Indie crafting saves the planet
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
In a previous life, I made and sold handbags crafted out of old album covers. It was a lot of fun—I loved trolling flea markets and thrift shops and the best record store in the world for the grooviest covers. I also got to use crazy ribbons and cords and different beautiful papers—everything from Chinese newspapers to the sleeves of the records themselves, if they looked cool enough. Punching holes, affixing grommets, and gluing on trim were all very meditative activities, and besides being a good time, I also got paid. I even sold Liberace bags at the Liberace museum!
After a few years, I got burnt out on it—how many Madonna purses can one girl make?—but I still adore making new stuff out of old stuff, and I love trolling indie-crafting mega-site Etsy to see what other crafty kids are making out of old junk. Seeing all the ingenious creations out there makes me happy, because there’s a lot of good stuff in the trash. Add a bit of creative brilliance and elbow grease, and you end up with some insanely wonderful items.
Today I’d like to share some of my favorite things made out of other things, via Etsy. What are some of your favorites?
A necklace made out of an old album!
A notebook made out of 3 1/2” floppys!
Earrings made out of old Lite Brite pieces!
More earrings, made out of Nintendo NES cartridges!
Cufflinks made out of old payphone keys!
Baby booties made out of Ramen noodle packaging!
Underwear made out of an old Chicago Bulls t-shirt!
Windchimes made out of dollheads and lots of other awesomely creepy stuff!
Searching Etsy with the word “recycled” brings back almost 2000 pages of results, so I’m gonna stop there before I blow out our webhost and my credit card. Have you seen any junk transformed into artwork lately? Let us know in the comments ...
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Amazing stuff! Way back in the dark ages when I was about 8yrs old I remember putting an old vinyl record in hot water till it softened and then moulded it by hand into a bulb vase for hyacinths - the drainage hole conveniently there as the centre of the record! Everyone that Christmas got these for presents. Little did I know that I’d started a trend carried on to this day. Maybe I should go into business!
hee hee, that’s awesome, terry. i’ve made some record bowls too, but i put them in the oven and dang that stinks! the hot water method sounds a bit less toxic. :)
Terry, your record flower pots sound really cool!
Madge, I love your bags.
I LOVE making stuff out of other stuff. I recently sewed a cute shirt from a vintage sheet. My dad saw it and complimented me on it. When I told him what I had made it from he offered me money because he thought I didn’t have money for clothes. LOL! I have several other vintage sheets I plan to make into various things.
We have been experimenting with making heart-shaped crayons from old bits of crayon. That’s been fun.
For Christmas I made a few tote bags out of pillowcases and some jammie pants for Bella.
My next pillowcase adventure will be pillowcase dresses for the girls. Something like this.
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=11918744
I’ve been buying cute pillowcases at thrift stores for $.99 each or $2 a pair.
For Bella’s birthday Zach is making a puppet theater. One method we are thinking of using is getting three old screen doors (the kind with wood on the bottom and a screen on top) at the ReUse Center, replacing the screens with curtains (maybe I’ll make them with the vintage sheets!) and hinging them together.
stella, that puppet theater project sounds awesome! you’ll have to send some pictures when it’s done.
i also love the pillowcase dresses. i’ve tried sewing a few times, but so far i haven’t had the patience for it. i think i picked bad (slippery) fabric for my first project, too. any suggestions on something simple to start with?
My first sewing projects were pajama pants and a pillowcase tote bag. I used the “Sleeper of a Bag” pattern at the Martha Stewart website. I’m still pretty new to sewing, but I’ve found it to be pretty easy as long as I stick to simple patterns.
I’m hoping to take a sewing class at my favourite indie craft store (http://www.craftyplanet.com) pretty soon. I’d really like to get good at it. I, like almost every other woman I know, have a hard time finding cute stuff that fits me. I daydream about banishing ready-to-wear clothing from my life.
The pillowcase tote is a creat one to start with because it’s cheap and easy. I can get pillowcases for $.99 at the thrift store.
The pajama pants are nice because they are simple, and if they aren’t totally perfect no one really cares. I started with kids pajama pants using some thrifted fabric.
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