How To... Make Recycled Fabric Wrapped Bangles With Two Variations

I shared this How To for Recycled Fabric Wrapped Bangles on the blog last Summer. They are extremely thrifty and simple to make using scraps of fabric and old jewellery/beads you are likely to already have to hand. Lovely summer accessories- perfect to wear in the hot weather we've been having!  

If you try this or any of my How Tos and you're on Instagram, tag a pic of your bangles with @louisedawsondesign so I can see your lovely makes! Happy making!

How To... Thrifty Plant Name Labels!

On Sunday I posted this How To for Chalk Painted Terracotta Pots and today I wanted to share the How To to make these really thrifty plant name labels! They are really easy to make by recycling materials you easily have to hand. Here's the How To...

1) You will need

Pretty papers from old magazines, A flat piece of plastic food packaging- I used a lid, PVA glue or Modge Podge, paintbrush, lolly sticks- you can easily buy these in craft or food stores, but it's much more fun and thrifty if you treat yourself to some ice lollies!

2) Cut the plastic food packaging to the size and shape you'd like for your labels. I've free hand cut mine as I'm going for the rustic look, but you could draw a shape onto the plastic with permanent marker first if you wanted to. Hearts or cloud shapes would look pretty- I might make some of those next!

3)Tear the magazine pages into small pieces and collage together on the plastic pieces using the PVA or Modge Podge, overlapping at the edges. I've only covered one side of my labels as the other side won't be visible in my plant pots, but you could collage both sides if you wanted to. Leave to dry

4) Trim the edges

5) There are a couple of options to use for the lettering on your labels. The most thrifty way is to cut letters from the magazines places to then collage onto the labels

Or, if you have an alphabet stamp set, you could use these to stamp your plant names as I've done with mine, stamping the names onto brown paper and then gluing onto the label back

6) Stick the lolly sticks to the back of the labels using the PVA or a strong all purpose glue and leave to dry

That's all there is to it, it's a super simple How To! Display in your herb, plant or flower pots. 

These labels aren't weather proof- I keep my herbs on the windowsill in the kitchen and put them outside on sunny days. I think a coat of varnish or even laminating the labels could be the solution to making them weather proof, if your plants live outside in all weathers. 

I'd love to see your gardens, be they conventional or balcony or window box. Share your green space in the comments!

DIY Crafted Christmas Tree Jumper How To!

This week I've made a DIY Crafted Christmas Tree Jumper! Everyone at work at my day job has started wearing their Christmas jumpers and I don't have one, so I thought I make a customised version!

It was really fun and thrifty make. All you need to make the Christmas tree design is a handful of green buttons, a few brown buttons for the trunk, a star button or gem and some red and gold bead string trimmings. This is a good way to use up odd buttons from your button tin, or an inexpensive bag of mixed buttons from a craft store and the trimmings could be recycled from gift wrap decorations. 

Grab yourself an old jumper, a needle and thread, put on some Christmas music and get crafting! (Add Mince Pies and it would make the ultimate festive afternoon!)

Starting with the top of the tree, stitch the green buttons on in rows. Leave a small gap between each row of buttons so there is space to add the bead trimming later on. I found that it helped to lay out the button design on the jumper first and take a photo, so I had a plan for the design

Add an extra button on each row, eg. row 1 has 1 button, row 2 has 2 buttons, row 3 has 3 buttons, etc

Continue adding rows of buttons until your tree is the size you would like. My tree has 7 rows of buttons

Stitch rows of brown buttons to create the tree trunk

Now the tree is complete, dress your tree with the bead trimming! Stitch it in between the rows of buttons, securing it every few centimetres with a few over stitches between the beads. 

Finally, stitch your star button or gem to the top of the tree!

So there you have it, a very unique and thrifty Christmas jumper that you can wear every festive season! If you make one I'd love to see! Happy making 

How To... Make Recycled Fabric Wrapped Bangles With Two Variations

I had some neglected  plastic bangles in my jewellery box that I hadn't worn for ages, so I decided to give them a makeover! This is a really simple How To... but I think you'll agree, the bangles you create are very pretty and it's a very thrifty make too. How about recycling the pretty fabric from an old top to make a matching set of bangles and adding beads from the broken necklace that you love but you know you'll never get fixed? Oooh and they also make great gifts! Here is a tutorial for making the basic recycled fabric wrapped bangles and a couple of variations- happy making!

