Rainbow colored storage

I really don’t like my hallway, and I haven’t liked if for as long as I have lived in this house.

I meant to paint it white many years ago when I was pregnant with my daughter. (Who will be 13 in a few months…)  I bought the paint and her father did the painting. What I didn’t know was that they had given me the wrong color, and my daughter’s dad just thought it was the way it was meant to be (He knew better than to argue with a pregnant woman :)

So for thirteen years I have lived with this horrible hallway and want nothing more than to do a proper makeover. But its small, cramp with a tilted ceiling, nocks and crannies and I don’t know enough about renovating to be able to pull it off by myself. So I have decided to go for the next best thing, camouflage. On one end I have started on a floor to ceiling picture wall that I’ll show when it has come a little further along.

But downstairs I decided to go for a mix match of colors. Just before Christmas I got some big cans form a very nice lady (thanks :) but had to wait for warmer weather before I could spray paint them. After the paint I drilled a hole in the bottom before screwing them up on the wall.

The picture next to them I made a few years ago by gluing one and one Hama bead onto wood. A very time consuming project (Which is why I only made this one) but I like it very much and think it goes well with my rainbow cans.

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Cake stands

 I really like decorative ceramics plates so when I go to my local second hand shop I tend to bring one or more home with me. Some of them are in daily use as what they were intended to be used for but luckily we don’t break a lot of plates in this house, so my pile of plates that looks nice but are not needed keeps growing. So I decided to try to find new uses for them and so far they have become pendants, clocks and cake stands. Some of the cake stands were sold on a craft fair a few weeks ago, but the rest you can see here.

Drilling the holes was not easy, especially because the recommended drill bit that turns up when you google the topic is just crap. It’s shaped like an arrow and does only last for 2-3 holes so I started looking for something better. After searching for “diamond tip cake stand” this type of drill bit appeared:

It is more expensive, and at first, not easy to use, but after a few broken plates (that resulted in more jewelry that I will show you later) I got the hang of it. So now I have a life time supply of 2/3 tire cake stands that will go up for sale in my Epla and Pipler shop as soon as I get to take individual pictures of each one

My personal favorite was sold at the fair, but my second favorite is this stand of German flowery plates.

Probably because it reminds me of summer :)

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http://myrepurposedlife.net

Men from mars, women from...

This weekend provided a little taste of spring here in Norway and I decided to use the opportunity to get some pictures taken in proper light. So finally I'm able to show you the rest of my freehand machine embroidered purses. The plan is to add them to my shop this week.

I spend a lot of time changing the color of the thread when I'm working on this project. That’s why I sew two of each motif at once, so that I feel a little efficient.

The bulldogs’twin brother was actually the first thing I sold on the spring market a couple of weeks ago. A man came over and said: "Is that supposed to be a bulldog?" and as the woman I am, I started over analyzing his tone of voice and reading between the lines (It’s not so out of proportion that you need to criticize... try to sew your own you person you...) before answering a quiet yes... The man: Ok, in that case I'll need to have it. And that was it... He was just a man of few words and had no hidden agenda what so ever.

The episode made me think and I have decided that this years` goal is to be more confident in myself and the work that I do so that I don’t worry about invisible critique from people that I don’t know. Because those that compare handmade with mass-produced products from the Far East is not in my target group anyway.

http://savvysouthernstyle.blogspot.com/
http://www.myrepurposedlife.net/

Freehand machine embroidery

It might sound self contradicting, but there is a lot more manual work needed for this than it might seem. I don’t have a fancy sewing machine mine is a plain and hard working one that is more than enough for my needs. But that also means that when I want to make something other than bowls and bags its not an easy task.

Maybe it was my short trip to London that gave me a little preview of spring that inspired me or maybe it was just the thought of warmer and lighter days ahead… either way I suddenly got the urge to sew birds.

One bird turned into two, and three, and then fox saw the light of day followed by a bulldog and a dachshund.

I mounted them on scraps of leather, denim and linen before sewing small zippered purses. Hopefully I’ll be able to show you the rest later this week, but for now the two sparrows will have to do.

http://savvysouthernstyle.blogspot.com/
http://www.myrepurposedlife.net/

More repurposed china

Yesterday I went for a browse in my local charity shops, and the cats of the day were these plates.  All different shapes and colors, but very decorative in their own way.

 If everything goes to plan they will be turned innto something like this.

And if they break during the drilling process they’ll become jewelry.
I got several question about what tools I use to cut the ceramics, so I thought I’d let you in on the “secret”. I use my beloved Dremel, with various diamond tip drill bits. It’s a messy and time consuming job best done outside (Important: use safety glasses) but I find the end result well worth it.

http://savvysouthernstyle.blogspot.com/ http://www.sew-much-ado.com/  http://lilluna.com/  http://thetrendytreehouse.blogspot.com  http://www.gingersnapcrafts.com/  http://www.houseofhepworths.com  http://www.momontimeout.com  http://www.happyhourprojects.com/  http://sassysites.blogspot.com/  http://www.504main.com/  http://www.myrepurposedlife.net/