Small owl pillows

In September i sewed the first of what has become close to 15 of these owls.  I’ve used whatever fabric I had laying around, old trousers, curtains, tablecloth, vintage sheets and some new cotton pieces.

Some has already found new homes, but the rest a plan on bringing to a local Christmas fair in the end of November. Whatever is left after that will end up in my Epla store (the Norwegian version of Etsy)

Tutorial: Toilet roll giftwrap

I can’t think of anything more ugly and boring than an empty toilet paper roll. But, as with everything else, they too have potential and in this tutorial I’m going to show you how you easily can turn them into beautiful gift boxes.

 What you need:

Toilet roll(s)
Napkin
Glue (liquid, not glue stick)
Something to punch a hole with.
Sticky tape

1: Put glue on the toilet roll with a paint brush. You need to put on quite a lot because the toilet roll is very porous and soaks it up quite a bit. (But if you put on to much the napkin will tear very easily and you might have to throw it away.)

2: Time to wrap the napkin around the roll. I cut the napkin into 4 pieces and threw away the back layers. I lay the napkin on the floor/table and put the roll on top. Then I carefully wrap it around dabbing it with my finger. Small tears in the napkin is not a problem as they will camouflage them self.

Then I put a second coat of glue on top, befor cutting away the excess on top and bottom.

Now it needs time to dry. This is not for people as impatient as me. Because of the amount of glue it takes quite some time. I was planning on decorating the box with a magazine bow to finish it off so I used my waiting time to make a few bows. But when the box was finished they were too big so I’m saving them for my next recycling gift wrap project.

3: When it’s dry you bend the ends against each other so that they slightly overlap and secure them with a little tape. Then turn around, put your gift inside, bend and tape.

4: Getting close to Christmas there is a high risk of you needing to ad a to/from tag on the box. So I used my pliers to punch a hole, pulled a ribbon trough and attached the tag.)

Just to see the difference I made an identical one except I painted the background white before gluing on the napkin. There is a difference, but I'm not sure if it is for the better, so I wont be wasting my time on that step again.
But what I will be doing again is making to/from tags out of puzzle pieces. If I decorate them with Christmas motifs they can be used as ornaments when they are finished being a tag .

               

Doily curtain

I have seen these doilies sewn together as quite nice table runners.  But even if I could defiantly use one of those, my need to screen for insight was higher.

I live in the center of Stavanger. That means that I have a lack of natural light inside and that my neighbors live very close by. The lighting problem is particularly big in the hallway. I have only one small window in the middle of the stairs and that is supposed to give light to a two floor hallway. I removed the old curtain this summer and was amazed with the difference but as we are approaching the darker months it became clear that both my neighbor and I needed some privacy.

So I decided to use the doilies that were left from my lampshade makeover in my previous post and make a curtain. I laid the doilies out on the floor and moved them around until I was happy with the layout. Then I sewed them together by hand before hanging them in front of the window. For a curtain filed with holes it covered up nicely.

 

Lampeshade makeover

Beads, I have tons of beads and I don’t know why. Threading them has never been my thing, and if I need a necklace I’m more than happy to pay for one already made. But despite of this I have masses of beads in every color and shape available.

So, inspired by my resent wish to get rid of most of my fabric leftover pile, I decided that it would be a good thing to get these pearls out into the light (literarily)

A few years ago I covered a lampshade in old doilies. It’s been hanging in my living room since, but it never grew on me. So now it was time take it apart and start over.  

(For some reason it looks a lot better in this picture than it did when I sat on my sofa looking at it...)

What I did with the doilies you’ll see en my next post, but the lampshade was decorated with fabric scraps, beads, paper doves and other stuff I had laying around.

The idea for the project was found here

   



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