Fusible Plastic

Here is what I love and kind of hate about plastic bags. They’re really hard to manage: they take up a lot of room, float around without much encouragement and they’re just annoying, but that makes it fun to deconstruct them and turn them into something else. Fusible plastic, for example.

What you need:

At least 8 bags, but I recommend more in increments of 8- try to get some extra more colorful bags too

Iron

2 long pieces of parchment paper

Of your eight, the majority should be grocery bags or at least the same kind of bag. For my latest run, I used a kitchen bag in the middle because I wasn’t sure how it would compared to others and it still worked out pretty good. That set might have been my best.

Take each bag and fold it down neatly, so all the edges are tucked in. Cut off the seam on the bottom and the handles.

Cut down the side, so you can open it up and lay it flat. Do this with all eight of your bags.

Lay down one sheet of parchment paper and lay down your bags on top. For me, it’s impossible to make all the bags even, but just do the best you can. Make sure if your parchment paper is too short that you’re bags aren’t hanging off the side. Then add your second piece of paper. Also, be prepared for a little bit of a mess because sometimes the ink will melt.

I think the iron does best if it’s set on rayon or the 5 or 6 setting. I would rather you start on too low a setting and work your way up than start too high and ruin the plastic.

The plastic bags can easily get out of line, so the best way to start is melt one end and then work your way over. Once you finish one side, turn it over and work on the other side.

Keep the iron moving constantly. I mean constantly. The plastic tends to shrink and at first I thought I was doing it wrong, but as I kept ironing, I noticed that it was giving the solid feel I was going for. If you can feel the separate layers, you need to keep going.

Before you sew anything, decorate your bag with whatever cute plastic bags you have leftover. These will melt pretty quickly so don’t leave the iron on there for more than a few seconds at a time or you can sew your decorations on. Once I got a method down, I had better luck melting. Mostly I had to work with Wal-Mart bags, but since I hate Wal-Mart,  I did my best to cover up it’s name. For the second time, I just cut the Wal-Mart out and stacked the bags, so the hole wasn’t in the same spot for each bag.

There are tons of things you can do with this fusible plastic. I sewed up the sides, melted  some thing scraps to make handles and made a reusable bag. Because so much of my plastic didn’t turn out the first time, I didn’t have enough to make another one, so we made a pencil pouch.

Fold the bags in half and sew up the sides with right sides together. Then turn the bags inside out.

The material is waterproof and extremely sturdy, so it would make a great beach bag. If you really wanted to. you could sewed it as a lining on a cute bag. These are just the simple things you can do, but there are plenty of awesome ideas that I want to do someday.

Raincoat: Yes, you read that right.

Wallets

Shoes!

Crocheting Plastic Bags

Like I said, I’ve become addicted to crafting with plastic bags. There is just so much you can do with them and they’re such a nuisance, it just fits.

Let me start by saying, I’m a terrible crocheter. If I had been a mother when crocheting was popular, my kids would have probably been beat in the school yard and then left to freeze. Luckily, plastic bags weren’t around back then, so they’d at least have that going for them. And even luckier, I don’t have kids now to put through that experience. The good news is I am getting better. I tried to learn a few months when I wanted to make a rug out of crocheted bags, I still have that unfinished, but then I was inspired by the bag below, which my grandmother made me for my birthday.

It has a pocket and a place to hold your keys.

I’m sure you understand my motivation. It’s amazing. Here is the pattern, if you’d like to make your own. She tried to teach my aunt and I, but I wasn’t catching on very quickly, mostly because the stitches all seem the same and it’s like ‘Make two double stitches. OK, I can do that.’ Fifteen minutes later, “OK, I did two. What, I did all that and I only did one?” That and keeping the tension was difficult. Needless to say I didn’t retain anything I learned that day, so I decided to practice with something else.

I found this video:

Here is Part 2 and Part 3. Watch the video to make sure because what she calls single stitches seem to be something else.

Beautiful, right? This video allowed me to watch the same thing over and over without anyone’s patience being at risk, get the stitches down and practice, practice, practice.

It took me about 8 hours to do what she does in like 20 minutes, but I did finish and that’s what is important.

