Getting scrappy

Right now I have a big (and getting bigger) bag of fabric scraps.  I hate throwing away tiny little strips especially since fabric can get pretty spendy so I decided that I should compile a list of all the things you could do with them.  But once I started looking up all the possibilities I realized that this post would be miles long if I put everything here.  So I decided to be lazy and to link some to you folks.
Here they are:
Scrap happy
Martha Stewart (gotta include the queen of the home)
Holding onto the little things - I particularly love the fabric wall art panels and fabric scrap necklaces from this website
Craft stew

I want to hear from you guys!  What crafty things have you done with fabric scraps?

I commemorate you hot glue

After finishing my craft yesterday for my post Toilet paper strikes again I realized how much I truly love hot glue.  It's one of the easiest things to use, it can hold what seems like anything and if you mess up on something you can usually peel it off if you get it in time.

So I decided that this post should be dedicated to one of my favorite crafting tools since I feel like it doesn't get enough credit.  And what better way than to post about all the awesome things hot glue can do in addition to creating fabulous crafts.

This is from a great article I found on Yahoo!

1.Loose Furniture Legs-If you have a leg on furniture that you want to secure, this is an excellent way to do it. Pull the leg far enough out to apply hot glue all the way around. Re-insert it fully and let it harden.
Anything you do with hot glue, needs to be performed correctly and quickly. It dries within a minute or two.

2.Assembling Furniture-If you have bought that furniture(such as entertainment centers)in a box, to assemble when you get home, then you know how flimsy it can be. Put your hot glue gun where it will be handy. Make sure you get a few extra glue sticks available. As you assemble the pieces, apply hot glue to the joints of the furniture. You get secure, strong pieces, that don't fall apart when you move them.

3.Bathroom Towel Racks-Have you ever had one of these, just fall out of the holder? Pull it out and apply hot glue to either end. Place back in the holes and let it dry. No more falling out with the towels on them.

4.Repairing Plastic Toys-Most of the plastic toys, aren't meant to withstand the beating they get. However, buying new toys all the time is not very cost efficient. It only takes a few minutes to mold the broken piece back on. Let it dry and you don't have to go shopping. Before you waste alot of time on toys, check to see if they are hard, hard plastic or the softer kind. One is molded,hard. It is almost useless to do these. The softer poured plastic is repairable.

5.Replacing plastic moulding-Anywhere you have a piece of plastic molding, you can use hot glue. It doesn't take much and you have to be neat. A few swipes with the glue gun and you have created a bond. Stick it back on and let it harden.

6.Wall Sinkers- You know those awful wall sinkers that you install to hang things? If you put them in sheetrock, eventually they wiggle into bigger holes. Quick fix is to remove the thing and apply a dollop of hot glue. Stick in back in the wall and the glue provides a more secure, stable hold.

7.Car Door Moulding-The rubber moulding that goes around your car door. Put a small dab around the edge of the rubber and it adheres to the car. Temporary, but functional fix.

8.Shoe repair-If you have a pair of shoes that are coming apart, but need to wait to buy new ones, try using your hot glue gun. It doesn't take much, spread out over the entire loose part of the sole,apply pressure and wait for the glue to cool. Most hot glue is hard within a few minutes.

9.Repair plastic parts on appliances-Hot glue will make most plastics re-adhere to their surfaces.

10.Wooden Picture Frames-Got frames falling apart.Use a small amount of hot glue at each corner. Push back together and hold until cool

11.Virtually any plastic or cloth can be reattached to its host with a hot glue gun.

I also found this article about using hot glue to make sure your clothes don't slip off your hangers:

Lifehacker

Toilet paper strikes again!

Ever since I completed my craft for my post Toilet trees I just didn't feel like I had done toilet paper roll crafts justice.  It was my first craft and I didn't really have a lot of toilet paper rolls to begin with so my options were limited.  But since then, I've been saving all the empty toiler rolls and I finally decided to do something with my over flowing bag of them.  I think I've made my favorite craft yet:

A geometric wall decoration!  Isn't it beautiful??  It took a lot of time and it was a bit of a mess because of the paint but it was so worth it.

