How-To: Re-Purposed Pants -- The Yoga Sling Bag with 2 Pockets

I’ve yet to find a yoga sling bag to tote my yoga mat around that will suit my needs at a reasonable price! I want one with pockets for a MetroCard, some cash, and keys. It should be comfortable to carry, have a little extra room for a small towel, and not cost 50 bucks!

So I have these cargo pants that I haven’t worn in a while and decided that they will make a GREAT bag to carry and store my yoga mat. AND I can incorporate the pants' pockets in the redesign! You can make one too, and here’s how…

You’ll Need:

An old pair of pants or jeans
A good pair of scissors
Sewing machine (preferably)
Webbing (for the sling strap)
Shoe lace or other means to close the bag

How To:

1. Fish out an old pair of jeans, preferably boot-cut and big enough to fit your rolled up mat. It should have a little wiggle room, but not be too roomy.

2. Cut the pants/jeans in half so that the two legs are separated. Turn the half you will use inside out.3. This is how to cut up the pants if you want to use the button fly as the opening for the yoga mat sling bag.4. Sew the button fly back onto the pant leg.

5. Next, put the yoga mat into the pant leg to measure how long the bag should be. The top of the yoga mat should sit where the waistband meets the pant leg. Cut off the bottom portion of the leg. You can use this remnant for the base of the bag.


6. Measure the diameter of the pant leg bottom. Using the leftover pant leg fabric from Step 5, cut out a circle with the same diameter plus a 2 inch seam allowance. This will become the base for the sling bag. I traced a circle around a cordless electric kettle for a perfectly shaped base.

7. With left sides facing out, pin the circle to the bottom of the pant leg. Decide where you want the strap to run across the bag and position one end of the webbing between the base and the pant leg.

To recap, the pant leg should be turned inside out with the left side facing out and the webbing should be inside (touching the right side) of the pant leg with one end positioned between the circle base and the pant leg.

Sew the base to the pant leg with 2 or 3 seams to attach the strap and the base securely to the sling bag.
8. Turn the bag right-side out. Secure the loose end of the webbing by sewing it to the opposite end of the bag with an “X-shaped” seam.9. To create a drawstring closure at the top of the bag, carefully cut two slits in the exterior part of the pants' waistband. Do not cut all the way through the waistband! Pull a shoelace or other heavy string through the waistband "tunnel." Pull the ends of the drawstring tight to tie the bag closed.10. If you are so inclined, go ahead and embellish the pocket with an “ohm” for extra credit :)
You’re ready to go!By Lorina Pellach-Ladrillono of The Original Beadscarf and beadscarf.etsy.com

How-To: Recycle Junk Mail into Paper Beads

With just a few pieces of basic equipment, you can turn your boring old junk mail into cute paper beads! These lightweight, bulky beads are great for making fun chunky jewelry, festive garlands, or a bead curtain to hang in your doorway (if you're feeling ambitious!)

Equipment:

- Kitchen blender
- 2 Buckets
- Large bowl or tub
- Sieve
- Awl
- Cutting mat
- PVA (white) glue
- Acrylic gesso
- Acrylic paints
- Clear varnish
- Paintbrushes
- Paper for recycling.

For this tutorial, I loosely packed a 1-gallon bucket about 3/4 full with scraps, which yielded around 100 beads ranging in size from 1/2"-1".

Ideal papers to use: anything printed on standard office paper, business envelopes, take-out menus with a matte finish, kraft paper.

Papers to avoid: glossy or coated papers such as magazine pages, waxed paper, newspapers and phonebooks (the ink is very messy and gross), facial tissue, paper towels.

NOTE: I recommend that you have dedicated equipment for home recycling/papermaking, rather than use the same items you use for food preparation. A good, used blender can easily be found at a thrift shop or yard sale. My rule is: if I use it for papermaking, I don't use it for food.

STEP 1: Tear paper into 1" scraps. Make sure you remove any staples and all plastic windows from business envelopes. Place torn scraps in a bucket, fill with water, and let it soak overnight.

STEP 2: Now it's time to make pulp! Put a couple of handfuls of paper into the blender and fill blender about half-full with water. Blend until the paper has the consistency of oatmeal, about 10 seconds. Place sieve over second bucket, and empty blender into sieve. After the pulp in the sieve has drained a bit, manually squeeze out excess water before transferring pulp to large bowl or tub. Repeat this step until all your scraps have been pulped, drained, and squeezed.

