Showing posts with label crafts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crafts. Show all posts

Sunday, December 5, 2010

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:

Sunday, June 14, 2009

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 :)

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