Paint Chip Magnet Tutorial

Last week I was making some magnets to put into a belated birthday package. I had all my magnet making supplies out for three little magnets so I started looking around the apartment for other things that might want to be immortalized into magnets. And that is when I stumbled upon upcycled crafty goodness: paint chip magnets.

I think ever crafty person has a bunch of paint chips wandering around their stash. How can you resist the colors and those crazy names like Banana Cream Pie and Red Hot Chili? For those who haven’t made magnets in the past here is a little tutorial.

You’ll need:

Paint chips (with good names)

Diamond Glaze

A brush you don’t care too much about

Magnets

Glass blanks

E6000 adhesive (you can also use diamond glaze)

I ordered the glass blanks, magnets and glue off etsy but I am sure you can pick everything up at a good craft store.

Last week I was making some magnets to put into a belated birthday package. I had all my magnet making supplies out for three little magnets so I started looking around the apartment for other things that might want to be immortalized into magnets. And that is when I stumbled upon upcycled crafty goodness: paint chip magnets.

I think ever crafty person has a bunch of paint chips wandering around their stash. How can you resist the colors and those crazy names like Banana Cream Pie and Red Hot Chili? For those who haven’t made magnets in the past here is a little tutorial.

1)      I cut the strips into individual colors. This makes it a bit easier to hold and less chance of getting glue all over the place.

2)      Coat the back of the glass blank with diamond glaze and align the glass over the portion of the paint chip with the name. Apply some pressure to make sure that the surface of the glass is making contact with the paper.

3)      Let dry, approximately 4 hours.

    4)      Cut around the outside of the glass with a xacto knife.

    

    5)      Attach magnet using E6000 adhesive or more diamond glaze. Make sure you space the magnet a fair distance apart or they will actually pull together leaving you a sticky mess.

That’s it. Super simple and perfect for those who can never quite figure out what color to paint their house.

Yarn Bangles

I came across this great idea the other day at See Me Knit. I have a huge box of little odds and ends of yarn that I can't quite throw out but that really are pretty useless. Most of them are even too small for a row of a Baby Surprise Jacket. I guess if I ever wanted to knit doll clothes I would be set, until then I will just have to make these knitted bangles.

I picked up the plastic bracelets for a dollar at a thrift store. I am pretty sure that if I was anywhere other then NYC they would be a dime but here a dollar seemed as good as I was going to find. Then it is a matter of knitting a long strip and sewing it around the bangle. Pretty neat.

Craft Face Lift

There is no shame in the fact that a lot of things in our daily lives need a little craft face lift. In fact my husband and I are thinking about moving into a lovely old Victorian apartment that will need a major craft face lift, if we do this blog may change a bit.
These days the word up-cycling is a over the place but really in my mothers day it was giving love to an otherwise ugly or old object.
And so in that spirit I gave a bit of a craft face lift to this lovely little box. Please excuse me for not remembering to take a picture of it's before but here it is after. I used odd paper I had around and plain white glue. My sister sent me some lovely scrapes years ago of paper from Japan. They were the scrapes from squaring handmade paper. I gave the whole thing a coat of clear water based varnish and here is the result!

Bluebell's New Home

Ms. Bluebell got a new home. I guess we don't drink that much milk because waiting for us to finish the next milk carton was going to take to long. Instead Bluebell is now snug as a bug in rug in her new juice box ipod case. Instead of sewing I used industrial glue and I solved my hatred of sewing elastic by adding a small piece of Velcro to the back. If you have ever tried to sew elastic, bless you- I hate it. All the properties that make elastic so good are what makes sewing it so bad. Bless the inventors of Velcro!

Baby Got a New I-pod for the Holidays

My super guy got me a brand new ipod for x-mass. I call her Bluebell, you know cause she is pretty and blue. She also hold 16 GB which means no more massive editing of albums. (For those of you who know my guy, I am pretty sure that I was given bluebell because he was tired of my music selection in the car)
Those clever folks at apple keep us crafters on our toes by always changing dimensions just enough so you have to rethink the whole case thing. I was planning on crocheting a new case but Bluebell is slightly rounded and has a wide screen which makes placing the cross ties hard. So it was time to get creative with a milk carton. This is just my first attempt, I have plans for bigger and better things. But for now it is two ply of milk carton sewn together with elastic to hold it in place. This won't last long because the position of the headphone jack makes it hard to keep it in place and have it the wheel accessible. But fear not more is to come. After all there is a three day weekend.

1000 Ideas for Creative Reuses

As an extra special holiday treat I found out that two of my projects are in the new book 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuses.



One of my NY times fused plastic zippy pouches and my ipod case.



Best of all I am in some great company with anagram, bread and bagder, combustion glass works, and reiter 8.

Holiday Sneak Peek

As you know I have been working over time to get all my holiday goodies made. Yesterday I hunkered down and made things after a very annoying sidestep to the post office. I made 15 new zippy pouches and 9 fused pins, including these new cute flower pins.

