Crafts

Old Bras New Tricks

Fiona Lipshaw — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 09:11:30 +0000

There is always a point in life where you have to organise your underwear drawers. This means, having to make the important decision of whether to keep, or throw out old bras. Now I don’t know about you, but I am a sucker for feeling sorry for my old bras. We had such good times together, it was trustworthy, comfortable and so what if it looks a bit old and lost it’s original color, it still works? If you also have this attachment to your old bras, then i have a few tips to keep them with you for longer!!

Here are my Top Five tricks to transform your old bras!

1. Shoulder pads

Shoulder pads made by old bras.... well kind of!

The picture above is an extravagant Jean Paul Gautier creation for women to enjoy the effects of shoulder pads attached to their bra. If Jean Paul Gautier uses this trend, so can you, especially if you have a padded bra. If not, a regular T-Shirt bra will work too. All you have to do is cut round the cups, and either sew them to your chosen top or jacket (which is what I would do!) or copy JPG, and attach them to your bra, to wear under anything! Be warned, when you sew them into you clothes, make sure the pads sit comfortably on your shoulders first. *warning, if you have a large bra…put it on your shoulders before to check your not going to look like the Michelin man!

Michelin man...not the look we're going for!

2. Create a new bra

It depends on how creative you are (and how much time you have on your hands) for this next idea. Quite simply- give your bra a makeover. Look at customising your bra, think about dying it another color or a mixture of colors (the hippie look) or if you want to go all out, buy some crystals and really pimp out your bra. For ideas(or to cheat and buy one) check out etsy and search for bras.

Disco Bra

Peacock bra

Flower Power

3. Knee pads

Ever decided to go skateboarding? How about washing the floor by hand? Or just generally find yourself on your knees a lot? If that’s you…let me introduce you to…Old bra knee pads!!! Similar concept to the shoulder pads, but home made knee pads may come in useful for lots of situations, ice skating, dancing, or if your prone to falling over! These easy to create knee pads, may just save your life one day, all thanks to that trusty bra. To make, simply cut the pads/cups depending on which type of bra you have and simply sew a strip of material to the edge of the pads. Wrap them around your knee and tie or keep in place with a safety pin, and voila your own set of knee pads!

4. Re-usable parts

Why not take apart your bra, and use every part of it! When it comes to the clasp, unpick the hook and eye, and put it in your sewing basket (yes, every woman has a sewing basket, or wishes they had one). You never know when a button pops off, or something just needs to be held together secretly. This is your perfect opportunity to use the old hook and eye.

Hook & Eye

You can also re-use the straps of your bra, two different ways. Firstly, if your straps are detachable, then just re-use them for another bra (or keep them in case of emergencies). Secondly, sew the two ends together of one strap and hey presto, you have your own headband, which you can now customise, if you want.

From bra strap to headband

5. Donate to a good cause

Finally, if you believe that your bra could change the world (which it could) then you could consider donating it (or them) to charity. There are some great charities that really need your bras, whether its third world countries or recycling and donating the proceeds to charities, such as breast cancer awareness.

So, now we have established there are lots of ways to put your old bra to good use...what do you do with your old bras?

Love

Fiona

www.brayola.com

Happy Valentine's Day

ercundiff — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:20:30 +0000

This is Beckham's first year giving out Valentine's, so I knew I wanted to do something a little different and special. I love finding easy projects that he can help with and was super excited when I stumbled upon this picture on pinterest...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61951289@N08/5672821563/sizes/l/in/photostream/

The sitter tries to keep things relatively healthy (plus, who wants to take care of 6-3/4yr olds on a sugar high?!?!?), so I didn't want to send candy, I thought this was perfect...and Beckham could help :)

Here's what we did, SO simple and inexpensive (we made 18 crayon cakes)--

Supplies:

Silcone Baking Sheet ($3 @ Wal-Mart)

3 boxes of crayons ($1ea @ Five Below)

Mini chinese take-out boxes (pk of 6 $1.97 @ Wal-Mart)

First we peeled the paper off of the crayons and broke them in half (sometimes in thirds).

Then we put 10(ish) crayon pieces in each heart.

I baked them for about 12 minutes in a 350degree oven and then let them cool for 30 minutes.

This is what they looked like straight from the oven

Popped them out of the baking sheet and Voila!

He was VERY proud of his creations :)

I printed up a simple tag to attach to each take-out box and they were ready to go.

Beckham is SO excited to hand them out today :)

Hope everyone has a lovely V-Day!

Erica

*Find more fun stuff at http://getitrightgetittightmom.blogspot.com/

A V-Day card for you

lisacng — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:16:19 +0000

Happy Valentine's Day! Late last night, I posted about a DIY kids' V-Day t-shirtI made for our son (J). Well, if you didn't like that, how's about a card from J himself?

It's a pop-up card! Took me a bit to figure it out, but here's what behind the photo looks like. It's two slender pieces of card stock.