STEP 3: Add a nice big dollop of white glue to the pulp, mixing it in with your hands.

STEP 4: Roll yourself some beads! Take a bit of pulp and roll it into a little ball between your palms. This is the tricky part. If the pulp has too much water in it, it won't hold together. If it has too little water, it will be too crumbly to hold together, and your beads will break apart. Try rolling a couple beads and see how it goes. If the pulp is too wet to hold together, squeeze out more water. If the pulp is too crumbly, add back a little more water and some glue. You'll soon get a feel for the proper consistency, and it's easy to make little adjustments as you go. When in doubt, add more glue!

Once you've formed all your pulp into little balls, let them sit in a nice, out-of-the-way spot until they are dry as a bone.

STEP 5: Put holes in your beads with an awl. Working on a cutting mat to protect your work surface, hold the bead steady between your thumb and forefinger and press the awl slowly and firmly straight down through the bead.

STEP 6: I like to prime my beads with a nice thick coat of undiluted gesso because it helps to smooth over the rough surface. This step isn't absolutely necessary, and you can go straight to decorating your beads with paint, if you want.

STEP 7: Grab your paints and brushes and go nuts!

STEP 8: When the paint is dry, you can brush on a coat of clear varnish to give your new beads a little added protection and shine.

- Lisa H.
parallelbotany.etsy.com

Get Creative in the Office: Reuse and Recycle

As a struggling artist, I have held various temporary office assignments and one thing they all had in common was a tremendous amount of waste. There was so much paper accumulating and being improperly disposed of. Office supplies were reordered even when the shelves were fully stocked. It was impossible to keep up with the amount of paper piling up, but I thought of several ways to do my part and reuse what I could. Here's one thing I did:

We had stacks of interoffice envelopes, which in theory are great because you can keep using them over and over again until all the lines are filled up. I actually liked the patterns that months of different people's signatures and marker cross-outs created, so I hoarded used up inter-office envelopes and created notebooks! It is such a simple concept. I needed notebooks to take notes for my various assignments (and doodles!) and rather than use brand new pads of paper, I made my own.

Simply get a box or tray to store your used paper that has at least one blank side. Once you have a considerable amount to make a notebook, cut your interoffice envelope to the size of your stack of paper. To secure the notebook, I used a 2-hole punch and steel fasteners, which my office had loads of. But you can easily use staples, brads, or even slip rubber bands through the hole punches. And here is the finished product:

Feel free to add any creative recycling solutions you've come up with in the office place!

Molly Shoelace

mshoelace.etsy.com

How to Find Items to Upcycle

It's no secret, I love reclaiming discarded materials and upcycling them into something else. My craft supplies are equal parts commercially produced and found objects. One of the advantages of reusing is the cost: free! But where to get started?

Freecycle is a fast-growing global network of people who want to keep usable items out of landfills. Simple to use, just plug your zip code into the website to find your nearest group. Browse the "Offer" ads, you may luck out and get a sewing machine, yarn, fabric, or other supplies. I've personally given away big bags of fabric scraps and beads through freecycle.

Hudson Valley Materials Exchange, located in New Paltz, New York, is open to the public. The fees are extremely reasonable, and the place is a treasure trove. Be prepared to give yourself plenty of time to explore. The stock changes all the time, so you're bound to find loads of interesting salvaged items. According to their website the most recent donations include silkscreen frames, small boxes, and lampshade fabric and trim. Long Island's Material Resource Center in Ronkonkoma is a similar organization.
Another great source for upcycled materials is right under your nose- your house and neighborhood. Before you recycle or throw something away, give it a second glance. Magazines, greeting cards and other paper goods can easily be repurposed into gift tags, scrapbook embellishments, and other items. {NewNew} member Copabananas has used sewing patterns and manila envelopes to make the tags above.
Throw a party, and you'll have plenty of bottle caps to craft with. Deafdog is a bartender with many upcycled bottlecap magnets in her eclectic etsy shop. See pulpsushi's {NewNew} tutorial to learn how to make your own.Look at an item's packaging before tossing it. Glass jars are fabulous for storing small craft supplies like beads and buttons. Paint or pretty paper can make a simple box into a pleasing catch-all. A little glass etching can bring a boring jar or vase new life. Maybe that candy tin would make a good keepsake, like Waisze's scrapbook tins?