So here's what you need:

-A bunch of toilet paper rolls

-Scissors

-Hot glue gun

-Paint of any color (or no paint if you like the brown)

To start:

Cut your rolls into quarters, this will make them the perfect depth but I guess you could go thicker if you wanted.  I wouldn't make them any thinner though since they have a lot done to them

Pinch the roll pieces so that they resemble petals.  Thankfully the roll automatically does this a bit when you cut them so you only have to reinforce the crease

First I made the center part and then painted it white and then once dry, I glued the parts together

Then I mixed some yellow and red into the white to make a lighter color of what I wanted  to end up with

I made sure to place the outside layers before gluing them to make sure I have the right pattern.  Make sure the colored rolls are completely dry before adding them to the white ones because otherwise you could smudge the white like I did on a few of them

Here's a photo of me placing them before painting them.  I found that as the piece got bigger it was a little confusing to remember where I planned to put the rolls so I highly recommend taking pictures to look back and reference once the rolls are painted

Here's my second to last layer, I added more red and yellow to this layer to create that fade effect.  As the wall decoration gets bigger, the rolls will get a bit smooshed but it didn't ruin the look

Here's the finished piece drying.  It looks like there are weird gaps since this picture is at an angle but once you put it against a wall it looks symmetrical

Here it is on while wall, I think it adds a nice pop of color

I think this was my favorite color that it went against.  I would love to see it against a deep blue colored wall but we don't have any of those in my house.  Make sure if you're mounting it on a wall you hang it by one of the white middle ones so that it can support itself.  It might rip if you try and hang it from the darker outside one

Bottle it up

We've all been there before, you have a house party with a bunch of good friends, drinks are had and everyone has a good old time (hopefully).  The next morning when you wake up you're amazed at all the places that bottle caps can end up.  In rooms people weren't even in, on shelves, counters, chairs, sinks, you name it, they're there.  Now most people would probably throw these out, but there are actually a lot of really cool things you can do with bottle caps considering it seems so wasteful to throw away all of those pieces of metal.

Here are some cool ideas:

You can make a bottle cap picture frame or a frame for a mirror.  I think it would be neat to use caps from one type of beer and making something with that.  It would make a great gift for someone who drinks only one kind or for a bachelor pad or something

If you paint some bottle caps or glue really cool beads or buttons you can make jewelry out of them

You can do the same thing with the jewelry but make fridge magnets.  I really like this idea for stocking stuffers or cute little gifts for fun

Or you can just do this if you have all the time in the world and a seemingly endless supply of bottle caps

Cork dork

So as I mentioned in my post Corky projects I was going to do a project using old wine corks.

Well I kept my promise and I completed my very own cork board.  This is another one of those too-easy-to-be-real projects, but here's proof that crafts really can be super cheap, super easy and really cute.

There it is sitting proudly on my wall.  The cool thing about this piece is that it can be functional or just decorative

Here it is being a functional cork board

So how do you make it?

Here's what you need:

-A picture frame

-A bunch of corks

-Hot glue gun (not pictured)

The frame that I chose was only $3 dollars at the Goodwill bins.  I saw some really giant ones that were only like $10 dollars but I wanted to make sure I worked out the kinks in a smaller frame before moving up in size.  This is I'd say the only purchase you'd have to make for this project, unless you already have a frame that you'd like to use

So here's what I did first:

I sorted out all the same size corks and got an idea of how many I would need to fill the frame (I ended up needing a few more than this since this isn't the final pattern).  I also kept the glass in the frame because it created a stable base

Next I arranged the corks in the final pattern and hot glued them by vertical rows so I could make sure it would all fit.  I suppose you could glue it horizontally but I don't recommend gluing random corks because you could end up with empty spaces or not enough room.  