Happy Valentine's Day! Show some love. Leave a comment below and/or share this post. ----------------------- Follow my blog!RSS | Facebook | Twitter | Email | Bloglovin'

Valentine's Day craft: DIY kids' t-shirt

lisacng — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 04:51:02 +0000

Valentine's Day is tomorrow. Well, 30-min from the time this post posts. It's a late night! Half of you are super-excited, half of you would rather stick a fork in your eye, and the other half of you wonders why there is such a dichotomy over this holiday.

We had the tasting menu at Tintos in Philadelphia a few years ago and had so much fun with tapas that we planned a nice V-Day dinner at a highly-rated Mediterranean tapas (or mezze) restaurant found via Yelp -- Cava Mezze around here.

Since they don't take reservations for V-Day, we planned to go tonight, and my sister was going to babysit. As luck would have it, our son (J) came down with a fever last night, and we aren't comfortable about leaving him tonight. That's ok because I just remembered I was going to make cards for J's daycare teachers. Well, even if he hadn't of gotten sick, I at least had one V-Day craft done last night. J is in the Bees Classroom at daycare, so what better way to celebrate V-Day than to make a t-shirt:

My husband was muy impressed that I drew a bee from memory. LOL!

After his approval, I created the image below on my computer using PowerPoint (I have no idea where to begin with Photoshop). Here's the final product.

The t-shirt, which is a 3T and the only size left at Target, will be big on J, so I guess the text will be too. It's ok. People'll be able to read him a mile away!

I also saw this cute button-down at Target (Cherokee, $10) to pair over the t-shirt. Don't you just adore the large checks on the sleeve cuff that contrast with the pinstripes?? Hopefully J will let me take a picture of him tomorrow morning all dressed-up.

If you'd like to make your own V-Day bee t-shirt, follow-along:

Download the awesome awesome graphic below for FREE. I know how super-excited you must be, but, please, contain your excitement.Click on the image, then choose "download" from top menu (or right-click, then Save Image As).
Paste/insert the file into a standard 8.5x11 PowerPoint slide.
Resize the image as needed. Refer to photo above for relative sizing on a 3T t-shirt.
This step is important! Select the image, then on the Drawing Tools >> Rotate menu, select "Flip horizontal". The image is now backwards, which is important if you want others to able to read the text on the t-shirt without holding up a mirror in front of your child. I suggested PowerPoint but you can use whatever program you like to do this.
Make sure the t-shirt transfer paper is fed into the printer with the correct side set to print.
Print. Wait a minute or so for ink to dry/settle. Trim around letters and graphics as needed. Notice that the layout on my son's t-shirt doesn't exactly match the layout on the image file.
I added a teeny copyright on the image in the bottom right corner. I'd be honored if you ironed it on your t-shirt to help advertise my blog but can't possibly hunt you down if you don't, so…
Follow instructions for ironing the transfer on.
Voila!

Since this is a long post already, I'll post the cards I made for J's teachers in my next post. If you download and use my image, please leave a comment here or on Facebook, on Twitter, or via email. I'd love to see it and share it (but only if you want)!

Happy Valentine's Day...or whatever, it's no big deal...

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Week 7 - All about Bows!

nerdymom88 — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 04:29:34 +0000

I hope you will all forgive me for not posting this yesterday… but I took on quite the undertaking and wanted to get everything just right before I posted it. As you can probably tell I have been messing around with a lot of different styles and I think I’ve finally found one that I really like, so I’m trying it out today. Because of that I wanted to make sure my pictures were just right and I spent a lot of time working on my light box to make it work better. But hopefully these awesome projects will make up for the delay!

I told you today was all about bows! Today I am showing you 4 different simple bow projects: 2 hair bows, 1 cuff bow, 1 bow-tie necklace.

Inspiration from Pintrest

This image was pinned on Pinterest and can be found here. Its a really sweet vintage style hair comb.

This awesome necklace is called “Bow tie Not Optional.” The great tutuorial can be found here.

The last inspiration image can be found here. It was made from an old dress shirt!

For all of today’s projects you are going to need:

A variety of fabric
Hot glue gun and glue
Scissors, tape measure, straight pins
Jump rings, chain
Snaps and snap tool
Hair combs and hair clips
Needle and thread and/or a sewing machine

Check out the full post here! and like the facebook page for updates!

Valentine's Mantel and Napkin Wreath

MommieJoys — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 03:59:48 +0000

This is my Christmas napkin wreath! It's one of the most easiest projects I have ever tackled!

Simply get cocktail napkins (dinner napkins if you'd like) and unfold them. Next, grab the middle of the opened napkin - like you're going to use it as tissue paper in a gift bag. Twist the "end" just a tad and tuck it into your wreath!

It'll take 1-2 packs of napkins, depending on how full your want your wreath/the size of the wreath. Play around with color combos, solids or even a rainbow!

As you can see, for Valentine's Day I merely squashed in a few pink napkins and added a heart! Since my daughter's craft supplies are basically my only unpacked supplies, I find myself raiding them all the time! This adds a bit more whimsy than I usually use, but since there IS a young child in my house, it works!

