Hurricane crafts - folded paper and jean skirts

This week, mother nature granted me the experience of living through a small hurricane. How exciting! The ocean sends waves of towering rage crashing down onto the beach, trees are whipped about like giant blades of grass, roads become rivers, windows shake, walls creak, and I remain inside, safe and warm, witness to nature's destructive powers. I'm told that we were lucky, the hurricane did not cause too much damage - in my little world at least. In our building, it broke a couple windows in the glass covered passage to the parking lot forcing management to seal it up for our protection and soaked a staircase and a couple flats leaving a foul smell. Poor Petester's car got flooded and we have yet to find out if it will survive this ordeal. Roads were closed and so were schools. Some people lost their houses to the ocean, my heart goes out to them. Nevertheless, once my hubby was safely home, the stormy weather and the discovery of Threadbanger.com put me in a creative DIY frenzy.

As my darling love settled into a comfortable position for chimera destruction (a.k.a Resistance 2, a video game), I transformed the lounge into a magazine recycling factory. You see, I love magazines, I can't settle for the online versions, I must have a tangible copy. Although I have restricted my purchases to the essentials, stock pile them, and then recycle them when the time comes, I wanted to find other uses for the glossy pages.

So far, I have found and tested three.

No. 1 - Zigzag bangles

These are lots of fun to make. (You can also use chip bags but I don't eat much of those.) I've figured out two sizes, the small as seen above, and a larger single bangle. Both are available in various colours at my etsy shop if you wish to have one of your own.

No. 2 - Paper Flowers

 

We got this beautiful gold tipped tulip vase for our wedding, it proudly showcased my birthday flowers while they lasted but without them it seemed lonely. These flowers were made with 3" circles cut from magazine pages based on a tutorial I found here. After making 16 of them, I tried the snowflake technique to allow for light to pass through the flowers and found that allowed me to use pages that had images that I didn't like as much since it removed the emphasis on the paper letting the form shine through. The stems we're supposed to be made from planting wire and plant tape but because of the hurricane, I was unable to raid the local craft store so I used pipe cleaners instead - it's alright but it's not perfect.

No. 3 - Envelopes

Why not? Surprisingly it was harder to design a template than I thought.  I hope the post office will accept them.

One paper cut too many led me to my next project. This was by far the most important project of the day and the one I am most proud of:  my newly recycled Hurricane Jean Skirt. I started with an old pair of bermuda jean shorts that I hadn't worn all summer.

 

And with the help of a Thread Banger tutorial (that you can find here), I turned it into a wonderful jean skirt. The project took me about 4-5 hours to complete from seam ripping to the finishing details. I will definetly be modifying more jeans, it wasn't that hard and the result is a fantastic skirt.

 That evening, hubby, my new skirt and I curled up on the couch and watched Jaws thankful to still have electricity. What an amazing day.


Take care!

Sock Monster

My posts as of late have been scientific of nature and the upcoming posts promise to be similar. I felt it was the time to interject another recycled craft project. The world seems to have been struck with the cute japanese-style stuffed toys craze, from the Ugly Dolls to stray sock monsters. Well, I have not been spared from this affliction. The only thing between me and my own army of these cute toys, is my husband who refuses to purchase something so useless and that I could make myself.  So I did.

I guess I would characterize it as some kind of bunny like creature. It's cute and scary all at once - fascinating; it sleeps in the lounge. Anyway, it was very simple to make, all you need is :

• 1 sock (preferably with a distinct heel colour)
• Stuffing material
• Black and pink thread
• Sewing needle and thimble
• Scissors
• Chopsticks (optional)
  

Step 1: Cut down the middle of the toes to about 1 inch above the heel and sew the front and the back of the sock together along to cut creating two bunny ears. Cut off the elastic band.

Step 2: Stuff the bunny. Use chopsticks to stuff the ears, it makes it easier. Make sure you add sufficient stuffing in the heel to make it stick out a bit. Play with the stuffing to give your little monster the desired shape.

Step 3: Sew up the bottom. I used a simple running-stitch all around the opening, pulled it together and added three stitches to keep it together before tying a knot and cutting the excess thread.

Step 4: Sew on a face.  You can use extra-pieces of fabric to make the different parts of the face like the Ugly Dolls but I went with embroidery. It was easier at the time. I added rosy cheeks with a coloured pencil.

Voilà! You have your very own monster like cute stuffed recycled toy. There are endless possibilities out there and this was the first of my stuffed toys attempts, I'll hopefully improve over time. On that note, thanks for reading.

Take care!

Recommended Book :

Cover via Amazon

Stray Sock Sewing, Too: More Super-Cute Sock Softies to Make and Love

Lounging around Tank top

After writing all about the dress form I just made, I felt compelled to share my latest creation or to be exact, alteration. It all began with another trip to the local thrift store. I found this funky 80s-tastic pink streaked T-shirt with the most adorable pink fish on the right shoulder blade. I had to give it a new life.

After sitting in my project box for many weeks, I came up with this cute and comfy tank top. Here's my preliminary sketch I made and then based my alterations on. The dotted lines indicate where I cut the T-shirt.

This design is a blend of my two favorite tops. I love the curved bottom because it conceals your bum, perfect for leggings and yoga pants. The wide straps and deep neckline allow for total comfort.


This project took me only 15 minutes since it requires no sewing. If you want to make one for yourself, all you need is :

• 1 Fitted T-shirt
• Scissors
• Marking pen
• Tape measure (to help keep everything even)

Follow my sketch or design your own. Have fun!