This flower isn’t great, but I will say it looks better than it does in the pictures. I took a million and it still looks like a hot mess, but it does actually have stuff resembling petals. It took me almost two bags to finish.

Now I’ve learned enough to be able to make some of the bubbles for the bag. Slowly, but surely I guess. And I’ve picked up some crocheting magazines for patterns to do later. There is so much inspiration out there. If you’re not a seasoned crocheter, I would suggest you start with yarn first, make the flowers then make the flowers with the bags, then find something slightly harder then work your way to the bag.

Anyway, have fun, don’t be too hard on yourself and be creative! Feel free to let me know what you’re working on!

Mod Podge Bicycle DIY

I said a while back that you can mod podge anything. I am now coming with confirmation that it is true.

I started going to school in a college town that isn’t too much bigger than my hometown(when school isn’t in session), but it has to accomodate a much bigger variety of people and interests, so it has a much wider diversity of things to do. Bike riding is one of those things. With all the opportunities here like sidewalks, hints of bike lanes, other people who rode bikes, etc. I could not pass up the idea of riding a bike. So I set out to find the medium with which I was going to fulfill this dream. There are a couple of bike stores here, but they sell road bikes and bikes for cycling. I just wanted a standard bike like I had when I was a kid, easy to ride, nothing fancy. There are different internet options, but it didn’t make sense to waste all that gas to have it ship something that was supposed to conserve it. Craiglist was my next best option. I started searching a couple of weeks before school started because I knew I wouldn’t have that many options. I found one that would do, only $50, and it was the kind that I wanted. I went to take a look at it. I liked it well enough and I didn’t think I would find anything super amazing and it was a pretty good price, so I bought it. It wasn’t extremely unsightly, but just a bit boring.

It’s kind of hard to tell, but the whole bike is covered in a dark black color with these lighter blue splotches.

I rode it for a couple of days before it hit me. Not a car, but an idea. You can mod podge anything.

So I set out on a quest to find out how to make this idea a reality and I stumbled onto this. She had done all the work, I just had to put my own twist on it.

What you need:

A bicycle- check out thrift stores, ebay, Craiglist for a used one. Honestly, if I had bought a new one I never would have had the heart to do this. It just wouldn’t make sense. Find an ugly one, one that no one wants and prove to the world that it’s worth a second glance.

If you have a son or daughter that needs or wants a bike, but can’t afford something new and all you can find is girl’s bike if you have a son or vice versa, give it a new look with this project. They’ll never know the difference and they’ll feel even more special because it’s the most unique bike on the block.

2 Mod Podge Outdoor- I used a whole bottle and then just a tad of the second, but I didn’t start out very generous and that made the project quite a bit harder, so definitely get two bottles.

Mod Podge Hard Coat- Definitely only one bottle. I could only find the outdoor in a store, so you may be better off just getting both of the internet.

Tons of Paper or 1/2 yard of fabric- come up with your idea of what you want the bike to look like before you start cutting up stuff.

1 inch foam brush- ONLY get one inch. I got larger ones and it made the project a lot harder and get more than one because they wear out pretty quickly.

Scissors- A pair that you don’t care about

Drop cloth- for obvious reasons

Time and patience- I used a lot of small pieces of paper, which took me quite a while, over a week to be exact.

Because I used paper that is what I will be explaining about, but here is a link if you want to use fabric.

Step 1- Cut out your paper. I used magazines. I just cut out textures, patterns and colors that I liked. I suggest that you stick with about four main colors with a random color every once in a while to make sure it’s not too busy. Also pick a lot of neutrals. For me this was mostly book pages. I cut out tons and tons of these because I wanted to make sure I had a wide selection of interesting things to choose from. I used a 1 1/16 inch hole punch like the kind people use for scrap booking, but you can do random torn out shapes, squares, hearts, what ever suits your fancy.

Step 2- If you want to take apart your bike this is the time. I don’t recommend it unless you’re absolutely sure that you can put it back together. I was too afraid to do that to mine, but it mind some parts kind of difficult. Just be sure that’s what you want.