Participating in a cleanup is a fun way to find unique items for crafting while improving your community. I lead cleanups for my day job, and encourage volunteers to keep the most interesting items aside. Sea glass, broken jewelry, small toys and other interesting trinkets can easily be cleaned up and repurposed. Check out the work of {NewNew} member Glass is my Name. In addition to collecting sea glass from the beaches of Long Island, she upcycles everyday bottles into unique jewelry.

It's not hard to get into the habit of keeping an eye on the street when you go out. In my travels I've seen the sidewalks of New York City yield treasures ranging from a plastic monkey tiny enough to add to a bracelet, to a lone lost earring in SoHo, ripe for reinvention. The secret to sidewalk hunting is to keep your eyes open.

Lauren
paperelle.etsy.com

Wardrobe Refashion: How to Hem a Leather Garment

Leather is a material that I love for long-wearing garments because it only seems to get better as it ages. When my partner's mother gave me this leather jacket, I was thrilled, except for the fact that I couldn't see my own hands beneath the super long sleeves. Here are the steps I took to shorten the hem, and adjust the lining.

After measuring to see how much shorter I needed to go, and making a note of that measurement, I opened up the lining at the wrist to take a look at what was inside. I marked the length to shorten to as mark #2 all the way around. Mark #3 was where to cut for a 1 1/2" turn, and Mark #1 was that same 1 1/2" turn to align the cut edge.

Next I cut a long 1" wide strip of iron-on interfacing to press just above my hem line. This step does double duty: it keeps the leather from stretching out over time, and it makes a crisp turn line. Alternately you can glue in a strip of any non-stretch woven fabric for the same effect.

Using leather glue (rubber cement is a good alternative), I spread a thin, even layer about 2" wide right over where the hem would be. For the adhesive to work properly, let the glue dry until opaque and tacky before folding up the edge to your marked line.

I used a roller to smooth the hem into a tight crease. Any burnishing tool, bone folder, or back of a spoon would also be useful for this step.

To ensure that my lining was long enough (it should be longer than the sleeve where it is attached to keep it from pulling), I thread-marked it where the hem was the same length, added 1/2" seam allowance and cut off the excess. I drew a line 1" up from the hem on the leather, and hand stitched in the lining along my thread-marked line.


This technique for hemming leather is equally useful for skirts or pants.

Like any good "after" shot, my smile is much bigger than before. Now I have a jacket that fits properly and will likely give me a decade of use.


~Kari
http://ikyoto.etsy.com

How-to: "Something Blue" Bridal Hair Pin

My little sister will be getting married this summer and she trusted me enough to give me the extremely important task of designing and creating her jewelry. I'm scared already! ;O I'm almost certain, she will turn out to be my most difficult and outspoken client ever, and I'm not fooled by her when she says "Just surprise me, I'm sure I will love it!"

I decided to start with hair accessories. We went over different possibilities: hair combs, tiaras, hair bends and decided that hair pins would be best. My sister has very fine and "slippery" hair and pins will not only help to hold them in place, but also give the master hairdresser, my brother's best friend, lots of flexibility.

Supplies:

~hair pin
~wire (I'm using 26ga silver plated wire)
~beads: glass flowers, glass leaves, pearls, Swarovski crystals, seed beads
go wild! use silk flowers, feathers, old jewelry, sequins, buttons, etc
~wire clippers
1. Cut an 18in long piece of wire, place first petal or leaf shaped bead in the middle of your wire and twist wire securing bead in place.

2. Secure additional 2 petal beads on each end of the wire.

3. Make a couple of additional twists below the little branches.
4. Add glass flower bead topped with "something blue" Swarovski crystal bead leaving about 1/2in of wire bellow the flower.
5. Bend the wire tightly over the edge of the flower bead and twist tightly making sure that the blue crystal stays as centered as possible.

6. Thread a little Swarovski crystal butterfly on the longer end of the wire about 1.5in from twister wire, fold it tightly against the bead and wrap around.
7. Position the butterfly above the pearl branches.
8. Add one more flower bead with Swarovski crystal center at the base of this little bridal bouquet.

9. Thread both ends of the wire through the loop of the hair pin and secure it in place by wrapping around the loop of the hair pin and around the base of the bouquet. Clip off the access wire.

by Mirela
Jantar Handcrafted Jewelry