Look at the little fish swimming across my back! ------------------------------------------------------------------------>


My next project is a stylish racer back tank top. Hope this inspires you to look through your closet and give a second life to your clothes.

Take care!

Duct tape Dressmaker's Dummy

I must confess, I love working with duct tape. I believe you can fix almost everything with a bit of this sticky miracle. It's a wonderful product, water resistant, very sticky, easy to tear but also very strong. I recently watched the Mythbuster team use duct tape to build a potato launcher, a canon, a sail boat and even suspend a car in midair. If you have 5 minutes, type up Duct tape Costumes in Google or click here to see amazing works of duct tape art. I posted a picture of a beautiful duct tape rose to give you an idea. Goes to show, I'm not the only person crazy about duct tape. Imagine my excitement when I discovered my next project. 

In addition to playing with duck tape, I also enjoy making my own clothes.  However, this process required many trips to and from the mirror or asking my relatively uninterested but supportive husband to place pins dangerously close to my body. I concluded that to make the necessary tweaks and tucks to my creations easier and painless, I needed a dressmaker's dummy or dress form. So I dragged my dear hubby to the four corners of the city on a crazy goose hunt, all in vain. I could never find one that fit my budget and my shape. Discouraged, I was taken to a book store - they always cheer me up. As I browsed away my sorrow, I stumbled across the Stitch Lounge Girls' Subversive Seamster. A wonderful book that teaches you to" transform thrift store threads into street couture" and to make your own duct tape dress form. BINGO! My joie de vivre completly restored, we raced off in search of the materials. At this point, I was still unaware of the wide assortment of colours available, so my happiness grew 10 fold when I found I could purchase my favorite colour.

Here's the list of material you need to make your own perfectly shaped dress form:

• 1 Close fitting T-shirt
• 4 Rolls of duct tape
• Plastic wrap or extra material (plastic shopping bags will do)
  
• Scissors
• 1 Willing and patient friend
• 2.5-3 hrs to spare
• A good movie or back to back to back episodes of your favorite show
• Stuffing material
• Stand (standing lamp base, microphone stand, artificial tree pot and broom stick)
  

The book offers descriptive steps and helpful illustrations.  I made some modifications to the technique so here is how I broke it down.

Step 1 : Preparation
Go to the bathroom, you're in this for at least 2hrs. Make sure the room you are in is at a comfortable temperature, tie your hair up and out of the way, then strip down to your underwear and put on the selected T-shirt. (Note: you will never see this t-shirt again.) The sleeves of the t-shirt should cover a little more than half your bicep and the bottom should reach mid-thigh. Supplement any missing length with either plastic rap or extra material. From this point forward, try and stay as still as you can as your friend wraps you. I suggest keeping your feet two fists apart which will help you with your balance.


Step 2 :  Begin wrapping
Place strips horizontally starting from the bottom and working your way up to the bra-line. Be careful to overlap each strip and I suggest using strips no longer than your forearm.

Step 3 : Bust

In order to accurately represent your bust size, use short strips and arrange them in a flower-like pattern on each breast - each strip being one petal. Make sure each strip is long enough to extend from the nipple to the contour of the breast. Once this is done, crisscross two strips of duct tape, one from each shoulder ending at the waist and crossing in the middle of your chest. Then make vertical shoulder straps from where you ended the flower covering the region between the neckline to the sleeve seam. Don't forget to cover the back entirely, you can use smaller vertical strips to connect the shoulders to the horizontal wrapping.

Step 4 : Arms and neck

Hold your arms at a 45-degree angle to make sure that, in due time, you can fit garments underneath. Begging where your bra strap would be and extend the strip vertically down your arm until about one inch above the mid-bicep line. Continue all around to make the sleeves. Add a second layer of duck tape horizontally this time. Once both arms are done, create a duct tape turtleneck by taping horizontal strips until you are a couple inches high making sure to avoid stray hairs. 

Step 5 : Finishing touches
Don't despair you're almost done. Using long vertical strips, add a second coat from the bra-line to the bottom, making them as smooth as possible. Ask your friend to step back from their work of art and give it a once-over and cover any remaining t-shirt spots. At this time, mark the location of your belly button and any other liked or disliked markings on dress form. This will help you when you're creating your new fashion collection.

Step 6 : Extraction

With a pair of scissors, not your best sewing scissors though, have your friend carefully cut up the center of your back, along the spine, expertly avoiding skin and underwear. Remove yourself slowly from your double, put your clothes back on and sit down. I felt like I had lost some bones in the process and had to curl up into child pose to recover. Wimp, maybe, but a wimp with her own perfectly adjusted dress form.

Step 7 : Stuffing
Close up the seam with duct tape and stuff your dummy. The authors of the Subversive Seamster suggest using batting but I went with a mix of torn up newspapers and packing peanuts I had around the house and it worked just fine. Close up neck and arm holes with more duct tape flowers. Before closing up the bottom, insert your stand, measure the height from your belly button to the floor and use that measure to secure the dummy at the right height using the marked belly button as a reference point. Thank your friend profusely and if it is their desire, help them make their own.

The book then goes on to show you cool ways of transforming thrift store finds into trendy clothes. My favorite is the bat wing top made from a sheet and an elastic belt. If you are interested in modifying clothes, I strongly suggest that you purchase the Subversive Seamster. I strongly suggest Amazon since you can find it for 4$ less than in bookstores.  Let me know how it works out and feel free to send me pictures of your creations (emilieDwolf{at}gmail{dot}com).




Take care!