For a basic fabric wrapped bangle;

1) You will need

PVA glue, paintbrush, plastic or wooden bangles, strips of fabric

Note on fabric: My strips of fabric were aprox half an inch thick and 25/30 cm long. For one small bangle I used aprox two and a half fabric strips. For a larger bangle it may be easier to cut wider strips of fabric, to cover the bangle quicker

 2) 

Add a small amount of PVA glue to the inside of your bangle and add the end of your first fabric strip. It's much easier (and less messy!) to only add glue to the inside of the bangle, rather than gluing the fabric!

3) Start to wrap!

Wrap your fabric strips around the bangle, overlapping it slightly. After each couple of wraps, add some more glue to the inner bangle to secure the sfabric. Wrap until the entire bangle is covered, securing you end with PVA glue on the inside of the bangle. Leave to dry

4) It's finished!

It's as simple as that to transform a boring unused bangle into something pretty. You could leave your bangle plain like this, or read on for further ideas!

Fabric wrapped bangle with chain

1) You will need

The materials listed above for the basic fabric wrapped bangle, old jewellery chain, tube of all purpose strong glue, fabric wrapped bangle

2) Follow the How To... above to make a fabric wrapped bangle

3) Choose your chain!

 I got this necklace in a bundle of old jewellery on ebay and immediately knew that the tangled chain would be great used in a How To..! The chains on this necklace were quite easy to break off by twisting them, but if your chain is made of stronger stuff, you may need to use a small pair of pliers to remove the chain. You can experiment with different weights of chain to give your bangles a different look

4) Add a thin squeeze of your strong all purpose glue to the inside of your bangle and use to stick the end of your chain

5) Wrap your chain!

Wrap the chain around the fabric covered bangle, using the strong glue to secure it in place on the inside of the bangle on every couple of wraps. Leave to dry

6) It's finished!

That's all there is to it- pretty effective and very simple

Fabric wrapped bangle with beads

1) You will need

The materials listed for the basic fabric wrapped bangle, beads removed from an old necklace (I have used glass pearls from the tangled chain necklace), needle and thread, fabric wrapped bangle

2)  Follow the How To... above to make a fabric wrapped bangle

3) Remove the beads from the necklace

How you remove the beads depends on the necklace you have- I was able to remove the glass pearls from my necklace using a small pair of pliers, but it may be as simple as snipping a cord. You can use as many or as few beads as you wish, depending on how heavily you'd like the bangle to be embellished

4) Stitch your beads onto the bangle

Stitch the beads to the bangle in any pattern you wish, catching the thread between the wraps of fabric. This is easy to do as the fabric is only glued to the inside of the bangle

5) Ta-dah! 

That's all there is to it, so simple but so effective

Enjoy wearing your lovely updated bangles!

How To... Make a set of coasters using old CDs and lace

If you're anything like me you'll have some old CDs or DVDs hanging around that you're not sure what to do with- like the free ones you get with newspapers that you never get round to listening to. Sound familiar? 

Well here's an idea of how you can up-cycle them into something useful- make them into a new set of coasters! Combine these with that tester pot of paint that's languishing at the back of the garage and those doilies you found at a boot fair that you'd forgotten you had and it makes for quite a thrifty make!

1) You will need

Old CDs or DVDs, paint tester pot, PVA glue, heavy cotton lace doilies or trimmings, plain cotton fabric (I used the cotton fabric from a lace edged cloth but you could use Calico, an old shirt or sheet, etc), felt to match your chosen colour scheme, paintbrush, fabric scissors

2) Glue the felt to your CDs

Apply PVA glue to one side of each of your CDs and stick onto the felt. Leave to dry

3) Cut away excess felt

 4) Repeat step 3 on the other side of your CDs, this time using your plain cotton fabric. 

Leave to dry and then cut away the excess fabric

5) Apply a layer of PVA to the cotton side of your CDs

6) Lay your heavy lace onto the glued side of your CDs and leave to dry

It's much easier if you leave each layer to dry completely before moving onto the next step, and less messy too!

7) When dry, cut away the excess lace

You could use a regular thin lace for this, but I find the heavier lace and crocheted cotton doilies are more effective as the paint really highlights their texture

8) Paint your coasters

You could choose to leave the coasters unpainted at this stage as they still look pretty left like this, or you could paint them using your tester pot. Give each coaster one coat of paint and allow to dry

You could try this on a larger scale- I'd like to cover a wooden tray or cork place mats and mix and match with different colours

9) Use your new set of coasters as a good excuse to have tea and cake!

I'll be posting the recipe for my white chocolate, rosewater and pistachio cup cakes that you can see here on Wednesday!

Happy making!