Saturday, April 16, 2011

Metamorphosis

This is a group shot of our upcycled jars and plastic bags! I would have never thought of this idea without having seen it on blogs or on Etsy. It is helpful to have visual aids to help imagine new possibilities. New media certainly affords numerous avenues I cannot fathom the possibilities for the future!
Above is a finished wallet I created weeks ago. I planned on doing something else - such as a shopping bag, but my sewing machine needle isn't working correctly and I don't know enough about sewing to figure out how to fix it. I wanted to show what I have created through this process. It's not the "best" product, but it's functional!

In order to complete this project, I followed the instructions that I posted earlier - to fuse the plastic. Then I cut and sewed the fused plastic together to make a pocket, then folded the top down. I used a zig zag and a straight stitch for decor.
Here is a closer look at the "slipcovers" I made out of "orphaned socks" - before I found this innovative way to decorate the jars, they looked horrible - with peeling labels and glue collecting dust. After cutting off the toes of the socks, I slipped the socks over the jar - and presto! Tinkerbell is now decorating the jar holding the paintbrushes! The girls love how the craft jars are decorated with their favorite princesses - and I think it looks cute, too! Now, I just need to find some kind of fabric that "feels" more like summer - this reminds me too much of winter!!

2 comments:

  1. These are great! Love the diversity of materials with the plastic bag projects and the socks! It was also fun to see how you modded the tutorial to do something slightly different -- I think that this type of creativity and innovation is at the core of the DIY community and I love to see these little off-shoots! Was the fusion project difficult? Sounds like it was a little harder than it looked and that you could have benefited from some tips on how to use the sewing machine to stitch through the bags. Did you end up doing it by hand by chance?

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  2. The fusion project was easy - it's just that I used three bags of plastic to make it nice and durable - but I think it was too thick - which caused an issue with the needle when sewing it. I was able to finish the "wallet" - but when I went back to do the shopping bag, I couldn't get the needle to work like it did with the wallet. It kept getting "jammed" --- I think we could sew by hand, but I have severe carpal tunnel in my right hand - so holding a needle to sew is a bit painful - I'm going to miss this class - it was such good fun/educational!!! -Kate

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