The upcycle.recycle.reuse.refurbish.repurpose....challange.

I am going to be challenging myself over the next couple of weeks to pull off some projects that have been in my mind, but are definitely not getting done.  I have so much material, fabric, paint and projects on the back burners that I need to change something and do something about it!  I have at least 10 on my list and if all goes well...that list will grow and we will continue the challenge. 

The list is currently:

1. De-Stashing. I collect fabric, yarn, buttons, etc....and I have a room full of them. So this week the challenge is to use something from the stash. NO buying of new materials. EVERYTHING--100% that goes into the project has to come from stuff in your hoard. No buying of new stuff. We're challenging you to actually use the pretty cotton or the soft wool that you have in your drawers.

This is next weeks challenge(and I'm giving you an extra day)...ready...go!

2. Bathroom: Find something in the bathroom to repurpose into something else OR make something you've been wanting to make for the bathroom. Use at lease 50% recycled/hoarded materials.

3. Wardrobe: Go look in your closet, find something you don't wear, is stained, doesn't fit, out of style and remake it or use the material to make something. Take a before picture of the garment and then what you've done to refurbish it. For this project, the old wardrobe garment should make up approximately 50-75% of the project.

4. Winter: Make something for winter out of recycled/refurbished materials. It could be something to keep you or your house warm. Is the house drafty? Think of a cool way to block the draft. Need a scarf? Make one. Like those cute boot cuffs everyone has...totally doable.

5. Project Finish: Look at the pile of stuff you've attempted to make and then gave up...or is that just me who starts a ton of projects, but hates finishing them? You've bought the materials and I'm guessing the project is over half done. So the challenge this week is to actually finish it. You can thank me later.

6. Lumber, sticks, wood: Make something out of a tree. Play with some stain. Go get some free pallets and finally make one of the hundred pallet projects you've pinned. Go to the forest and find some sticks...if the snow has melted...make something pretty.

7. Garage or Shed: Go look in your garage or shed. Find something that needs to be fixed, remade into something pretty, finally make that raised bed for the spring. Declutter some of the husbands stash of nails, pretty wire or zipties. Use some power tools.  Try to use 50% of what is found in your garage in the project.

8. Linen: Mismatched sheets, pillowcases, old towels. Can you repurpose any of it before you throw it out? Betcha you can. I dare you.

9. Food, Glorious, Food! This is for the Food Network Junky who loves "Chopped" Wait until you have to go to the grocery store...and then challenge yourself to make a new and creative dish from the pantry/freezer. Incorporate the leftovers that need to be eaten and create a new meal. You are not allowed to go to the store for this challenge. 

10. Paint: We all have extra paint in the garage/shed from past projects. So what can you make with it? You may use other materials but all paint in the project must have been bought for something else.

So for you crazy cats out there who are willing to join me here are the details:

Every Wednesday I will post what I made for the week, and the challenge for next week--yes I know I listed them already, but this way you can work ahead or if you're like me you'll need a reminder :)  I will be posting success with fails, because like everyone else out there I have my share of failures in my attempts to make something...lets be real people...not all the projects are pin-worthy, house-worthy, and often are trash-can worthy. 

I would love, love, love to have people link up, but have tried that in the past and it didn't work. So if you're in the mood to join in this venture, leave a link in the comments! If you don't have a blog...put a picture on our Facebook page with a description of what you made. I would love to see what you've made. If we have good participation I will definitely do a link up. 

Questions? 

Sarah

Busy Bee

We hope you enjoyed a peaceful and family filled Christmas, filled with those you love, celebrating the birth of our King. We enjoyed our Christmas, with each other and family nearby and far-away. Let me tell you skype is a beautiful thing!

For Christmas we like to make presents, but we don't always succeed. Our brothers aren't really the crafty type...but this year Nathania and I had the opportunity to make a Christmas present for our brother, Aaron who sells honey. Currently he only sells honey to his friends and coworkers, and he is working on expanding his hive, but we thought a little marketing wouldn't hurt.

So what did we do? We made him labels to put onto the lids of his jars. He calls his hive the Innes Street Honey Farm...and he only puts the harvest date on to determine a batch...no naming. Andy took a picture of Aaron and was able to edit it until it was more of a black outline. Aaron is very recognizable as he has a very large beard, and we wanted to include that in his label.

I went to Office Depot and got a set of Avery labels that would fit on the top of a four ounce mason jar--the size Aaron uses--and then went to the Avery website to create the design.  It was super easy to use. I was able to fit the writing to the circular label and download the picture we wanted to use very easily.

These were two versions I came up with before I decided on one. But it only took a little bit of time to come up with a couple of versions. 

The printing was a bit trickier. I would print out a couple of trials on a scratch piece of paper if you don't want to waste any labels--it doesn't always line up with the labels and you may have to adjust the settings a bit.

