Weekend Workout 18 - UPCYCLE/RECYCLE

After losing some weight (25lbs - so far!) I decided to take some clothes to the charity shop. However I am always having a little potter sewing so I thought I would use some fabric from the clothes rather than always buying new.  I am teaching my daughter to sew and I thought this would also be a good, cheap way for her to practice as well.

I started with my jeans...........

and we ended up with this bag.........

The new kitten loved it ..........

Let's see what you can upcycle in your house.  We will certainly be creating some more items from my jeans.  Have fun  Joy

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hello, Eleanor here.

Joy's workout theme gave me the perfect excuse to get out the Gesso and Modpodge.  First I read some interesting thoughts, here, so that I could use the correct term.

(I discovered that I'm not upcycling, as that would be now useless products into new ones, with a greater value, neither am I recycling, as that would be making something into something completely different from the original. I suppose the tea caddy is re-purposed, but the chest of drawers is simply redecorated!   Never mind, I had a go, and enjoyed it!)

I acquired an old wooden tea caddy which didn't go with anything,  so I painted it with white Gesso

 

and covered it with scrapbooking paper. A few coats of Modpodge and it's just what I need for storing hair elastics and clips.

With the materials still out on the table, I looked around for something else to cover, and found this:

Which, by the same process involving matt white gesso and modpodge, became this:

for organising more of my dressing table clutter.

Now then, what else can I find...

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh those are fab projects.

Claireliz here, I have a large basket filled with things that I've saved to alter over the years, one of these was this little tin....

 

My husband bought it when it contained some toffees & then told me he'd bought them because he thought I'd like the tin for something, he was right, as it's the perfect size for those little sheets of paper you get in memo blocks & it seems that we're always scrabbling round for a bit of scrap paper (well, I am anyway)

I covered the lid of the tin with some American Crafts polka dot paper...

 

And glued some lovely strokeable ribbon around the sides of the tin...

 

To embellish the tin I used my Banana Frog Pharmacy Stamps to stamp the word Notes onto cream card, cut them out, inked the edges with Tea Dye Distress Ink, then glued them down.

 

The large cream flower was actually a ring that I picked up for 99p from The Works, I just used pliers to pull the ring part off, then glued it onto a Kraft Journaling spot (Jillibean Soup), & attached to the tin...

 

I've now filled it with paper & put it on my desk, so I can always find a piece of paper to write down those random thoughts as they occur.

C xx

Comments

[alexa]

I love all these deocrating/upcycling ideas; such pretty containers! Joy, love that bag - wonderful! and congratulations on the new slimmer you too. :)

[Claireliz]

So many great ideas there ladies.
C
xx

[Joy]

Lots of lovely ideas girls. I love the IKEA box Eleanor and Claire the tin is gorgeous. Off to find more items to upcycle.

[Eleanor]

Joy, well done on the weight loss, adorable kitten in a bag (don't know why but the bag is better for being grey denim rather than blue somehow, and love the red trim).
Claire, tin transformed so easily and so well, must do this.
Elxx

[Catriona]

What lovely things everyone has made! Will try to choose one thing from my stash of "might come in handy items" and alter it to make something beautiful/ useful.

[Scrapdolly]

Such fab projects everyone

Love the kitty bag

[Dawny]

very inspiring :-)

[jayne]

WOW !!!!
Love all of these . Just got back from Holiday so catching up x

[Debbie Roberts]

Love all these ideas, so much to look at x