I am obsessed with the orange fairway zippy pouches I made. They may be my new favorite.

Here is also a sneak peek at what I made for Avice (AKA my surrogate grandmother). She loves all things black and white so I stenciled her these pillowcases. They took a little more work then I expected because my paint was old. I couldn’t understand why it was so hard to do and why the paint kept running. Finally a little light went off in my brain and I realized my paint was at least three years old and that might not be such a good thing. New paint helped immensely and I finished these up yesterday. One case has a pattern repeat three times and one has it twice, which felt right at the time but now I am not so sure. In truth it doesn’t matter I am leaving tomorrow and I am not allowed to add things back to the list!

I will be away for 10 days visiting the lovely Avice and other good family. I will bring my camera and try to give you updates while away. I hope everyone has a lovely holiday season.

Fused Pins

I have been in a bit of a crafting funk. I have plenty of ideas but I seem to be lacking some motivation. I blame this silly sinus thing that seems to be lingering on and on and on…
But last night I managed to break through the haze. I had some good alone time cause my guy was out playing with an old friend. I had several strips of fused plastic left over from the MAD DIY salon. I could make a ton of bracelets but really how many does a girl need?
So instead I made these lovely pins. I cut up the strips and sewed them together and in a recycling moment of inspiration the center in from an old metro card. I think they are the bee’s knees. They make me want to wear hats or something. Or at least wish I was going to a British wedding again.

I’m Mad for MAD Museum

I am a bit delayed in telling you all what a wonderful time I had at MAD last week. Church of Craft along with MAD museum did a DIY salon that was all about recycling, repurposing and remaking things.
I had the great honor of showing folks how to make a bracelet out of fused plastic bags and buttons. I spent a couple of insane days fusing bags in preparation and was glad to be able to open some widows.
I was amazed at how creative and talented everyone was. I have been working with these materials for over a year and it blew me away how differently each person approached this project. Here are a few samples of the great work. Above is the lovely Rev. Callie showing off the a sample cuff. Unfortunately I did not manage to get the names of all these creative folk but I would love to give them credit so if you see your work or a friends please e-mail me so I can give credit where credit is do!














And last but not least the lovely Amanda showing off her cuff.


I would also like to thank my fabulous Church of Craft volunteer, Mary, without whom not nearly as many bracelets would have been made.

Green Bag Lady Extravaganza

This past Sunday I had the good fortune of running a small sweatshop for the Green Bag Lady project hosted by Church of Craft at Etsy labs. City Quilter in NYC was kind enough to send out a mass e-mail to all their friends asking for fabric donations to this noble deed. With the wonderful help of Abbie, Elisa, Sarah and Kristy we cut out over 40 bags and sewed 18. It was so much fun we are going to try to have a few more bag making days soon.

Green Bags

Now remember that the subtitle of this blog is confessions of a craft-o-holic. I have been making bags for the Green Bag Lady project. She got a little overwhelmed by so many bag requests and has stopped taking bag orders. But it is such a great project, and the bag is really easy to make, so I decided to help out the project. I have been organizing a Green Bag Lady event in Brooklyn as part of Church of Craft. The plan is to teach anyone and everyone how to make a reusable bag and to make more of these great bags to give away in Brooklyn, NY (sorry I can’t ship bags to folks).
My goal is to make between 50 and 100 bags to give out. I have already made about 20 and given away 10 to friends and family. I was feeling kinda grumpy the last few days and sewing usually cheers me up so I sat down and made about 10 bags. I actually made Tim Gunn (the sewing machine) break a sweat. Okay he didn’t sweat but he did get really hot and I had to turn the machine off and let it cool down.

If you’re not in the New York area and would like to make one of these great bags the Green Bag Lady has a great how to video here.

Knitting a Bag of Plastic Bags: Tutorial Part I

After a nice long weekend upstate I found myself with a yet another plastic bag project. I admit it, I went to walmart. And as if that wasn’t bad enough we didn’t bring enough of our own bags so we ended up with several more plastic bags. What’s a good little human ecologist to do? Make something!

So I collected our bags + others from the folks we were visiting and started cutting. I cut the bags in one long spiral strip. I find the best way to do this is by cutting off the top handles and bottom of the bag so you are cutting the strips from a long tube. I also like to cut up a bunch before I start to knit. Cut the strips about ¾” to 1”- it doesn’t need to be perfect!

You can knit plastic bags just like anything else.

I have made a bag of plastic bags before and the best method I have found is to first knit a square for the bottom (mine is 6 ½” x 6 ½”). Keeping the bottom stitches “live” (don’t cast them off) proceed to pick up stitches along the other three sides of your square on circular needles.

You will now be knitting in the round.

Knit in the round adding a new bag when you run out “yarn” (yes you will have to weave in all those ends at the end, sorry).

It is best not to make it too loose a gauge. I am working on 10 ½ needles and getting about 4 st to the inch. The bag will stretch a lot once you put things into it!