This was our final product:

We hope Aaron likes them and uses them as well.

Sarah

Craft Fairs 2013

To date, we have done two of the three craft fairs we signed up for this year. We've really enjoyed them and due to us not being as big of procrastinators as we have been in the past, our stress level is significantly lower.  We'll figure it out one of these years:)

Our first show was at Anchorage City Church...and let me tell you it was busy. So busy we didn't get a picture of our booth. The only picture I have it from the day before when we weren't completely set up.

We made a wooden fence like display again this year, but made it significantly bigger.  It allowed us to use the vertical more effectively. The only down side to a display like this is that it is a pain in the rear to set up and take down.

Our second show was a two-day show in Seward. We do this even because it's fun. We get to get out of town for a bit of a girls weekend and in general who doesn't like to do that? Now for us this means driving 2 hours south, but its still fun to spend a weekend with your best friend right? We have some pictures but the sister won't put them in here...ahem...we may update later:)

We used the same display, but forgot part of our tree display. Not able to drive back home--too long of a drive and the highway was closed, we rigged it with a pair of Aria's socks and some twine. It was a make it work moment.


Our third and final show is this coming Saturday at Cornerstone Church here in Anchorage.  We would love to see you there!

Christmas Ornaments on the Cheap

As my husband likes to say...I'm a little bit of a hoarder. I buy things thinking about the future, especially when the price is right. Things may have gotten a little bit out of hand, but in reality I have made lots of headway in the stuff department. I'm actually using the things I bought and not buying more.

So all of that was to say that last year after Christmas, Nathania and I found these ornaments at Target for less than 10 cents a piece. I bought a whole bunch in them with plans of using them with my students at school. Which I'm still planning on doing, but recently the girls from my small group at church came over to make some ornaments for a service project we are doing.

(I don't know how to flip it...)

Before they came over I looked through my crap craft room and found Christmas fabric scraps, yarn and ribbon, pulled out some felt scraps and of course a glue gun. Some of the other ladies brought in yarn and some little odds and ends to decorate as well. Let me tell you...I have a ridiculous amount of fabric and crafty things...but they came in handy for a project like this.

There were no rules in decorating these ornaments, which was really cool because everyone came up with a different decoration for the ornaments. All similar but still each one unique. Love it.

The overall cost of each of these ornaments was 10 cents. If you had to buy some fabric or paint or such they may be more, but its kinda fun to see what you can find around the house to decorate something like this.

Anyone else doing cheap crafty things lately? Love to hear about them!

Forest through the trees...

We have had a gorgeous fall so far...

The colors were amazing! Probably the best colors I've ever seen since being up here. 

Now, all you people in the midwest and out east, I know you have better colors...reds and oranges...which I miss, but for Alaska, this years colors were phenomenal!

And then you know what happened?

Wind.

Lots and lots of wind.

House shuddering, gusty, loud, obnoxious wind.

It stripped all of the trees of their colors and this is what we now have to look at...

So we've been making trees of our own.

Happy colorful trees

Special trees for your tree...your Christmas tree that is:)

Here birdie, birdie...

We've been busily crafting away on mittens, slippers, Christmas trees and such to get ready for the craft fair season.

But I thought we needed to add something to the repertoire.

A little bird perhaps?

Yup, I think a couple of bird ornaments were just what was needed.

Love birds or Turtle Doves...whichever you prefer.

 

Like them so much you want one for your mantel?

 

Yup...we got those too.

 

Our little birds will be making their debut at the Alaskan Christmas Bazaar on the 9th of November.

 

Sarah and Nathania

Recycling center...

I'm about to show you a mess...no cleaning up before this post:)

This shelf has housed our recycling before it goes outside into the big recycling bin for the last two years. As you can see...it has also become the dumping grounds for everything else as well. Bottles and paper were always falling off and it was getting really annoying.

So one day I was in the garage and saw a can of stain left over from doing our headboard. Not one to want to waste anything, I got the brush out and decided to stain the shelf that held our recycling...so at least it would look nicer!

Thinking I needed to do something to organize the chaos that was the shelf...I moseyed on over to Joann's and got two unstained crates.  Which I then proceeded to spray paint with the purple spray paint that I had in the garage...we're going for low cost here...but what happened?

 

Not enough spray paint. So I got a black can of spray paint out and it became a hodge-podge paint job of what was in the garage. And then I loaded it all back into the house...

 

Doesn't it look better? I'm not super sold on the purple, but I think it's kinda funky and am gonna work with it for now. It has made recycling so much easier! All we have to do is take the crate down and dump it in, instead of awkwardly carrying as much as you could, dropping something every two seconds!

 

You know what's even better? It only cost about 14 bucks. (crates were on sale).

Woohoo!

 

What do you think?

Sarah