Alisa Burke's Sew Wild!

Yesterday I received my order from Amazon which included "Sew Wild", a wonderful book about creating projects with mixed media, by Alisa Burke:

http://alisaburke.blogspot.com/2011/06/sew-wild-promo.html

I had heard and read a lot about this book lately and nothing but very positive and complimentary comments.  The book is very inexpensive: less than $18 at Amazon, it even includes a DVD with "how to"  demonstrations, and after reading the first twenty pages I had learned  more about colors, the color wheel, color combinations and working with them,  than I ever knew before.

There are fantastic ideas for all sorts of fabric and mixed media arts in this book and every process has step by step instructions and lists of materials needed, which usually are very minimal.

Alisa Burke's Recycled Paper Clutch, Series 400

I love to work with fabric scraps, paints of all kind and free hand machine sewing, making collages.  If you do too, you must get this book full of very valuable information, ideas, and tips about rather simple processes which produce wonderful results.  Buy one for your friends too!

 

http://www.alisaburke.com/about.html

ALISA BURKE, my new heroine!

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~ Tranquility and Tolerance ~

Old Purse, New Look

I have used this shoulder bag of straw many summers, since I found it left by my late, dear mother-in-law.  Lately I have been crocheting a lot of flowers in bright colours, with leaves in bright green.  I have made brooches, and added them to hair clips.  And this spring I decided to spruce up Mom's bag, with some flowers.

I like the look.  I also made a little curlicue in the same colour as the leaves and glued it to the zipper pull.  The flowers and leaves also are attached with the glue gun.  My husband says: "Mom would really like this re-purposing of her shoulder bag".

Instructions are at "How do I do that".  Colours in the photograph are not exactly true to life but in  aqua, lavender, hot pink and butter yellow, with green apple leaves.

http://fanaticalfroebeler.blogspot.com/p/how-do-i-do-that.html

☯

~ Tranquility and Tolerance ~

Plastic Bags: soon as extinct as the dinosaurs whence they came?

More and more stores are starting to discontinue the use of plastic shopping bags.  And that's a good thing, since they are not biodegradable and pretty toxic depending on where they are made.  .Apart from reusing them or putting them in the recycle bin, you can also repurpose them for all kinds of projects.   Fusing several layers together using an iron, can give you a basic sheet that can be painted on or sewn into other projects.  You can also cut the bags into thin strips and then knit or crochet a purse, for example. The purse on the right  was made by Cindy of "My Recycled Bags.com".    I have tried crocheting with plastic bag "yarn" as well, and it is fast and easy. 

http://www.myrecycledbags.com/

Recently I made these envelopes from a layer of three or four plastic bags, (handles and bottoms cut off so that they can be layered flat) and topped by a colorful page from a magazine.   Any  pretty paper you may have  would work. Then I placed it all between two layers of parchment paper and with a hot iron I pressed on it for about 10-14 seconds, covering the entire area until the plastic bags fused and bonded to the decorative paper.

The parchment paper is removed and the edges trimmed to about 8 x 10 inches and folded  into envelopes, closing the sides by using my sewing machine.

I then sewed on  buttons (buttons with "stems" are pushed  through a hole and  kept in place with a safety pin inside) and added ribbons, lace, and/or elastic closure loops, and other embellishments.  You can use these envelopes for grocery coupons or whatever else you can think of.
 
The links  below have helpful tutorials and examples:

 http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2007/08/plastic_bag_crafts.html 

http://etsylabs.blogspot.com/2007/05/long-overdue-fusing-plastic-bag.html

It is important when fusing, to work in a well ventilated area or have a fan nearby as it is probably not a good idea to inhale any possible fumes, although the actual ironing time is not very long, usually not more than 15 seconds.  But:  safety first.  Have fun!

☯

~ Tranquility and Tolerance ~