Category:

Creativity

No-Sew T-Shirt Shopping Bag

by brandygburke August 11, 2021

For whatever reason, I have a stack of t-shirts that I don’t know what to do with. Some (like the one shown here) are from events I’ve attended (that I’ll never wear again) or they have a stain or are somehow unfit for donation… so I’ve been using them for things like rag wreaths — but I love sustainability, I hate plastic, and I love upcycle crafts – so today I’m sharing with you a DIY No-Sew T-shirt shopping bag – the video below is the quickest, easiest way to learn to do this, but if you like, I’ve also listed the steps below.

@thebrandyburke
No sew reusable t-shirt bag! ##fypシ ##fyp ##craft ##recycling ##sustainablefashion
♬ original sound – Brandy Burke

Reusable Shopping Bag Supplies

An old t-shirt
A great pair of fabric scissors

T-Shirt Shopping Bag Directions

Step 1: Turn the t-shirt inside out, front-facing you, cut off the collar

Step 2: Cut off the sleeves (on the inside of the seam if there is one. It’s going to look like you’ve made yourself a nice summer muscle shirt.

Step 3: Cut fringe across the bottom of your shirt – about 1/2 ” wide and 1 inch long. Flip every other set up so that you don’t accidentally tie the wrong sets together because it can start to be hard to tell what top fringe goes to what bottom fringe if you don’t do this.

Step 4: Tie each set of fringe together. Double knot — triple knot if you have room.

It’s important that for every cut you make sure your t-shirt is flat and the seams are straight.

August 11, 2021 0 comment

Creativity Sustainability

DIY Rag Wreath

by brandygburke August 9, 2021

written by brandygburke

During Coronavirus, I bought the best beginner’s sewing machine and taught myself to make fabric masks. You know I’m a project jumper, so once I felt I’d mastered the technique, I was on to other things, but left with lots of little fabric remnants which lead to the perfect craft: DIY Rag Wreath. While I’m using fabric remnants I gathered for sewing, this could easily be done with old t-shirts and towels as well to give them new life.

I actually read several tutorials and I’m going to be straight with you – there’s one reason I decided to share this with you, among all the others out there on Pinterest – and that was the hopes that it would give you the permission to excuse the rules.

I’ll explain more in a minute.

DIY Rag Wreath Supplies

About 1-2 total yards of fabric in various colors and patterns
Note: I also threw in some various ribbons that I had remaining from projects.
Wreath frame (mine was 16″)
Fabric Scissors

The first rule we’re breaking — who cares if the fabric coordinates. I mean, maybe you do care and if you do, or you have a specific intention in mind, then by all means – but many tutorials speak of coordinating the fabric and I’m over it. You start adding rules to my crafting and I’m not interested 😀

Cut your fabric in squares ranging from about 5″ to about 8″ long. Other tutorials say to cut 8″ strips but I wanted mine to actually look raggedy and I admired the variation in length. From these 5-8″ long fabric strips, cut a notch at 1/2 – 1″ (ISH” ” increments (second “rule” we’re breaking) – 1/2 to 1 or even 2″. it’s really up to you.

From that, tear your fabric in strips (third “rule” we’re breaking – others say to cut it all nice and neat with a rotary cutter, heck no, I want the ripped, jagged edges and wads of string that give this the most beautiful, rich texture.

next, just tie all the fabric around the wreath with a single knot. I didn’t really work in order, I didn’t want too much “pattern” to it – I wanted it to be unique, unreplicable, and in the end, it definitely turned out to be special.

August 9, 2021 0 comment

Creativity Sustainability

Upcycle Craft – Bandaid Box Book

by brandygburke August 8, 2021

written by brandygburke

We made an online order of our favorite vegan shake mix and it came wrapped in copious amounts of brown paper.

Why do they do that?

I guess it definitely beats bubble wrap… still, I was left with a wad of brown paper to figure out what to do with.

I also have several boxes saved — one was this little bandaid box from yesteryear – time for an upcycle craft.

You can use any little box you have as long as it has a good spine.

Start by measuring the front panel of the box, length and width.

Trim your inner book pages to be the same height and double the width of the box (so you can fold them in half)

I did about 7 pages per signature (booklet)

I cut some magazine pages too, but I didn’t end up using them.

ext, open your box using the side seam, cut any flaps off so that you’re just left with a front cover, a back cover, and a spine.

