Cloud Nursery Decoration

A new addition arrived in the family a week and a half ago. Prior to his arrival, I made a few decorations for his room, one of which being a raincloud softie wall hanging. I've seen a few similar designs online, and thought I'd have a go at making my own.

 I've used all reclaimed material, sourced from opportunity shops; the coloured yarn, material, embroidery thread, sewing thread, even the sequins.

I've wrapped a stick from the yard in rainbow coloured yarn, and fabric-glued sequins onto each raindrop.

I didn't follow a pattern, just drew a cloud shape onto the back of a cereal box and raindrops to use as templates.

Free Chair Fabric Recover

I saw an ad on Gumtree giving away a high back white chair for free within a half hour drive of my house. I went to collect the chair to discover it was from an op shop sorting facility. The chair could not be sold due to a stain on the seat. In a quick half hour project, I have recovered the seat with some fabric from my thrifted fabric stash.

Feeling quite proud of my chair redo, and first ever home refashion!

Hula Hoop Rug

I've completed my first recycled t-shirt rug, a circular rug which is woven out of strips of old t-shirts, with a hula hoop used as a template. The tutorial can be found here.  This is mine:

 Its a fun project, and looks effective, but there are a couple of discoveries on completion:

1. You need a lot of time to complete a rug, my weaving consumed most of my two day weekend.
2. You need a lot of patience, it becomes tedious.
3. The further down you get, the less neat, you have to pull your weave through a bit tighter toward the end.
4. I started tying knots to attach each strip of t-shirt to the next.  Knots can look quite bulky, so I quickly changed tactic, and used a needle and thread to sew the next strip onto the previous, before weaving through.
5. You don't need to use t-shirts, you can use fabric scraps, but jersey fabric works best as it doesn't fray.
6. I believe you can get larger hula hoops that I did, which will leave you with a bigger rug. Mine will be big enough as a large table centerpiece, or perhaps a bath mat, but it would not be big enough as a rug for a lounge room.

Zipper pencil cases

I saw these zipper pencil cases for sale in the post office yesterday, and thought what a great recycled sewing idea.  I have a stack of op-shopped zippers!

Take a bunch of unwanted zippers, sew together, leave one zipper tag in place for opening and voila, you have a pencil case, or coin purse etc

Socky snakes

My son and I had an idea.  Make socks into snake puppets; "Socky Snakes"  A pair of old socks, one with a hole in it, buttons for eyes, and a ribbon cut into a tongue.  My son particularly wanted a blue tongue (perhaps he remembered seeing a blue tongue lizard?) 

You can't see that clearly, but he also used a dark red marker pen to make dots and stripes on the body.  I got him to choose the buttons he wanted from my thrifted button stash, I then stitched with needle and thread. 

He called his snake "Teresa" - an interesting name for a snake?!

Car Caddy

Inspired by a sewing project seen on pinterest by homemadebyjill.blogspot.com, I've had a go at one myself

I've used recycled denim, using a huge off cut from my thrifted stash, along with second hand fabric, thrifted bias tape and thread, and felt off cuts from resource rescue.

The only new material - the velcro, and Lightning McQueen patch, which I got from Spotlight over a year ago, not used till now.

Fold in half

Roll up

Velcro shut

Close up of felt pockets, I doubled up on felt for extra thickness, 

and zig zagged stitched for extra support

These little car caddy's are great to pop in your bag for pre-schoolers to play with in cafes, long journeys etc.

Recycled Bunting

A couple of weeks ago, I held a marketstall at Southside Market, in St Kilda. It was fun to do a marketstall and meet other makers, and sellers. I've often shopped at market's but not held a stall before.

As a cheap/recycled set up for my marketstall, I purchased a wicker picnic basket from the op shop for just $3, and made a small banner with the word 'recycled' made from a jute fabric sample, bias tape, and the words 'recycled' cut from newspaper, and stitched onto each bunting flag.

More on Southside market here

Easter DIY Garland Idea

Saw this, thought it was cool...

DIY Paint Sample Card Egg Garland

c/o Modern Parents Messy Kids

Bird Brooch from Recycled Materials

My tutorial: How to Make a Bird Brooch from Recycled Materials

Can be found over at Epheriell Designs

Junk Wave Workshop Recycled Bowl

Yesterday, I attended Megan Bayliss' recycled craft workshop called The Junk Wave.

Her workshop taught us how to craft bowls using junk mail, beads using cardboard, and bags made from chip packets! I have yet to complete my chip packet bag or recycled beaded necklace yet, but I did finish my little paper bowl last night..


The Junk Wave is a social enterprise that turns post consumer waste into saleable art and craft material. Megan Bayliss workshops with community members and early childhood centers, all around Australia, to teach around sustainability (recycling), business (social enterprise and triple bottom lines) and to develop skills in hygiene (clean communities includes keeping waste out of landfill and water ways) and recycled craft.

