Revamp!

I've been away for a month! I knew it had been a while since my last post but a whole month has shocked me! Unfortunately though I haven't really been crafting so haven't had much to share. That's the problem with being really ill is that even your favourite things become a chore :(

I have been dragging my butt into the shop and selling lots of things to some lovely people so I need to do lots of replenishing this month so hopefully there will be lots of posts over the next few weeks to catch up with!

The past 2 days have all been about revamping, upcycling, breathing fresh life into old clothes. There's never much need to throw things away, its a huge problem our society is conditioned with; if we don't throw things out then how will we have room for all the new things that we need to buy!! Oh how I hate the commercial, capitalist world we live in! Maybe this post can inspire some folks to take a step back and just update the wardrobe they already have rather than constantly buying new.

I went to town with some great charity shop finds and some screen printing. 

The first two pieces are a St Michaels shirt and a handmade vintage dress both on beautiful emerald green shades and I used a new screen print of mine 'happily ever after' to print onto the backs. I'd made the screen up to print some cushions with but decided it worked on these items too!

I picked up a few tshirts and vest tops on my collecting days and cheered them up with a few carousel horses, lions and zebras. The red and white tshirt below I also added a blue and white spotty pocket for a bit of extra colour. The stripey dress was also a handmade vintage piece that I added some balloons and also a big red polka dot pocket to.

I've also been working on a range of jumpers to sell in the shop. I wanted to combine my love of printing onto found fabrics with cosy jumpers and lots of lace and this was the result! Each is a one off piece.

Record Bowls Ahoy!

So I've had a pile of old records for a few years now. They were given to me by an old window cleaner on the promise I would use them in a creative way. Most of them are, fortunately for me, LPs that no one will ever really take the time to listen to again. I definitely couldn't have done this to any decent records I love the sound of vinyl.

I went trawling through on-line tutorials to see what method seemed best (there are so many different ways of doing this!) and ended up going with the picture below. Big ovenproof round dish, record, small oven proof dish!!

I originally set the oven quite high as per internet instructions but quickly discovered I needed it much lower. I'm not sure if this is because we have a gas oven not an electric one. I ended up having most success at around Gas Mark 4 for about 2 minutes, then it was floppy enough to have sunk into the dish and you can play around with the shape of the folds. I don't know whether I have no feeling for heat in my hands but i was able to touch and mould the vinyl with my bare fingers; I obviously used gloves for the dishes!! I unfortunately lost the first two to playing around with temperatures; as it was too hot the edges began to bubble and looked gnarly; you can see it in the picture.

When i did get the hang of it, it was really fun to see all the different shapes that formed, each one is definitely unique.

 

I've popped them in the shop, I thought they'd make good Christmas prezzies.

 

You've Been Framed

So this week has been more about looking after the cat and getting him sorted. My sister's cat Zorro came to stay with us about 5 weeks ago and after 3 days managed to escape out the cat flap and that was the last we saw of him for 4 1/2 weeks! He'd come down from London and people kept saying maybe he'd tried to go home which wasn't helpful! But he was sat on the kitchen table last Saturday morning when I got up. We've been to the vets quite a lot this week getting him checked out and sorted with antibiotics and painkillers; he had a weird limp :(

So in between all that chaos there's been a slowing down on the craft front. I have managed a few bits so I thought I'd share them now whilst enjoying a lazy Sunday at home.

I picked up some old annuals for the Green Living Festival workshop that I took part in a few weeks ago and had a brainwave of other fun things I could do. My first project for them was picture frames. So I got the ol' Mod Podge and Stanley knife out the box and set down in front of the telly yesterday having a fun Saturday play afternoon!

I used a pack of cheap Ikea frames that I'd picked up ages ago ( one of those stupid shopping moments when you don't want to come away empty handed; yes I realise I'm being a slave to consumerism). They had a good wide frame though which I thought would be better for showing off the comic strips.

Check out how lovely the two colour screen printed pages are.

I used the craft blade to cut around the edge of the comics and shape them to the frame. I used the Mod Podge to stick the strips and to varnish over the top. The one I have leaves a lovely matte finish but you can get others in different finishes. It's good that you can finally get it in the UK, I've always seen so many lovely projects on crafster.org using the stuff and have always wanted some; pretty  pleased with the results so far.

Finished frames. I ended up making four different ones; it was great that they used to use different colours for the two colour prints to keep the annual interesting and define different stories.

There was a final story in one of the books that had a full colour 'Tarzan Jane' story that I couldn't resist using too.

After my last embroidery piece I wanted to do another screen print/ embroidery mix up. This time I used the carousel horse repeat that I'd printed onto a pink and white polka dot fabric.

I think it needs just a tad more before its finished but I thought I'd share anyways :)