Measure your front panel and cut 4 pieces of paper about 1/4 of an inch bigger than that measurement (this will be front, back, and inside panels)

Measure the spine and double it, cut two spines (inside and outside)

Crease your spines – I do this by holding the paper up to the box and folding the box over top of it to show me where the line is, and then creasing down with a bone folder. That crease is essential if you want your book to open and shut.

Now it’s time to cover the book. There are many ways to cover a book, this is the quickest, simplest way.

I use decoupage glue, any glue will work.

Start with your outside covers. Do not overlap the bend, put your paper just up to it.

Then, glue on your spine.

Trim off any excess (remember, we cut the panels a little bit big to allow for repositioning, mismeasuring, etc.

Repeat the steps for the inside of your book.

Now, tie all of your signatures together – I do this by using my bookbinding tool from we R memory keepers, but you could do this without punching anything at all, just with a needle and thread.

Double your thread and start from inside the signature, go through all of the pages, leaving a long tail inside.

Go into the next hole (or if you didn’t poke holes, just push through all of the pages a little way down in the book) double knot the two strings and cut off the needle. I like texture and strings so I leave my tails long and attached.

Finally, you’ll find a lot of people who punch holes in their spine and hold their signatures in the book through a complicated system and that’s not my jam.

Anything that complicates my creativity gets two thumbs down for me AND this isn’t some heirloom so there’s no need to invest three days into it (but if it’s your thing, go right ahead)

just cut elastic and tie it around my spine and then insert my signatures. 2 minutes and it’s done.

August 8, 2021 0 comment

Creativity Sustainability

Upcycled Magazine Earrings

by brandygburke July 23, 2021

written by brandygburke

I have a lot of ancient magazines (from before I became conscious of zero-waste) and a few new ones that were passed along to me. There’s at least two hundred ways to repurpose a magazine, but here’s my current fave – rolled magazine earrings.

There’s a lot I can do in text, but this particular project really does require a video – so be sure to watch it before you take on the printed directions.

Rolled Paper Earring Supplies

Magazines
Jump Ring
Earring Hardware
Bone Folder
Decoupage Glue / Mod Podge
Paint Brush
Crochet Hook or other cylinder shaped item that does not variate
Pliers

Upcycled Paper Earrings Instructions

Remove 3 pages from your magazine and cut the pages into 2″ strips
Take 2 of those strips and put one in the Left Earring pile and 1 in the right earring pile and save the other strips for later
Do this for each page until you have 6 strips of paper for each earring. Make sure the strips are in the same order for each earring.

Folding Paper for Rolled Paper Earrings

Take one strip of paper and with the colorful side down, fold one side to the middle and then fold the other side completely over top of that to the opposite edge.

Now, fold the full strip in half and crease.

Rolling Paper Earrings

Using your crochet hook and a little bit of modpodge, begin coiling your paper around the hook, dabbing on glue periodically.
Slightly overlap the end of your next strip with the end of your last strip, glue generously at the seams

On your last strip of paper, when there’s about 6 inches remaining, add your jump ring and earring hardware and continue wrapping, securing the final piece with a liberal amount of glue.

Repeat!

July 23, 2021 0 comment

Creativity

DIY Yarn Bowl – Recycled Crafts

by brandygburke June 16, 2021

written by brandygburke

Who doesn’t love a beautiful, unique yarn bowl? But sometimes, something fancy just isn’t in the cards and you need an immediate fix to your yarn loaf flopping on the floor during your project. Sometimes you also have a 2-liter bottle that you’ve been waiting to find a recycle purpose for…. viola! Here’s the fix.

This DIY Yarn Bowl couldn’t be simpler to make – and I credit my former husband’s mawmaw for the tip.

DIY Yarn Bowl in 4 Easy Steps

Yarn Bowl Supplies Needed:

2 Liter Bottle
Xacto Knife

Step 1: Prepare the bottle

Take any 2 liter bottle and remove the label. Rinse it out and dry it completely

Step 2: Cut the bottle

Using an Xacto knife, cut the bottle evenly around the bottom 1/3 of the bottle.

Step 3: Notch it

Cut a small triangle at the bottom of one side of the top of the bottle. I’ve placed a piece of pink paper behind this so that you can better see it. This is not required, I’ve just found that it helps with the next step.

