Recycled Plastic Bottle Bangles

Making has been on the back burner lately - what with all the writing and snake wrangling.

But I had a go at something I'd seen on Pinterest and, unlike many things seen and tried from pinterest, this ACTUALLY WORKED!

Here is how:
Cut a soda bottle into rings. Put the iron on hot. Cover the iron surface with a piece of baking paper and gently rub the edges onto the iron surface pushing it in a circular motion.

This one I painted on the inside with confetti nail polish. 

I'm experimenting for next year's enviro stall at the fete.
 
What do you think? If I can get some coloured bottled it will be fun.

And now I'm wearing them!

I also wanted to show off my wooden map of Australia. I snapped up at the op shop the other day. It's for a tourist spoon collection....but I think I'll either paint it or turn it into something else...not sure... somehow I envisage a test-tube vase arrangement?? I just love it. It's so BIG. And fit's into this space rather well...

I bought the 70's maxi dress at the same op shop on the same day. It fits well too. Good op shop day.

And yes. It does seem that my hair has turned into fair floss.

Cheap Shoe Revamp

Or how to make your shoe go from this...

to this!

The bad thing about cheap shoes - they fall apart.

 These faux suede brogues from the op shop started shedding the fake wood heel on the first wear.  Oh well - I didn't like the colour ( or lack there of) anyway.

And the good thing about cheap shoes...is that you can experiment on them!

I peeled off the fake wood veneer heel ( pretty easy as it was practically evaporating off!) and then I stuffed them with newspaper painted the suede with acrylic paint..it tool a few layers and I really massaged the wet paint into the surface...

and finished them off with some spray clear sealant....

and gold heels...because I had gold paint...but may change it....it's only paint!

What do you think?

Recycled Inner tube necklaces

These are made to order. It was good to dig out the rubber again and have a play.(Does that sound slightly sordid?)
This one is simple. Cut a length of tube on the curve.

Cut bottom edge and wash inside and out.
When it's dry, stitch a casing along with the sewing machine.
Then with scissors carefully cut fringing.
Thread chain through the casing to the length you want.

This one is a bit more complicated with tassels and jump rings but not too tricky because I'm not very good with jewellery stuff - pliers and the like - and I managed to make it! 

pom pom head band - a proper tutorial!

Everyone wants pom poms sprouting from their head now so I whipped up a stretchy pom pom headband for the kids and thought I'd redeem my laziness and do a tutorial - all proper like with words and pictures and numbers and everything! So here it is.

Op shop Finds....

With the kids back at school this week the op shops have been singing their siren call. "Come to me Julianne! Come to me!" And I have.

In one shop I found: The Woman's Day Complete Book of Handicrafts. And goodness it is complete. Will share some of it in the coming weeks. The book is from 1974.

An Australiana tray which I just adore. I love kangaroos....

And some super thick wool which I've started knitting....

 

And there's even more but I won't want to make you explode with thrift envy so I will show you more....another day.

Ministry of Tarnation and Titbits: Office of t-shirt transformation

More craft archiving from the school environment stall adventures in recycling.
Today's department is all about T-SHIRTS!

Cotton, stretchy, colourful t-shirts.

Rules and regulations:
1. You can cut a t-shirt into yarn or "TARN" because it doesn't fray but rather stretches into a lovely curled tubular yarn. And then well, you have yarn and can do all the usual amazing things with yarn!

2. Ribbed necks make excellent bag handles.

3. hems are little casings waiting to be transformed into many things. Don't throw out the scraps!

First off. Making continuous tarn-yarn from a t-shirt is a great trick. Here are some how to links:from Instructables and Mollie Makes

Once you have the yarn-tarn-tarn-yarn then you're off and running!
You can crochet bowls....

or bags......

or make pom poms....

or vague useless tassels that just hang around.....

As for the leftovers:

Short yarn can be looped over a chain to create a tassel necklace

leftover bits of hems and necks can be made into little flowers for hair ties and clips....

And I very much enjoyed sewing little rectangles of hems together, in contrasting colours fringing them and using the existent casing for necklace making.

But wait! There are scraps! Sew little scrappy bits along a thread with a needle.

Use a wooden bead at each end to hold into place and left over tarn for the necklace and voila. I think I used every last skerrick!

And for the best and easiest no-sew-no-fuss bag check out this tutorial

These sell like hotcakes at the fete!

Here is a linky dink for more jewellery ideas here

The Office of Tyre Tube Rubber Recycling *

I was listening to neuroscientist Daniel Levitin on the radio the other day - he's just released a book called "the Organised Mind" - and one thing he touched on was how we are wired to put things into categories - no matter how weird and wonderful those categories are. Our minds are by their nature bureaucratic.

I'm in  recovery mode after the frenzy of crafting for the school fete environment stall almost left me limp with RSI,  but I also wanted to share some of the good and not so good things we made and was wondering where to start.  Categories seem as good a place to start as any.

So today, as CEO of the Craft Commission, head of the Department of Environment Stall, I'm letting you into the Office of Tyre Tube Rubber Recycling.

The truth about tyre tubes or
Rules and Regulations of Rubber:

1. You can get them for free from CERES or ask your local bike shop.

2. They need lots of cleaning. Lots and lots of cleaning and wiping.

3. They can be sewn on the sewing machine with the help of some silicon wiped on the rubber and the needle.

4. Do not attempt to knit the tubes. Really. Just don't bother.

The assistant director of the Office of Tyre Tube Rubber Recycling, lovely Chris Black, had the mindbogglingly genius idea of doing macramé with the tubes. It was such a perfect collision of material and form - and worked a treat. We simply used cable ties for the macramé "knots". Unfortunately we didn't get a good photo of them and they sold so quickly it was as if we had dreamt them.

I had a few craftastrophes with the tubes. I extended the idea of the macramé to a bag.......which looked good but the cut off cable ties are sharp and scrape your hand whenever you get anything from the bag. Sigh.

So I might remake this bag and tie knots of rubber instead. Because it looks good!

My other craftastrophe was the knitting episode. Really. The less said, the better. Shhh!

Here are some things that did work with the rubber - necklaces using the curve of the tyre and the printed text on the tube.

Tassels and

loop earring.

neckpieces...

Next year I want to make wallets and more bags.

The Department of the Environment Stall have a pinterest board (which kind of gets us back to the bureaurocracy of the brain, doesn't it? All those boards? Named and categorised?) for our recycling ideas if you are interested!

*title of this post inspired by a book I just finished called "A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists" by Jane Rawson. Excellent book!