Crafting 101

My girls had a birthday party a few weeks ago to go to and I decided to try a new pattern that I got from Oh Sew Easy Life Style: 20 Projects to Make Your Home Your Own which I got from the library. It’s for a backpack and it took me about two hours to make, but I was using a pair of jeans so that took a few extra minutes. Here’s a photo of the backpack. I think it turned out cute! I lined it in pink and the straps are pink and there’s a pink ribbon to close it up. Next time, I’d make the ribbon longer just for added length. But it’s cute I think! She loved it!

I have more projects that I’ve been working on to post here. Check back to see them in a few days!

Everyone loves getting something for free and if you haven’t heard, there’s an easy way to do it! Check out Freecycle.org, an organization that’s all about helping you give away things you don’t need for free and getting things for free as well. The best part (and how it relates to crafting) is people are always giving away scraps of fabric, old buttons, ribbon, baby food jars, yarn and more.  I have gotten all sorts of things from local freecyclers and I’ve given loads away (more than just craft stuff too!).

It’s really easy. Go to their website, http://www.freecycle.org/ and  type in your city on the main page. It’ll bring up a listing of different cities and you pick yours. Then it’ll tell you what freecycle groups are in your area and how to join the group. Once you’re in the group, you get to post your offers. Those are the things you have that you want to give away. You can also post your wants. These are the things that you are in need of or searching for. Two more types of posts: taken (obviously, someone has picked up your items) and received (you got what you were looking for!). It’s quite easy!

So check out your local freecycle group today. Most towns have little groups for smaller towns instead of searching in a Houston, TX group, you can look in a LaPorte, TX group to find people close to you. HTH! Share your freecycle treasures with me! I’d love to hear about them!

So, I was browsing the internet trying to figure out a neat project for my girls to do. See, they have to bring a flower in to their teacher’s for Teacher Appreciation Week. Instead of just going to buy one flower, I like to make them something about flowers or with fake flowers, basically something that lasts longer than flowers. So this year, I decided to have the girls make them flower pots!

This is a good project to reuse coffee cans or old pots or instead of throwing those vegetable cans away, make them into decorative flower pots. This is also a great project to use up all those leftover scraps of yarn or ribbon or buttons! We got rid of a lot of buttons that I got out of a random craft box off freecycle one time. I knew that I’d never use the buttons on projects, so this was a great way for them to get used up.

We used one large coffee pot and one smaller flower pot I had that I didn’t like anymore. We got out the hot glue gun and my girls went to town. After they finished decorating them, I filled them with soil and we put some pretty flowers in them. Now, I didn’t mess with poking holes in the bottoms and worrying about drainage just because they will probably keep these inside on their desk and I didn’t have anything to put under them. But if you were going to plant outside plants or herbs and such, punch holes in the bottom and put a layer or rocks on the bottom before putting the soil on top. That’ll help with drainage. I’m going to start keeping my cans as I use them, wash them out and make some decorative flower pots. Anyone would love these to line their porch or deck!

Did you make one? Have suggestions or ideas? Leave me a comment!