Earring to Necklace Tutorial

Can you believe I used to wear these earrings? I mean they are cute. But if I wore earrings like this all the time I would have nasty saggy old lady ears by the time I'm thirty!

 

BUT!

Instead of getting rid of them...

 I used one of them to make a necklace!
((Ok, don't judge my pasty white skin).

I got the super long chain from Michael's for like three bucks and that was all that I had to buy!

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Spice Containers: Baby Food Jars

I finally finished! And I learned how to use my new Silhouette. Hallelujah! I made about 20 of these for my dad for his birthday/ house warming present.

 What you will need: 

-Baby food jars with lids

-Silhouette (or something of that sort)

-Spray paint (for lids)

-vinyl

-Armour Etch

1. Clean your jars of all the stickiness from the labels. I found that if you spray them with WD-40 and then scrub them with an abrasive sponge, that works great.

2. Cut our your fonts in vinyl. I used font size 48.

3. Carefully cut out your labels and put them on the jars so the letters are taken out.

4. Apply Armour Etch to only the area inside your letters. Let set five minutes. Rinse. Dry. Then remove you labels and clean with window cleaner.

5. Paint several coats of spray paint on your lids.

6. I added another label to the top of the lids just for fun. 

Then you're finished!

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Recycled Bracelet

Nicholette here...

At first glance you don't really see what it's made of so take a good look....

It's made from soda tabs!  I got this idea from my awesome friends Jenny and Derek, now let me show you how!

What you will need:

-at least 20 tabs from soda cans

-2 pieces of at least 12 inches of stretchy cord

Just a heads up:

You are going to have two layers of tabs. The bottom layer:

And the top layer:

1. Now that you kind of understand the basic skeleton...

Start by threading each piece of cord through a tab right side up, then cross them through another tab.

2. These two tabs will be the front of your bracelet. Flip them over and thread all four ends through one tab facing the opposite direction, like so...

 3. Keep your bracelet where it is and thread two more tabs on either side of the one on top. Flip it back to front side and it should look like this.

4. Add another front tab by crossing the thread through.

  It may be easier for you to just look at the finished project and figure it out. That's what I had to do!

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Singed Flowers

I have been dying to make these since I first saw the instructions at Mrs. Priss! So this is my version of how to do it! I made mine from an old polyester shirt that had a broken zipper. Yea for recycling, reusing, and re-purposing!

 What you will need: 

-Lightweight polyester-type fabric

-Pearls

-matches

-scissors

-needle and thread 

(I had all of these things on had, so for me, this craft was FREE!)

1. The first step is going to be to cut out several circles of varying sizes. They don't have to be perfect, in fact, I think it makes the fabric look more like flowers if they're a little less circle-like:)

2. Carefully burn the edges of the fabric just enough to singe the edges and slightly curl the edges.

3. Next, layer the fabric pieces from largest to smallest and sew together with the embellishments in the center.

You can either attach a hair clip to your flowers or a head band. (I made this headband with the fabric from the edge of the shirt and some elastic).

THERE YOU HAVE IT!

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Fabulous Friends Wednesday - Laura from Along for the Ride

Hello friends, and welcome to another FABULOUS FRIENDS WEDNESDAY!   I'm thrilled to welcome Laura, from Along for the Ride.  Not only are her crafts just awesome, her blog is so inspiring and always brings a smile to my face.  Make sure to stop by her blog and say hi!


Hello Craft Envy Readers! I'm Laura from along for the ride.

Thank you so much to Nicholette and Vanessa for inviting me to guest post today!

So a little about me... I have been married to an incredible, handsome, handy man named Kyle for almost a year and we have a cute black kitty named Jupiter who, as I write this, is chasing a little felt mouse all around the apartment. I am a residence hall coordinator at a large state university and I love (almost) every minute of it. My main repsponsibilities are to supverise the RAs, talk to students when they make silly decisions (and you thought that was a good idea how??) and generally manage a hall of about 400 students. Learn more here. Also, we live in the hall- not in a dorm room, but in a really cute apartment that we've tried to make a home. I know this might sound crazy, but this is exactly what I wanted to do!

When I'm not mediating roommate conflicts or fixing leaky ceilings, I love spending every spare minute crafting! From jewelry to mod podge, stamping to sewing, I love it all!

One of my recent favorites has been making toliet paper roll napkin rings. It's a super-cheap, super-cute way to spruce up your table. I hope you love making them as much as I do!

So here's how to make toilet paper roll napkin rings (diet coke is optional).

Did you know that a roll of toilet paper is exactly 4 inches? I first tried to cut the roll using kitchen shears...this did not work very well. I then tried our new, fancy, expensive knives and it worked like a charm (don't tell my husband. I thought I was being resourceful...he would think otherwise.)

I cut four 1-inch rings.

I used plain old white ribbon from the dollar store to cover the rings. I put a dollop of hot glue on the inside and started wrapping.

At first, I glued the ribbon down periodically. I don't suggest this. It worked much better when I just wrapped them in one big swoop.

Now I had four white rings...but I wasn't impressed. I took some thick black ribbon and wrapped it around the outside of the rings.

Perfect!

I host a blog party every Saturday called "Saturday is Crafty Day." I'd love it you linked up!

I hope you stop by soon and check out my other projects at along for the ride!

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TP Gift Box

So, Mother's Day is coming up soon, and I've started working on some little gifts for the special women in my life, but I didn't quite know how to wrap them, they're tiny gifts... That's when I saw my trusty bag of toilet paper rolls, waiting to be turned into something fabulous, and came up with this:

That's right friends!  These cute boxes are made out of TP rolls!  Let's get to it.