Step 3- For the sake of this tutorial we’ll say that you’re using the circles. With the outdoor mod podge, generously paint the back of each circle and place it on the bike in whatever order you want. The trick is when you get to the more difficult places on the bike, like where the pieces are held together, then you want to make sure it’s nice and wet so it will hold it’s shape and be more malable. On the really difficult place on the bike then try cutting your paper into smaller pieces. The mod podge is pretty thick, but don’t be afraid of it.

Step 4- Take it one piece of the bike at a time. I suggest going with the harder parts first. This project will probably take at least a couple of days, so each time you put the project up for the night go over the section you worked on with one last coat of the outdoor mod podge glue. Also try to keep the bike inside if possible because the rain or some other natural element may mess it up if all the sealers aren’t on there yet.

Step 4- When you’re done with all the sections, add one last coat of outdoor over the entire thing. Once you’re finished with the entire bike let it dry for several hours.

Step 5- When you’re sure that it’s exactly how you want it, put your last coat of the hard coat mod podge. This stuff is pretty drippy, but don’t worry; I’m now pretty sure that it’s impossible to mess up mod podge.

And this is my completed art work. Depending on your taste, you may or may not like it, but I really like it. The world is your canvas people, just pick up some paper scraps and get to creating.

Design ideas:

While I was working on mine loads of ideas where coming to mind. I really want to make another bike, but I only have the need for one, so I’m hoping somebody will be inspired and ask me to make one. For now I’ll live my dreams through you. Here are my ideas in case you’re at a loss.

Use a road map: I think this would be adorable to cover the entire thing in several different kinds of maps.

Use black and white photographs: I also think this would be awesome. If that’s too boring you could add a spot of red or pink in different places or use the black and white as you’re neutrals.

Make a design: This was one of my first ideas, but I didn’t know what kind of design I should make or if it would turned out right because I’m pretty horrible drawer. I thought about covering the whole bike in book pages and then using colors from the magazine to make a vine and leaves that grew around the bike. Or a snake. Snakes are awesome.

Use comic books: I really, really wanted to do this, but I didn’t have any comic books and that would mean I wasn’t upcycling.

Do the layering effect that I did except cut out some feather shapes instead of circles. I didn’t do this for obvious reasons. It would take forever to cut all that out.

Cover the whole thing with book pages and then draw graffiti type art or regular art all over it.- Again, I thought this would be awesome, but I suck at drawing. I would make sure that you could draw on the dry outdoor mod podge before doing your final layers of it.

Paper patchwork effect- Cut out different sizes of squares for that quilt effect.

If you want to use fabric, but still want to upcycle try looking at thrift stores for thinner shirt or dress materials. You may need more than one shirt or dress, so find away to incorporate the different colors and styles like doing a patchwork type look.

So, those are my ideas. Let your brain run wild with all the possibilities. Good Luck!

Want more ideas? Check out my DIY page.

Sun Made Record Bowl DIY

My plan was to have a pretty cool DIY for you today, but instead I have an idea, the do’s and don’t’s and proof that this project does work even if I don’t have the cut and dry exact rules just yet.

A couple of months ago my mom was got some large spools for tables and chairs. These spools had some big holes in the middle and my mom didn’t want spiders or bugs to be able to crawl up through the hole, so she decided to cover the holes up. She got some records, covered up the holes of the record with broken pieces of other records and then glued them down on top of the spools. Needless to say they melted.

Here is what our spools look like.

And that is how I came up with this idea of making record bowls in the sun.

What you need:

Records- I got mine from super scratched up and unusable at the thrift store for 10 cents. I knew this would be a learning process, so I got a bunch.

Dishes- especially if you’re going to use the oven. The taller the items, the deeper your bowls will be. You need some taller for the bottom and something wider than the bottom dish for the top.

Lots of Sun

Lots and Lots of patience

I’ll give instructions for the oven verison first.

Step 1- Turn on the oven to 200, which is the lowest most ovens go. If your won’t go down that far then 250 will work. Stack like so. I used a funnel type colander for the bottom and a wider colander for the top. Put it in the oven. The great thing about this is that the bowl pretty much makes itself. I made these a while ago, but I believe that after 10 or 20 minutes the records get soft enough that you can start to mold them how you want.

