writing shows through.

Continue to the bottom of the tube. If you’re using the PVA glue method, dip the end of your yarn into the PVA glue before smoothing it against the tube. The glue will dry clear but this way your end should be hidden securely. As you can see I ran out of my striped wool and had to finish it off with another ball but I think it still works.

Let me know if you try this out yourself – I’d love to see your versions!

Posted under general crafty updates

As previously posted here the craft challenge closed over a week ago and I haven’t yet had a chance to post the entries here. Apologies for that! As always, click on the photographs to view the larger versions (most of which have notes from the entrants) or visit the Flickr group.

So! Entry #1 is from Alex, OH of Kerry of PennyDog fame. He found old beehives by the roadside and repurposed them into a functioning beehive. Before:

And after:

Entry #2 is from Ali at Craft Matters. She utilised one of her Dad’s old ties to make herself a business card wallet and a needle book as a birthday present for her sister. Before:

After (needle book first, business card wallet second and third):

Entry #3 is from Jane, who inspired this contest in the first place! She created a shelf from an old drawer!

Entry #4 is from Cheryl who overhauled an old chair and made a cushion to go with it using her daughter’s outgrown dressing gown! Chair before and after:

Cushion before and after:

Entry #5 is from Cheryl’s seven year old daughter Sophie, who wanted to join in the challenge and made this funky rabbit by painting an old water bottle. Ingenius!

Finally, entry #6 is from me. I used an old dress of Erica’s that was frayed and damaged to make a sunhat and booties for Greer. Dress before:

And after:

Voting will remain open for one week from today and will close on Monday 15th June 2009 at 12noon. Voting is now closed, thanks for looking! See here for the result.

Leave your vote in the comments and the winner will be announced next week. Good luck everyone!

Posted under craft challenges

…to a crafty duel!

I’m having a kind of weird day, Nairn’s been unwell this morning but Bob’s off work so I’m able to relax a little. I’m using this time while Findlay & Erica watch cartoons and Nairn sleeps to try and catch up on my bloglines subscriptions because I have over 2000 unread entries to try and look at! I think maybe I need to trim my reading list a little.

Anyway! Today I happened to read the entries leading up to this entry from Jane at Out of the Crayon Box. What a transformation from a piece of furniture that was going to get sent to landfill! It made me think about how much thrifty crafting I see going on and how special it is to create something new from something old or destroyed. So here’s my idea: I challenge you to find an old obsolete object – whether that’s something in your home, something that you’ve found or something you can acquire by completely legal means – and turn it into something new.

Some rules are in order I think.
1) Your starting object must not cost you any money. So no charity shopping it up. I am watching.
2) You can spend no more than GBP£10 or the equivalent (USD$15, CAD£17, AUD$20, €11) on supplies to alter your starting object
3) A flickr group will be created for this project and all completed projects must be submitted by 9pm on Friday May 29th 2009.
4) The winner will be selected by vote which will be hosted here. Voting will open at 9.30pm on Friday May 29th 2009 and will close on Friday June 5th 2009.
5) Any soliciting of votes will mean a penalty against the entry with possible disqualification. Play nicely, please.

If you’re interested in joining in, leave a comment with the email address you’d like a flickr group invitation sent to.

Posted under craft challenges