Jacket Revival?

I was cleaning out my wardrobe recently, it's amazing how much you can accumulate over a few years. The thought that you once loved those items so much, but now they are just the same old to you. It's a bit of a waste really, how much consumerism/materialism creates and just discards. There must be some way to minimise the impact on the environment, if only.....

Anyway enough of my ramblings...

As part of the cleanout I almost gave this jacket away, but then I thought hmm..what if I did a few things to revive it...well here you go..see what you think..I must admit the photo doesn't do it justice as it looks better worn in real life.

                                    Before

 

                                    After

Recipe Stand

Why hello!

It's been a while and I have been dabbling at a few things but not really getting far.

Finally managed to complete 95% of this item which I really like cos it fits in with my country/vintage theme. The last thing to do is paint and varnish one more layer at the back of the stand.

I won't be using it anytime soon though as I would love to have more space to utilise it. Nonetheless at least it will be ready when I need it!

Bangle-d

I was a little bored and looking for something to do and remembered watching a tv show that decorated a wooden bangle. I thought might as well give that a shot.

I used alot of scrapbooking technique to get the result. Must admit I am finding more and more of my scrapbooking skills handy in decorating alot of things.

Here is the result, the colours are probably more kiddy than I expected. However, if I ever wanted an 'adult' version' I'd just have to find the right colours!

 Before

After

On a side note, I find that more and more now I am trying things just to see if I can do them. This experimentation is quite a lot of fun!

Kitty Card

For my friend's birthday, I thought I'd make a card for her. She adores cats and kittens, so of course kitties had to be the theme of the card.

Here's the outcome, the kitties are so adorable.

Booties! Testing Testing...

Bought a book recently and it had these booties in there which looked somewhat simple to make.

I was a little bit wrong. Sure enough pattern was easy to cut out but I must admit good instructions always help. Partway through sewing the boot together, I was given the instruction to sew the sole to the rest of the shoe. What made it interesting was the fact that it did not tell me how...so after some pinning and guesswork I managed to sew the thing on.

The pattern called for all felt but I thought it would be nicer with a mix of material and felt. Changing the materials meant that I had to change some of the techniques for construction. This is where I found another aspect that annoyed me while sewing. My sewing machine kept playing up while doing the zigzag stitch. For some reason in the midst of sewing it would just cut the thread. I'm not sure whether it was tension being too tight but it did it multiple times. It was frustrating because it made some unsightly finishing on my sewing as some areas showed that it clearly had been re-sewn a few times.

The finished product is reasonable, however it does show one more mistake which occurred when I was punching holes for the laces. I accidentally had the top of the booties underneath the spot I was punching and thus I ended up taking a chunk out of that bit too!

However, all in all a bit of fun and more difficult than I first thought! I reckon I could still practice some more sewing going around bends so that they are not so uneven.

Lessons Learned: joining

Notebook

Found a plain yellow notebook at home and thought might as well revamp it and make it look less scruffy.

Had fun deciding upon colours and embellishments and now am more inclined to use it, possibly for my next holiday!

It's Dessert Time Again

This is the first time I have experimented with using gelatin. I'd previously used a similar setting agent called agar agar for an asian dessert but heard that the final texture was different.

It was surprisingly simple to make, much less effort than I had anticipated. I do however need to work on getting the thing out of the mould nicely!

Here is the result...a caramelized pear panna cotta. Twas yum.
















Lessons Learned: gelatin, unravelling from moulds