What you'll need:

- TP roll

-glue

-scissors

-pencil

-some kind of paper to cover your box (I used some old tissue paper from a gift, and a napkin!)

-embellishments

Flatten your TP roll, and trace on both edges a curved line, like you see above.

Cut out on the line you just traced.  Your roll will look like this.

Baad picture, sorry.  But you get the idea, fold the edges you have just cut out, to the inside of the roll.  

You will do that to all of them.  It will look like this.  Isn't that a cute shape?

Now go ahead and open your roll out again, cover it with glue and lay it on the paper you want to use.  I like to crinkle up the paper to give it some texture, I think it looks cool!  After that, go ahead and trim your paper to the shape of your little gift box.

Don't forget to embellish away!  I tied a cute little bow in one, and I used a paper flower on the other, but you could add whatever you like!  And they're perfect size for the little beaded watches I'm making... Shhhh.... don't tell the mothers! :)

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Fabulous Friends Wednesday - Sonia from Kosmic Chai Crafts!

Welcome dear friends to another FABULOUS FRIENDS WEDNESDAY!  We are so happy to welcome Sonia from Kosmic Chai Crafts today!  I found Sonia's blog a while back, and I have to say that I just love her mind when it comes to recycling and re purpose projects.  There are so many things I want to make from her blog!  I'm sure you'll love what she has to share with us today, so stop by her blog today! 

Hello dear crafters, I’m Sonia from Kosmic Chai Crafts. I’m a new blogger,
 and so excited that Nicholette and Vanessa are having me as their guest today!
 I’ll be posting here something very exciting today, but I guess a brief
 introduction about me is in order.

I’m 24 years old and married for more than a year now. I have a passion for

crafting, and can hardly seem to keep my hands off it, even as I'm into a full-time job as account manager in a national radio channel. I love reading, dark chocolate, pastas, tea or ‘chai’, glass gems, sea, shades of blue, and everything colorful; and I’m sucker for recycling projects. My mind just can’t seem to stop whirring when I want to repurpose or restyle anything.

Here are some of my earlier creations. Click on the links if you wish to check them out!

Springy Summery Bracelet

Butterfly Glass Gem Mobile

Beautified Flower Pot

Crystal Chain Necklace

Birds on Branches Mobile

Fall Inspired Candle Holders

There are so many other creations of mine too, which you can check on my website: Kosmic Chai Crafts. I'm looking forward for your visits over there!

Okay, now with today's tutorial: Plastic Bottle Purses- such an exciting recycling project! Here's what I came up with:

Could you have imagined these were made out of plastic bottles? These plastic purses can be put into multiple uses, such as coin box, or for storing keys, craft tidbits, beads etc.- almost anything! At the same time, your being a socially responsible person and holding some plastic off the hazardous landfills. 

These are super easy to make, too! You will need:
Two similar plastic bottle bottoms (soda/bottled water bottles)
Sharp Scissors
Cello tape
Two zippers
Sharp-edged Screwdriver (for piercing holes)
Needle
Fishing line/ Nylon/ any strong thread
Acrylic paints of your choice

Now lets get started! Heat and old kitchen knife, and with it drill a hole slightly above the bottom area of the bottle. Insert your scissors into the bottle from the hole and snip the bottoms off the soda/water bottles. This is very easy! Two bottoms make one purse; take note that both are similar in shape and size, or the purse wouldn't look proper. I made two purses out of 4 bottoms: two of the flat kind, and two from soda bottles.

You must have noticed the sharp edges of the hence snipped bottoms, and we don't want bruised fingers every time we touch them, do we? So cover the raw edges with the help of some cello tape. Next, lay them bottoms up for a good coat of acrylic spray paint. I chose silver. Wrong Choice. Choose carefully!

After the spray paint has dried, take your sharp edged screwdriver and pierce holes in regular intervals along the edge. Later on, I found that even a large needle would do the trick!

Bring in those zippers! I wanted to finish this project with everything on-hand, hence I salvaged some old zippers from hubby's unused trousers and jeans. You can do the same; ransack hubby's cupboards. Take care that they're of the same length as the bottle's circumference. Mine were shorter and came only half-way, but I used them anyway!

Now place the zipper along the edge of the bottom. 

Thread your needle with nylon/fishing thread and secure with a knot. Start securing the zipper to the inside of the bottom by stitching it in and out from the pierced holes. This is very easy, really so don't get confused. Here's the bottom half finished:

Now start stitching the upper half of the purse by securing the other side of the zipper to another bottle piece.

Once stitched, close the zipper. Ta Da, you've done it!!

Here's how it looks when open:

Trim the unwanted threads of the zipper, and you're done! The zippers I used were shorter, hence I can zip these only till half the way. Use the zippers of exact length for better results!

Ideally you could have stopped here, if you had the colored it right. I hated the cement-colored look, so started to alter their look. I painted some floral designs on one of the purses, so that the base silver color doesn't show much. The second one however, I re-painted totally white, and coated it with some matt Mod Podge so that the silver doesn't show. I then made small brush strokes with the colors of spring, and outlined them in black. Done!

Pop in your small change, keys, or paper clips, whatever!

Here they are, all zipped up!

I love these- good recycling, great for storage! What do you think? Let me know by visiting my blog and leaving some comments!

Thank you Nicholette and Vanessa, for having me here! Ooh, I had such fun!

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