Recycle used toilet roll tubes into gorgeous wall art!

Behold, internet craftarians!!!  It's my new crafty conquest, a gorgeous piece of wall art, made from bajillions of used toilet roll tubes!

It's taken me ages to complete this baby, even with a couple neighbours collecting cardboard tubes on my behalf.  At four petals per tube, and a grand total of 20 5-point flowers and 10 6-point flowers, that's 40 rolls of toilet paper used.  Phew!

To make this wreath/wall hanging, simply flatten toilet paper tubes, cut them into 1-inch sections (you'll get about 4 per roll) and glue them together to form flowers.  Then arrange the flowers into a design, and glue the whole thing together, piece by piece.  I used super glue, because it was the quickest, although you can also use PVA glue.  Also, note that I used a couple different brands of toilet roll on this one; the 6-pointed flowers have different-sized petals than the 5-pointed ones.  This was entirely accidental on my part, but it turned out pretty nice!  When the weather gets warmer, I will spray-paint this wall hanging a nice, deep red, but for now, it's staying au naturel.  Mounting is pretty simple, too, it will just take a few small nails in the wall, and it can be hung directly on them.

Some closeups for you, so you can see the details:

I can't take any credit for this idea, I must confess.  The rather lengthy list of credits:

DIY Door Frame Art Piece [Curbly]

DIY Door Frame Decor and Tutorial [Love People. Like Things.]

Recycled Toilet-Paper-Roll Wall Decor! [Creative Jewish Mom]

#01 Flowers expended to wall art using paper rolls [Growing Up Creative]

Watch out...I'm crafting again!

Well, it's been a pretty big hiatus, but I'm finally starting to get back to crafting stuff...Still haven't managed to dig my yarn out from under all the boxes, but I'm sure it'll come!

Here's a sneaky peek at my latest project.  Can you tell what it is yet?

HOW TO: Make a child's t-shirt into a peg bag

There are a very few things more satisfying than hanging all your laundry out on the line on a warm summer's day...Your clothes smell fresh, and you save the environment (just a bit!) by not running five loads through the tumble dryer!

Uh, however, if you're like me, you need about a million clothes pegs, hence the "peg bag". You're welcome to buy one from Cath Kidston for a tenner, if you so desire, but an easier and more fun thing to do is to convert an old child's tee (one of your children's own, or a neighbour's!)...It costs next to nothing and can be sorted in about an hour.What you'll need:

1. A child's t-shirt. Any size from about 2 to 4 will be right.
2. A small hanger. This may have come with the t-shirt, or something else...I find that the ones that come with adult swimsuit tops are quite good!
   
3. Some stuff you have lying around the house.

I have to be intentionally vague on the third one, because there are a number of different ways to accomplish the same thing!

There are two parts to creating a peg bag from a t-shirt:

1. You have to close up the bottom of the tee.
2. You have to create a hole to put the pegs in.

That's really it...And how you get there is up to you.

The first time I made one, all I did was to run the bottom of the shirt through the sewing machine and make a slice across the chest.

The peg bag you see in the picture is crocheted shut with a very small-gauge hook and some crochet thread, and detailed with a picot stitch! I did the same on the hole for the pegs, partially to match the bottom, and partially to prevent the opening from fraying.

The final part is to hang the t-shirt up on the hanger, et voila! You've got a nifty, cheap peg bag, and you also find a use for those old t-shirts you love, can't throw away, but just can't justify keeping around :)

noisypitta.etsy.com

What I've been up to...For the last couple months!

Oooooh, I'm a baaad blogger. I hope I haven't let any of you down by not posting in so long!

The truth is, I've gone a little ADHD, craftily speaking. Over the last several months, I've crocheted a jumper, learned to knit (well, learned to stocking stitch!) and, most recently, made a peg bag out of one of my son's old t-shirts!

Unfortunately, I've been having camera, uh, issues. Ones that culminated in my hubby finally getting fed up and going out to buy a new one, which will arrive this week. And then it'll be piccies galore, you just wait :)

noisypitta.etsy.com

Sorry, I've been cheating :)

I have something to tell you all.

I've been seeing someone else.

His name is "crafting". No, not just crochet, but OTHER stuff too.

I'm so ashamed.

...

But look at the cool stuff I made!!!

The first one is a teddy bear that I made for my son, to help him scare away the mean monsters under his bed. Well, actually, in the time I've taken to make it, we've managed to convince him that there are nice monsters too. The nice monsters come and have a party with him after we've put him to bed, and the bonus is that the nice monsters scare away all the mean monsters. So he doesn't really need a teddy anymore, but he still loves it! Here he is:


I started out hand-stitching everything, but eventually gave up and turned to my old Singer 99k for help. It took a while to get it right because the tension discs were messed up for some reason...Anyway, turns out that the manual that came with the thing (keep in mind it's like 50 years old) is AMAZING! It gives really good step-by-step instructions on how to take apart absolutely everything, so I was able to fix it myself. Eventually I got it working with this fabric, which is really just an old Gap jumper that shrunk in the wash.

Probably the hardest bit of this project was doing the blanket stitch around the edge; it took nearly all of an 8m pack of embroidery floss, which I had to pull through every stitch. If anyone knows a better way of doing this, I would appreciate the advice!

Long story short (too late!), Jim loves his teddy :)

And here's an older shot of my sewing machine. It's an oldie, but goodie! In this shot, I was sewing a purple crinoline into a dress.

Happy crafting!

noisypitta.etsy.com