To see the rest of this post visit...http://mommiejoys.blogspot.com/2012/02/valentines-mantel-and-napkin-wreath.html

To read more from MommieJoys visit...www.MommieJoys.Blogspot.com

A Valentine's Day peg doll...

buzzmills — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:44:58 +0000

http://buzzmills.typepad.com/blog/2012/02/a-valentines-day-peg-doll.html

Over the weekend I revisited a blog that I haven't been to in a while Chocolate Eyes. While i was there I saw that Becca had recently posted an adorable little tutorial for a Valentine peekaboo ornament. So cute! And then, I realized that with all of my Valentiney making around here I didn't have anything little to give to Violet and Henry tomorrow for Valentine's day.

So, using Becca's tutorial and the supplies I had on hand
I made two little, Waldorf inspired, Valentine's Day peg dolls.

Wow, this felt is really HOT pink!!

Now, I am pretty sure my Valentines crafting is complete, well except for maybe some heart shaped food tomorrow ;) I've got some birthday party preparations to get to and a birthday dress/skirt to make!

My View Today and Yesterday and the Day Before

jubilee — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:55:16 +0000

I am working on a granny square baby blanket for a dear friend who now lives across the country. She is having a girl and I cannot wait to finish this and send it to her. I almost have enough squares to complete the blanket.

The long tan wooden object is my back scratcher. I have three children who never, ever are willing to give their mama a back scratch. Hence, the need for the handy tool. It follows me around the house. I cannot live without it. I'm just sayin'.

You may also notice the gigantic candy bar under the headphones. I rarely indulge because of various health issues, but I saw a sale and couldn't resist this time.

And, of course, there is my ever present cup of ice water. I don't know if it's the water or the ice that I like best. Yes, I do: it's the ICE! Even in cold weather I have to have my ice. And when it melts just enough -- it gets to where it's perfect for crunching and annoying The Calm One.

I make no apologies for the quirkiness that is me. It's one of the fun things about being married to The Calm One. I put up with junk and so does he. Oh, boy does he!

A marriage made in heaven.

Counting it all joy,

Embroidery Floss Storage DIY

Harpa — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 09:18:49 +0000

EMBROIDERY FLOSS STORAGE DIY

I use many colors when I’m embroidering. I tend to keep them on the coffee table beside my chair, and that can sometimes become a bit messy:

So I thought of a neater way to keep all the colors I need for a project handy. There was nothing available in the village, and besides, I really didn’t want to buy more than I absolutely had to.

So I bought this:

A big packet of very inexpensive wallpaper adhesive, which I had been planning to try for a long time. The rest I had at home

Materials for this project:

An empty cereal box
glue (wallpaper glue or something else)
fabric or pretty paper
a paintbrush (not your best one)
scissors
a Stanley knife
a ruler
a pen or pencil
empty boxes or cardboard rests

Read on here

Paint Chip Valentines!

corner blog mom — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:58:31 +0000

A few years ago, being an architect and all, I ordered a few paint sample fans from the paint company Benjamin Moore. They sent a case of them by accident. After several failed attempts to return them, they ended up scattered around San Francisco, to other architects, to clients, to whoever would take one!

But there are a few fans still lurking around here, and on top of that, we live a few doors down from a Kelly-Moore paint store. A couple of days ago an idea just came to me out of the blue: paint chip valentines! So many resources for the materials, so easy! Last year's heart-shaped-construction-paper-loaded-pizza classroom valentines took FOREVER, so this year I took it upon myself to simplify, heavily.

Here's what I did.

I took individual sample strips and strips I tore out of the fans, shortened them into three or four-chip-long segments, and folded accordion style. Be sure that there is a front of a chip facing out on at least one side. Four-chip-long ones are better, because the "To:" label will be facing outward when these are done.

Then I added the "To:" and "From:" labels, for Stella to fill in when she's home from her first ever sleep-over tomorrow. It is hard to describe in words why I did this like I did this, but basically I want Stella to be able to see who the valentine is addressed to when handing them out in class, so the "To:" goes facing out at one side (these will be closed up before they are delivered). Do you follow?

If I wasn't trying to get this off my plate for the weekend, I'm sure I would've found a cuter way to letter these, by the way!

Next I used a little eraser stamp trick I've seen lately here and here. The difference is, I have a GIANT eraser (and now owe Stella a new giant pencil).

Did you notice the orientation of the heart on the end of the strip? Maybe go back and look again, if you're thinking about doing this yourself. It's easier just to show you than to explain!

The white valentines with the red hearts are my favorites.

When they dry, and after Stella has addressed each one and signed her name, I'm going to fold them together and tie them gently with a piece of mauve or pink string, or maybe some bakery string, if I can get some this weekend. If you end up with some that are only three segments long, you should write the addressee's name in pencil on the blank back of the valentine, so you know who it is going to (the actual "To:" will be folded in, so you can't see it).

With these out of the way for the year, happy weekend to me!