If a Junk Wave Smart Art workshop comes to your town, I highly recommend it!

House Warming

A housewarming gift for a friend



House drawn freehand onto newspaper, sewn with recycled fabric (including felt)

Jungle Fabric Crayon Roll

My mum picked up some jungle themed fabric from a charity shop in the Uk which she posted to me in Australia for my crafty projects.

I received an order for two crayon rolls on Recycled Market, so I made one crayon roll (boy theme) in aforementioned jungle fabric..




Felt is eco-fi, and elastic ribbon is from the resource rescue centre.

iPad Case

We have succumbed to technology, and got ourselves an iPad. I refuse however, to buy a new case for the iPad, when I can make one myself.

So, using the excess denim cut away fabric from a $3 thrift skirt refashion, and some leftover cool vintage Pucci-style fabric from a top I made, I traced around the outside of my iPad, and created a case. I did use quilt padding, to make it softer in between layers.

I used a button and hair tie to close its lip shut, and used fluorescent embroidery thread around the outside.

Boats

Last minute Christmas gifts, boats for boys room decorations, based roughly on this idea

My son helped me collect driftwood sticks from the beach for each boat's sail mast, which I coated in clear water-based non toxic nail polish. The anchor fabric you may remember seeing before, and calico for the boat base - its all op shopped. The rope for the tie at the top of each boat is actually a strap from an used gift bag.

Felt for letters, initials of the boys the gifts are made for, are made from eco-fi kunin felt.

Award and Bird Coasters

Sorry for my absence.

Firstly, I need to thank Torqua Craft for awarding Recycled Sewing with a Liebster Blog award..

'Liebster' means "favorite" or "dearest" in German. This award, which originated in Germany, recognizes up and coming bloggers.

I need to award this to other bloggers, please bear with me, it is something I will come back to..

On the craft front, I re-purposed some old op shop coasters with pages from a thrifted art bird book. I don't actually want to use them for coasters, I'd like to put them up on the wall for a decorative feature....


Secondly, I really think I've mastered my children's chalk mat design. Here is my latest, which took me about half the time than it did the first time I made one. Made using second hand and vintage fabric..

High postage fail

In an attempt to make as many handmade gifts as possible this Christmas, my first creation is a wheat and lavender heat pack for my Mum.

Based on this pattern, I've used denim and fabric scraps to make the cover, which closes with velcro. Inside I have used calico material for the lavender and wheat pillow. All fabric used, including calico, is from my op shop stash. I used thrifted lace and a recycled birthday card to write a message.


Heat packs are microwaved for approximately 2 minutes, they small divine and feel great on the back of shoulders.

Unfortunately, what I probably should have considered, is sending such a weight to the UK; $40! Ouch.

I Spy Bags with Op Shop Treasures

A friend told me she'd made her son an I spy bag. Intrigued, I searched online to find some examples; little material sacks with a clear window, which are filled with little plastic balls. Within the sack are tiny little toys and treasures which children have to find.

Here is an example from Montessori Moments.....

Here is my eco-version. I use rice, instead of plastic balls, which I've seen here

I popped down to the op shop to see what treasures I could find - that was the fun part! This is what I found.......

A snake, Buzz Lightyear and Jesse from Toystory, a green and white fighter jet, a yellow and blue angel, little wooden owl, an orange rabbit and a fireman.

Each little treasure I either found in my local op shop's 'free box' which is mostly filled with McDonald's Happy Meal toys! I found some additional pieces on the shelves at 10c each.


I used two pieces of thrifted material from my stash, and the clear vinyl piece is a cut off from the Resource Rescue Centre - eco friendly craft supplies

In the making...


I attach a printed photograph of the treasures to find in the I Spy Bag which is tied to the side.

I gave the I Spy Bag to my son, the first thing he says

"Look at the rice" followed by ..".. and the toys, I need to take them out"... hmm not a great start! We'll re-attempt the game another day :)

And look! I found a little treasure for myself, an owl bottle opener for 10c, cute no?

Shared with these link ups

Zipper brooches with leaves

The zipper brooches have progressed. You'll laugh at this one readers, I found a broken faux-leather wallet by the side of the road, yep, in hard rubbish!

I thought about fixing it up, but really, it wasn't worth the effort, so instead, I've started cutting little leaf shapes, and using a seam ripper (the sharp bit) I score leaf veins into the vinyl.

Vinyl wallet before cutting into leaves

Seam ripper for scoring leaf veins into vinyl leaves

I'm starting to sell my brooches on Recycled Market, a brand new site that launched yesterday.

Do you make recycled goods too? If so, registration and listing your products on Recycled Market, is free.