If you want to make the plates, then just turn the plate upside down and place the record on top.

I believe the blue one was the one I made with the colander. The orange I made with a a bundt pan. It was more shallow.

Here is how the plates turned out. We ended up making a three tiered appetizer type stand with ours. The deepest bowl which ended up being the narrowest bowl on top and the plates went on the bottom.Turned out pretty cute.

For the sun method, things are a bit different. There is no dish stacked on top and most of the molding you’ll do yourself. You can either let the record melt into the bowl, like shown, or you can let the record melt over the sides of the bowl like it was shown before, but without the bowl on top.

The sun seems to be a bit tempermental. This doesn’t work just because it’s ridiculously hot; It works because the sun is beaming directly down on it. If you put these in your back yard and the sun is still beaming on your roof then it won’t work. As the sun moves, your records have to move.

I tried to make these at my aunt’s house. I had to put them on concrete because she didn’t have any tables that were in the sun and it didn’t work. By the time I got my records out and found a decent place to put them, it was a little later in the afternoon, so maybe that’s why.

At home the best place for me is from 1-4 and I’ve only had luck on these white tables. Why it worked I don’t know, maybe I waited too late at my aunt’s house or any other time I worked on a different surface, but it’s something to consider if this doesn’t work for you.

Some other things you should know: I broke a lot of mine because I was impatient. Some of the records are extremely flimsy, so they seemed to be soft and bendible, but they weren’t ready. I ruined a lot of mine that way. Check them every 20 minutes or so. You want to get those extremely flimsy ones because they melt faster and they’re easy to mold. You’ll know what I mean once you buy them. Once you start your bowl, try to finish because the sharper curves make it hard for the sun to reach that part of the bowl.

This may sound hard, but it really isn’t. You just have to have patience and be willing to try different methods. What worked for me may not work for you because it’s all about the sun. You may be tempted to just throw them in the oven, but making them in the sun is better. It’s free, you won’t create extra heat in your already hot house and it gives you a little extra time outside. It takes about 20 minutes or so for it start to make it workable and it cools pretty quickly, so shape fast.

You can use these bowls for any number of things. I think I’ll make mine into a planter for a shallow rooted plant. Or maybe even into something like this.

And most importantly  have fun with it.

Want more ideas? Check out my DIY page

Hummingbird Feeder DIY

Hummingbirds, actually all birds, are quite delightful. I’ve never had an interest in birds. I didn’t not like them, I just thought, ‘oh, there’s a bird.’ Now I think ‘THERE’S A BIRD! AWWW…’  Caring about the environment has given me a whole new perspective. It’s quite nice. Most of the time. Anyway, back to the point. Because hummingbirds are so delightful, here is a feeder DIY, so that you can appreciate them and take care of their habitat. NOTE: It may take a couple of weeks for the hummingbird to the nectar and start showing up. Change the nectar once a week.

You will need:

A pop bottle, preferably red but I don’t know if there is such a thing. If you know of one let me know.

14- 20 spoons- again preferably red.  We used spoons from various other places like Cherry Berry, which  has red and pink, and other ice cream or frozen yogurt places. The point of upcycling is to use trash. I’m going to ask that you don’t go out and buy red spoons. Use ones that have already been used. Yeah, it sounds gross, but that is what soap is for.

A red lid- if you don’t have red spoons then get a flimsy red lid like one that are on gas stations to-go cups or even one of those metal peanut jar lids. Not something hard like peanut butter lids.

A candle, not a tea light

Hot glue gun

Pliers

A feeding tube– these you are allowed to buy.

A chain- my aunt had hanging plant pots that she was going to make into a chair pot and she didn’t need the chains any more so we used those. You could probably use any kind of chain.
Hummingbird Nectar

The handles of the spoons.

Wrap the chain around where the lid ring had gone and at the curve of the bottle near the bottom. Connect the two. The feeder tube should be level. Fill it up all the way and it will act as a vacuum to keep it from dripping.

Or this. I don’t know why, but my aunt and I love these. If I had been at home doing these and they did this I probably would have cried with frustration, but my aunt and I just burst out laughing. We’re trying to figure out someway to use them, so if this happens to you, keep them because we may come up with something.

