Outdoor Christmas decoration

I combined two days for 12 days of Christmas DIY challenges. Day #5 was to make something you find from your shed and day #7 was to use something from your garden.

First something from the shed:

Plastic flower pot from the summer and piece of chicken wire. 

Cut the wire to desired size, preferably something a bit bigger than the pot.

Fold the wire so that it fits inside the pot. It is supposed to stand in the pot and come close to the top edge of the pot. I left couple centimetres from the the top edge.

Then something from the garden:

Different twigs and some cones. If you are working with the twigs inside, be fast especially if the temparature is low outside. If the twigs are frozen and they melt, they will drop all they needles much faster than if they stay cold through the process.

Start adding the twigs and cones to the pot, add the cones and you are done!

Superfast to make, you can use any pot you happen to find and make easily many different variations. And if you like, you can add some decorations too. I just happen to like "plain" style. 

Maybe I will add some outdoor lights on it before hanging it to our front door though. Otherwise no one will be seeing it much as we have sunshine only about 7 hours at this moment and it keeps getting darker for a while.

Good thing I saved the hanging flower pot, now I have my own hanging outdoor Christmas decoration!

Upcycled gifts

Christmas is coming with all the presents to make but first couple other presents. Upcycled paper flower for my mum and my first zip it up pencil case for my daughter's friend. 

I actually remember my mother's birthday when asked but when it actually is - I don't remember it. I realised it on saturday when she was talking about making a cake and the birthday was on sunday when we were also going for a visit. I was going to spend few days with my kids in my home village so the visit didn't have anything to do with the birthday and I simply had forgotten. That needed some quick thinking. 

She likes orchids and I remembered seeing pattern for making own paper orchids in Pinterest. Upcycled paper was perfect for this, I have saved some magazines that have big pictures and nice, glossy pages. Then I needed a branch and a pot for the flower. I had saved yogurt cup and that seemed to fit, just had to figure out a way to make it heavy enough to stand with the flower. So I went "shopping" outside, found branch out of pine and took some sand from the kids' sand box. The problem was that all of these were quite wet so I took them inside, lit up the fire on fire place and put my treasures there to dry. Try and imagine the reaction of my kids when I was doing the exact thing I have forbidden them to do! No bringing sand and branches inside, right?

After making the flowers, I attached them to the branch with hot glue.

The whole thing turned out pretty nice if I may say so. And my mother liked it too. :)

For the other present I used the tutorial by Jill: http://jembellish.blogspot.com.au/2016/10/upright-zip-it-up-pencil-case-tutorial.html

After making it I can only admire the work she has done for making the tutorial. Definitely not the  easiest thing to sew, must not have been easy to figure it out in the first place! Thank you very much, I will be making more of these in the future! Already my kids said that they too absolutely need these, so...

I used quite thin fabrics so it was doable to sew, no broken needles for this one. For the lining I used usual cotton fabric but added one extra layer from similar fabric inside to make it sturdier. The pencil case something to make it stand and the tutorial mentions using some plastic, plastic sheet for example, I used coffee bag. I have saved couple just in case I would need them and now I did. For the hardener it is important that it is rather light, soft and bends. Coffee bag filled all the requirements and worked just fine. The outer fabric is from a skirt from recycling center.

My little old home village with a population under 2000 has own recycling center! People can bring there their clothes, toys, dishes, shoes, books and everything is free. I found bag full of clothes (will be shown later with more detail) and new leather shoes - all for free! The recycling center has been in great use and why wouldn't it? People are recycling more and more and why not to take your old things there when it is easy instead of throwing it away?

I made a suggestion about having recycling center here in my current home village. I got written reply with all the actions that were taken based on my suggestion and I'm glad they had taken it seriously. Someone had actually visited the mentioned recycling center but the decision was that there is no need for it. I may disagree and I tried to press the point in my suggestion but didn't work this time. To tell the truth, I didn't expect anything more this fast but I hope that someone will remember the idea. Who knows, maybe someday we have a place like that too? 

Fabric box and quilt work bag

My daughter has last year in kindergarten and it was time to gift her kindergarten teachers. They have had a recycling theme at the kindergarten so it's more than fitting to make the gifts out of recycled materials. My daughter wanted to bake cookies so I thought I would make fabric boxes for the cookies.

The outer fabric is from a dress that came to us in a package of used clothes and has never been used here. Apparently it isn't pink/violet enough for a little girl, even though I think it is pretty. I have tried to sell it, again, for couple of euros but maybe it wasn't pink enough to be worth of that. :D 

This is what I got out of the dress:

Naturally there is the skirt and the zip but I would like you to look at the white fabric on the left. It is from the hem line and its width is about 10cm, plenty of beautiful fabric for other projects! I kept the upper part as whole as it is my daughters size and I can sew it together with maybe something pink.

The rose fabric is a left over piece that I have had in my storage for 15 years, time to use it, I think?

First I attached the fusible interfacing to the brown fabric. It would have been good idea to use something stronger, or at least add it to both of them but works ok like this.

I cut the interfacing in parts rather than just one piece and left small gaps between the parts to make it easier to fold.

Then it was time to make and attach the ribbons. Fabric for the ribbon is from old shirt of mine. I would have like to use something from the dress or at least the rose fabric but they were too thick to be used in a small box like this. Simply, attach them to the right side of one fabric (it doesn't really matter which one).

Then just sandwich it (brown and rose fabric that is). Remember to make sure the ribbons don't go under your seam and leave a hole of 5cm for turning the box right way up. Turn it and iron! It looks kind of mess but ironing gives it the look it is supposed to have. Stich around 1-2mm from the edge to give it support and close the hole that was left to turn it. I also sew "a frame" on the bottom along the gaps of the interfacing, again to give it more shape. And you are done!

I have been meaning to give some fabric pieces to the kindergarten to be used for crafting but have been forgetting it whole year. Now I remembered it and I also made a small quilt work bag to put them in. Also the bag was part of the gift.

 I followed partly this instruction to make the bag. I took a selection of old children clothes and cut squares of 10cm x 10cm, sew the main piece together and the side pieces. I also made a lining for the bag to give it support. If you want to make like I did, follow the instructions behind the link for steps 1-4 and the same for lining (leave a gap of about 7cm in one of the seams to be able to turn the bag. Stich the handles on their places and sew the top edges of these two bags together, right sides facing of course. Use the gap to turn it around, close the gap. If you want real smooth finish, hand stich it or like I did, make a little seam over it. It doesn't show that much being inside the bag. Iron and you are ready! Though I stiched the corners to give it more shape but it isn't necessary. 

So the teachers got cookies and the boxes, the kids fabric for crafting and I some more space to my sewing room!

Elina