Step 4: Stuff it to transform to a yarn bowl

Place your yarn ball into the bottom of the 2 liter bottle. Take the end string and run it through the top of the bottle and out the spout. Finally, stuff the top part inside the bottom.

Reuse the DIY Yarn Bowl

This yarn bowl will last indefinite uses, just pull the two parts together to change out the yarn. Use multiple yarn bowls at a time for multi-colored projects — this is one cool bonus you just don’t get with the typical yarn bowl.

June 16, 2021 0 comment

Creativity

Recycle Craft – Colorful Plarn

by brandygburke June 16, 2021

written by brandygburke

I probably never would have tried to make colorful Plarn but, Covid-19 made me do it. During Covid-19 lockdown, we had to order our groceries through Shipt. I’m so thankful for the service that allowed me to stay home and have my groceries delivered to my door – but the one caveat to that is that the groceries arrive in plastic bags. I can’t very well ask them to come to pick up my reusable bags before shopping 🙂

This has led to a big wad of plastic bags in the pantry and a big pit of guilt in my stomach. Several of our local stores “recycle” plastic bags, but I’m always a little hesitant to believe that everything I drop in my bins (or take back to the store) actually gets repurposed into the world. This comes from working for a trash corporation many, many years ago.

I’ve always wanted to try to make plain, but I shop at stores that have plain white bags with obnoxious logos on them – and honestly, who wants a rug or a scarf or a weird plarn bowl that says “save 24 hours a day” on it…

So I set out to add some color, doing a bit of research first and I double heart eyes how it turned out.

How To Make Dyed Plarn

What you need to make Dyed Plarn

Plastic Bags (I had 20. I’m not kidding. Don’t judge even when we went to the store we weren’t allowed our reusable bags)
Permanent Markers (go for these, they gave me tons of colors!)
Rotary Cutter
Ruler
Cutting Mat

How to Dye Plarn

I always set out jolly on a project and then realize about 10 minutes in that I’m ready to be done with it. Can you relate? With 20 white plastic bags and 50 markers staring at me, I thought it would take hours upon hours to color them – but it didn’t. I think I got them colored in about one hour.

Instead of fully coloring a bag (which I’m sure you can do for a much different result) I scribbled a tight wavey line horizontally across the bag making three to four different colors on a bag – be sure to flip it over and do the back as well as the sides of the bag (but hey, if you forget this step, no one will be able to tell, it will just cause a portion of your plarn to be white.

I set all of my bags to the side to dry and allowed them to dry an hour or so just to be sure I wouldn’t be a painted person once I was finished working with the pieces.

How To Cut Plarn

Once everything was colored and very dry, I set out to cut the plarn into strips so that I could join it into a big ball of plastic fun.

Start by folding your sides in, the way that the bag naturally folds. Don’t worry about everything being in perfect alignment, it’s not going to happen, and you’re not going to notice.

How to fold a bag to make colorful plarn

Next fold the bag in half vertically, and then in half again and smooth the bag out (there’s a lot of air in them still).

Trim the bottom seam and the handles off of the bag. This pained me because I didn’t have a use for them, but in the end, it was a fraction of the waste and I was reassured by that.

Cut off the handles of colorful plarn bag

Finally, I just sliced the bags in one-inch pieces all the way down the bag.

Cutting colorful plarn with a ruler and rotary blade

Joining Dyed Plarn

in the end, you’ll be left with hundreds of 1″ loops of colored plastic. Sounds fun, right? Some people cut these loops to make one long strip by plastic bags are thin and I wanted a bit more substance, so I kept them as loops to add more substance. Take the two loops and overlap them, then create a knot.

Now, while binging your favorite Netflix show, you just sit and knot all the yarn together, and roll it into a nice big, beautiful colorful plarn ball.

Great. Now, What Can I Use Plarn For?

Plarn can be used for nearly anything you’d use regular yarn for, but I can’t imagine wanting plarn socks or a plarn sweater. I’ve listed some of my favorite ideas below.

Plarn Rug
Plarn Bowl
Plarn Waste Basket
Plarn Place Mats
Plarn Table Runner
Plarn Storage Bin
Plarn Tote Bag
Plarn Plastic Bag Holder (I love this irony)
I’ve even heard that some agencies love to have plarn mats for the homeless. I’m looking into this.

June 16, 2021 0 comment