You can also try to do these in a toaster oven. Beware. You have to watch it every second because it takes around 3 minutes or longer depending on what kind of spoons you have and if you look away for one second you could turn around and it will look like this.

And here is the final picture with the feeder tube in it. Not too shabby, right? This was our first one, so it has the unperfect pink flowers and it doesn’t have the red lid either.

This is the first row, plus one on the second.

Step 6- After you put on each spoon reinforce it with hot glue. As a general rule, the stick of the spoon should have melted enough to stick to the bottle when it dries, but it still needs to be reinforced.

Step 5- Place the spoon around the mouth of the bottle in whatever arrangement you want. I made two rows and used about seven spoons on each row. On the back row I staggered the seven spoons between the spaces of the front row.

Step 4- After you have the bowl part bended and rounded as you want it, then cut off the handle about an inch or so away from the bowl. Put it in the fire and get it hot enough that it starts to droop. The heat may burn, so you may want to use pliers. Don’t use gloves because they’ll stick to the plastic.

Step 3- This is what you want your petals to look like. Up until the other day, when my aunt and I were doing our recent version, the pink spoons were giving me a rotten time. The red spoons were always perfect, but the pink ones just wouldn’t do anything but separate or just turn droopy. Miraculously, I managed to get the last set to look similar to the red one. How exactly I did this I don’t know, but I do know that I moved it around a lot more. I had tried this method before, but for some reason it just worked this time. Keep this in mind when your melting spoons. Experiment and if all else fails then try to bend it with pliers.

Step 2- Melt the spoons. For those of you who were here for the flower project or who did the flower project then you know that this seems to be an art. I’ve found that not all plastic spoons melt the same. Don’t hold the spoons in the flame. It’ll give it a burnt look.

Step 1- Take off the little ring that meets with the lid and the bottle wrapper. We got the sticky part off with goo gone, which you can get from lots of places. It’s just an adhesive type remover. Take your red lid and cut a hole in the middle so that it is wide enough to fit over the mouth piece of your bottle. You can cut petals if you want or leave it. Reinforce it with hot glue.

Want more ideas? Check out my DIY page

Garden Stepping Stones DIY

I do believe this will be my last garden related post for the time being. Sooner or later I’ll put photos of my mom’s garden up, but I probably won’t do that until next week.

Things you need:

Molds (one bag makes 13 or so 8×8 molds, so however many you want to make)

Sand Topped Quickcrete

A Bucket to mix in- we started out with a paint bucket and moved to a wheel barrel. (Make sure if you use something that you’ll need again to wash it out.

Something to mix with- we used with a shovel. (Again, make sure you wash this)

Creative medium- we used everything from glass to marbles to rocks to plastic. Most of the glass was broken at a thrift store so they gave it to us. The marble were given to us by a friend. Some rocks came from our yard or another friend. We did buy a couple of glass and plastic pieces from a thrift store, but we didn’t buy anything new. Don’t use metal, it will eventually rust.

If you decide that you want to make the patio you’ll need:

Sand-for our 10×10 block we need 20 bags of sand

Gravel-10 bags

Select an area, however big you want it. Mark it off and dig down four inches. Make sure that the area is as level as possible. Add your bags of gravel. They should be about one inch deep. Then add a few bags of sand. We needed 16. Lay out your stepping stones. Then cover the stones with sand. Take a broom (one that you don’t care if it gets ruined) and move the sand in between all the cracks. This is pretty hard work, so be prepared. Every few sweeps, spray it down with water. When it’s pretty spread out, you can continue to spray the sand in between the cracks.

Cheerio’s.

Melody and Harmony’s stone.

In the beginning we each did our own stones with our names and hand prints in them. The family unit would have, of course, not been complete with out the cats stones. You can’t see them very well because rocks have filled the holes, but their paw prints are in theirs, too. This one is Mr. T and Mystique’s.

Some of these have no rhyme or reason, but they are all beautiful in their own way. None are left plain, but not all of them have color. Some have indentions.

I really like that tree.

I like this group too.