As you can see at the top of the picture there wasn't enough room for whole corks so I cut them in half and it worked out really nicely

And there it is!  I want to make a lot more of these in all different sizes since they were so easy and fast and if you buy the frames at the bins then you will spend hardly any money on them.  

Corky projects

Alright, so I've covered what to do with your empty wine bottle in my posts Can't let it go and Nothing to wine about, but what do you do with the corks?  Do you throw them away?  Because you should really be saving them since they can be made into some amazingly creative and easy projects.

If you're not much of a wine drinker and don't know how you're going to collect a substantial amount of corks, don't fret!  You can call some wine shops or maybe even restaurants to see if they have extra corks.

Anyways, tonight I'm doing a cork project but I thought it would be cool to post some other ideas I found online since I didn't know there were so many things you could do with them and you probably didn't either.

A nice picture frame

Not exactly sure what this is, a bath mat?  I just thought it looked cool

I love the look of this light and the really pretty patterns it leaves on the wall

For the extremely dedicated crafter, a chair could be made out of corks.  Not sure where you'd start or how comfortable it would be but this would definitely be for an individual with a lot of time

You can do any letter of the alphabet, this would be neat for a kid's room or to spell out something on the wall

Everyone needs a cork tuxedo

I really love the idea of filling a blank wall with corks, it would take a lot of time but it looks really nice and would also make a great place to stick memos for the day

Spice up your coffee table

I really want to do this after today's project!  It's probably very sturdy but still supportive and wouldn't have a problem with water damage

A great way to organize jewelry!

A crafters guide to pain relief

My latest trash craft (still unfinished) is one that involves a great deal of hand work.  There was a lot of fabric cutting, ripping and twisting and that was just the preparation for the project itself.  By the time I was done with that, my wrist was killing me and I was lacking a solution.  I tried moving my wrist back and forth and even massaging it but nothing helped so I just pushed through the pain for the sake of my art.
As I worked more and more on the project which involved a good deal of sewing and pushing pins through thick fabric, I realized I was rubbing my finger tips raw.  That's when I decided to throw in the towel for the night (probably best being as it was 3 in the morning).  But I woke up this morning knowing that I would have to return to my project and I would most likely face all the same pain I went through yesterday.  So I decided that today's post would be a healing guide for the overworked crafters out there, for those frantically finishing up last minute gifts for their loved ones, or who just like immersing their bodies and souls into their art.

Wrist pain:
I found this handy diagram for carpal tunnel exercises and I'm assuming it will help with regular wrist pain as well.

-Ice is a good remedy for pain, I read that it's actually better than heat since heat increases blood flow and can cause swelling

-Rosemary: add 1 oz of dried or fresh rosemary to 1 pint of boiling water, let sit for 30 minutes and soak a washcloth in it and apply to the affected area

-Peppermint oil: 3-4 parts vegetable oil (I prefer olive) to 1-2 parts peppermint oil.  Massage into your skin

-Epsom salts: put 2 cups in your bath and soak for at least 12 minutes.  It's high in magnesium sulfate which apparently a lot of us are lacking because of the rise in processed food consumption.  A magnesium deficiency causes muscles to contract which leads to pain

-Bananas, avocados, peanuts, whole grains and soy all are high in magnesium as well 

-Tiger balm: I know people who swear by this stuff, you can buy it at most grocery stores in the natural section.  The active ingredients are menthol and camphor which block sensors on pain fibers

Raw fingers:

-Aloe vera to soothe the burning 

-Ice

-Mole skin: not so much a remedy but something I thought of to put on your fingers when you do a good deal of sewing to prevent raw fingers

There are of course many more ailments  that affect us crafty folks, but I think wrist and finger pain is probably the most common.

Sources:

http://www.carpal-tunnel-symptoms.com/tendon-glide-exercises.html

http://www.prevention.com/health/health-concerns/pain-remedies-natural-cures-aches-and-pains?page=2

http://voices.yahoo.com/5-simple-home-remedies-wrist-pain-3399136.html