More candlesticks

These candlesticks are really addictive so here are some more that I have made lately.
They will be decorating my staircase until they find new owners. (My wall is a work in progress, I want it filed with a lot of random stuff so that it becomes a collage)

One is in blue and white with an chinese theme.

This one is also in blue and white with a touch of greyish beige. 

This one is a little more colorful burgundy red and green with the white. 

I like this trio in my staircase so I don't mind if they dont sell :)

Candlesitcks from repurposed china

I dont have my own workwshop so I have to use my livingroom or kitchen when I have a project going. But my china jewelery created a lot of dust when I cut the plates so I need to be outside for that. Norway is either very cold or very wet during the winter months so no more jewelery will be made until spring. That made me thing if there were other ways to upcycle cina and in a way tht wasnt as messy. Then I remembered some candlesticks from Anthropologi that I saw a few years back. I googled a little and found the picture again.

Inspired by this I started by going on a treasure hunt at my lokal thrift shops.

Then I spent a lot of tme trying out different combinations and when that was done I had to assemble the whole thing. I realised that the candlestick would become very heavy so just gluing would not be enough. So off to my local hardware store I went to get a metal pole to put i the middle for stabilisation.

Then I had to drill holes trough all the parts, cut the matall to desired lenght and then finish off with some glue.

My first attemt looks like this:

Its 60 cm tall in white and silver. Sadly I realised that noe of the parts had a little crack in it after assembly so I will keep this candlestick for my self.

The next two are a little shorter and they were given away as christmas presents.

Repurposed ties

I've had some old and colerful ties laying around for ages. I have tried several things with them but nothing really worked befor I got my hands on some flex frames. They were just the right size so I could turn the ties into small coin purses.

I love the bold and colerful pattens from the 70s

But after making these purses I have learnt to love the less colerful and more tradidional brown stripes as well.

To open you just squeeze the two sides togheter.

Purses of reused material

Judging by the activity on my blog you might think not much creative work has been done by me lately. Luckily, that is not the case, I've just been to busy to get the things i have done online.

I'll start off by showing you some purses in various sizes suitable for many things.

 They are made for many different tings such as tablecloths, pillowcases, old tapestry, ribbons and more.The flat one has a strap that can be attached so that it can be used as a wrist clutch.

The two biggest ones are big enough to carry shampoo bottles and are lined with oilcloth so that they can be easily cleaned if something got spilled inside them. 

Repurposed paint swaps

Last summer I had various paint projects around the hose, and projects like tat generate a lot of pain samples. They looked very decorative all piled up and colorful so I decided that i wanted to try to give them a new purpose.

To get some ideas I decided to look to google for inspiration. And to my surprise a lot of different ideas appeared.  I knew there were a lot of creative people out there but that one could do so many different things with those small bits of paper really surprised me.

I decided to make these small notebooks. They were really simle to make and I used recycled paper cut to size inside. (Bills and formal letters always have half a blank side that I cut of an collected for a while for this project.)
If I stamp my contact information on the back they can be given out as useful businesscards. 

 

Under you'll find a list of some of the things I found on my search. Click the images to go to the wanted page.

     

  

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

New dominos

These are my latest dominoes. All of them are already in my shop, but now they can be used both as a pendant and a key chain.

I have also been getting a lot of questions about where to get the supplies to make the cake-stands I showed you here and. So I have added the information for those that are interested.

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

Cartoon wallets

This year first fair is fast approaching and I have very few things left to sell so I feel a little stressed at the moment. 

 I decided to start by topping of my stock of cartoon wallets and first out is a very popular Norwegian cartoon, Nemi.  Combined with Calvin and Hobbes these wallets are always the first to go.

 I might be adding one or two to my Epla shop, but most of what I’ll be making the next month will go directly to one of the 5 fairs I have signed up for.

The wallet  is simmilat to the milk carton wallet you can see all over the net.Its big enough for you cards, has two rooms and closes with a push button.

http://www.myrepurposedlife.net

New cake stands

I don’t have access to my craft area and sewing machine at the moment. So when I need a break from work and doing up my house what I have left is my collection of china plates.  So I have been playing with patterns, colors and drilling holes. So far that has resulted in 3 new cake stands and one candy dish. All of them will eventually find their way into my shop.

 

Also I now have a new all time favorite stand, the blue with flowers on the right. I was considering keeping it for myself for a while, but this house makeover has made me realize that I already have way to much stuff, so what I need is to downsize not add to my collection.

I have been getting a lot of email about where i get the supplies to make these stands so I thought I shold add that information to the post. 

I buy all my supplies for E-bay or Etsy but here is no point of me giving you the name of a specific seller because I need them to ship to Norway so I'm not getting the best deals. But if you search for: "tier handles" you should get some results to choose form. 

I use a 6mm drill bit and it did take some practice. My best advice is to be patient because if you speed up the drill to much its very easy to break the plates. Te drillbits can also be found at E-bay or Etsy.

 

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

Lace lampshade

For the last couple of days I have been playing with colors. But my camera ran out of battery just as I was going to take pictures, so I’ll have to wait for a few days before you get to see what I did.
But what I can show you is my lampshade make over.

Some may have seen this project. A good idea that that looked god in a picture, but didn’t work in real life. The best part of it was the beautiful pattern it made on my wall when it was lid at night and I have been thinking of a way to recreate that ever since I dismantled the first shade.

When I stumbled upon this blog it inspired me to try again but with a little different approach.

The lamp I bought at a flea market about 10 years ago. I love the base but could not stand the shade. Thinking I would get a brilliant idea I just left it as it was. Year went by until I got so annoyed whit the shade that I just tore of the fabric and left the shade empty shell. That empty shell was perfect for my new lampshade idea.

I got all my laces and ribbons out and decided to go for a neutral color scheme. I used my glue gun to attach the lace to the frame and then just wrapped one layer at the time till I got to the top. I have to say that this is one of the easiest and less time consuming projects I have done in a long time, and I’m very happy with the result and unlike the previous project this lamp works in both reality and in pictures.

http://savvysouthernstyle.blogspot.com/

http://www.myrepurposedlife.net/

China plate clock

I’m continuing my task of repurposing old china. I got some clock movements in the post yesterday and even if I’m still waiting for the right drill bit I had to give it a try. I have a very nice plate that cannot be used in one of the cake stands because of a small chip in one of the corners. It’s from the 30s and I could not bring myself to cut it into jewelry so I decided to make a clock.

The drill bits that I use for the cake stands are 1-2 mm to small so it took me a long time to get the hole big enough (serves me right for not having the patience to wait for the right tools.) After that it was just to follow the instructions for the clock movements and put it all together. I am very happy with how it turned out and can’t wait to turn a few of my other plates into clocks as well

http://savvysouthernstyle.blogspot.com/

http://www.myrepurposedlife.net/

Tea cup flowers

On one of my weekly trips to the local charity shop I came across a 6 sets of super cute tea cups with saucers. They are not old, but who can say no to roses and polka dots, so home with me they came.

Now what… I don’t like tea and I don’t drink coffee. So what else could I do but drill holes in the bottom and turn them into flower pots.

We have had some really strange weather this Easter. Snow and temperatures below 0c are strange even for Norway. But these cute little flower arrangements sure gave me a feeling of spring and a hope for warmer days to come.

http://savvysouthernstyle.blogspot.com/

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.

http://savvysouthernstyle.blogspot.com/

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/