That wanna-be spiral with a blob as a head was supposed to be my first snail. Obviously it didn’t turn out well.

There is a lot of colors and patterns that I like. After the first 10×10 block, we started running out of ideas so one weekend when our family visited us, we enlisted their help. Some of these throughout the pictures are there. The grapes in the right middle was made my grandma. She’s a creative genius. It’s too bad I wasn’t passed some of these genes.

Most of our stones are kind of random, but we did attempt to make some pictures. In the front row, the white with a blue clump in the middle I made. It’s supposed to be an eyeball. The purple spiral with a green head is also mine and it was supposed to a snail. The one to the right of the eyeball is a tree. I don’t remember who made that, but it sure is cute.

Step 4- Step 3 completed. Now just add which ever creative materials you wish. The world is your oyster! Let the concrete set in the molds for a week. After that week take them out. Wait another week before putting any weight on them.

Step 3- Shovel a couple of scoops into your mold and tap the mold so that the concrete smooths out. When it is completely smooth it should almost fill up the mold.

Step 2- Keep interchanging between adding water and mixing. You want it to be mushy, but not soupy.

Step 1- One bag of concrete makes 13 8×8 stepping stones. We got our molds from Hobby Lobby and some from the internet. I’ve also heard that you can use pizza boxs. Just reinforce the inside corners with tape and spray pam all over the inside so that the concrete will come out. Slowly mix water in with the dry mix. Keep mixing until there isn’t any dry left.

Bottle Cap Magnet Board

Depending on big you want your frame to be, you may need a lot of bottle caps for this project. I used a 16 x 20 frame and I used around 221 bottle caps. If you need bottle caps visit me at http://www.etsy.com/shop/serendipitysscavenge and if you let me know that you’re from my blog then I’ll give you free shipping.

Pretty much this is one step process repeated 221 times. I used a hot glue gun and in order to get the cleanest look, I glued the very edge of the inside rim. I left a couple holes so the wall attachments wouldn’t be covered up. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below.

Want more ideas? Check out my DIY page.

Vinyl Record Clock

This is definitely the easiest project I have made so far. It was fun and it looks awesome.

This is a pretty straight forward project, so I won’t be giving too many details on this tutorial. First, I had to make the hole in the record big enough to fit the clock kit in it. This you may or may not need to do, it just depends on your kit. I bought a clock at thrift shop and then I just took off the kit. Whether you get a kit from an existing clock or whether you get one from the store, they’re extremely easy to put together. The hands were tiny compared to the record, so I replaced them with some thin pieces of plastic that I painted gold.

The next step is adding the numbers. What you want to use for that is up to you. For my numbers, I made picks out of old gift cards and credit cards with a pick punch (I’ll put a link to one on ebay that you can buy). I hot glued the picks around the record in the spots that the numbers would normally be.

If you have any questions about something I didn’t cover then feel free to leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.

Pick Punch

With this pick punch, you can make picks out of old credit cards or gift cards. You can use them for decorations, but the also really function as guitar picks.

Want some more ideas? Check out my DIY page.

Wrapping Paper Bows

You can use any kind of paper to make these, but since I had tons of used wrapping paper left over from Christmas, I decided to use it to make bows for next year.

Take the ring and tape it down in the space in the middle of the bow.

Take the two ends of the 3 1/2 strip and tape them together to make a ring.

Repeat Step 4 and 5 for the two 9 inch strips and then staple all the layers together.

Stack the 10 inch strips in between the spaces of the 11 inch strips. To me, it’s easier to tape them down so they don’t slide around.

Stack the 11 inch twisted strips on top each other. Spread them evenly out, but leave a gap at two sides that are opposite of each other. If the strips are sliding around too much, just tape them down.

Hold the top loop in between your fingers or tape it. Then twist into a loop the bottom half and tape the loops so that they don’t come apart. Make sure the loops are as even as you can get them before you tape them.

Twist the top half of the strip into a loop. Tape it down or hold it down with your finger so the loop doesn’t come undone.

Cut three 11 inch strips, three10 inch strips, two 9 inch strips, and one 3 1/2 inch strip.

Want more ideas? Check out my DIY page.