diy upcycled holiday garland

I have been meaning to make this garland for more than five years! I'm not sure why I never got around to it as it is silly easy to do and super sweet to look at. It's a happy little bit of a memory boost as well since I made it from the holiday cards friends and family sent last year. Every year happy holiday cards arrive in the mail and once the holiday is over I fret over what to do with them. My cloudy middle-aged memory brings up a wee me creating a placemat with my dear Aunt Kathy using mod podge and happy hippy cards from the 70s and well who needs more place mats? One day as I was taking the cards down from the door of the tiny casa I thought, I should turn these into a happy garland to use to decorate next year! So I saved said cards only to not be able to find them the following year and then that year I saved those cards only to misplace them as well, and so on and so on. Of course, now that I had saved last year's cards in a place where I could find them (with the decorations, of course) I seem to have fallen of a great number of holiday mailing lists. But still, in a burst of creative energy, ridiculously stoked to find the sewing machine not only plugged in but also all threaded up with room on the craft table I got to it!

Here's what ya do...gather up your holiday cards and separate the fronts from the backs. Most cards do not print on the back so all you need is the happy printed front. Use an assortment of paper punches or one circle punch to punch out happy bits of color. If you have a stockpile of photo cards, punch out those smiling faces, if you have cards with embellishments on them, remove the embellishment in lieu of a circle (see the owl?). Gather up your punched pieces into a bowl, basket, or tray and bring 'em to your sewing machine. Set your stitch length to the longest there is and keep it on a straight stitch. Place your first shape under the foot of your machine and stitch a little forward and back to lock it in. Continue stitching at a slow enough pace to feed your other shapes under the foot with a little space between them. Don't let too much space happen unless you are all scientific-like and know how/why to adjust your tension (I am not and do not) or else your thread might jump and get all tangled causing you to abandon your project in search of a cup of hot tea or a pinterest perusal before you realize the light is fading and you should finish your project now before you abandon it for another year. Ahem. Stitch out a back and forth on your last circle and liberate from your machine!

 

Hang in a happy place perhaps over (or under) the mantel or on your tree. Another nifty idea would be to use one card per garland and use that garland to wrap up a gift for the person who sent you the card in the first place. This would be especially fun for those photo cards! Drats! Now I wish I did that! Sigh. There's always next year!

**the painted and stitched newspaper garland is also easy to make. I wrote up a diy for you back in 2010 and we still bring it out each Holiday season! 

scrumdilly diy: make an upcycled necktie flag

I was and am really proud of the denim flag I made last year for the july bed. Last year's flag was originally going to be a necktie flag but I couldn't source enough red, white, and/or blue neckties in time. Fast forward to this year when the mister and I began buying up neckties whenever we found them. The mister uses them for his tinkers damn ukuleles and I use them for various craft projects. As I collected them I would put aside the red, white and blue ties.

 

June came and I pulled out all my ties and found all sorts of red, white, and blue prints. I also felt completely uninspired...I was over the red, over the blue, and over the white. I wanted more color, more fun, and I really wanted to use this amazing green floral tie that was most probably a gift from this happy spiffy lady (thank you, Nikki!)

And that was that. I pulled out all the happy ties and began stitch-stitching them together...here are some details....

I used a medium zig-zag stitch in various contrasting colors to stitch the ties together. I originally pinned the ties together but quickly grew tired of having the pins poke me and ended up holding the ties next to each other as I zipped them through the machine.

Alternate the direction of each tie as you go to create as rectangular a flag as possible. I snipped the excess tie pieces at various lengths and stitched them down to keep them from fraying. My flag might actually look a little more flag-like had that bottom tie been less wonky and weavy and wavy and full of its biased self. It curled and I had no idea why or how and it might have been tension issues but being that I am a lazy sewer I rarely touch that dial and so I attempted to add another tie to the bottom but had to rip it out (which took me half of an hour) when it proved to be even more wavy wavy than the one above. I added it to the top instead and found to my dismay it too was full of its biased self. So now my flag looked a little less flag-like but it did look a little wavy so I went with it. Besides, after that point my seam ripper and I were not on speaking terms.

 

After you assemble the base of your flag pick out a bit of happy fabric for the base of your stars. I was super thrilled to find a blazing purple velvet top at the thrift to use. The only problem was that the velvet was of the stretchy kind and no matter how many pins I pinned it still slipped about all over the place. Stitch the second base onto your flag base and go rifle through your junk drawers for beads and old costume jewelry.

Yes, I actually managed to scrape up fifty odds and ends of the bejeweled kind for my stars. You really do not need to go that far but I had been holding onto these bits and pieces for a decade and decided to use them up.

The best way to attach the shiny baubles to the velvet is to use a hot hot HOT glue gun. No cute mini bedazzled gun will do, you need some super bond. Plug in the glue gun and while it heats up, arrange your baubles how you like.

Secure in place with a hefty dose of glue. Don't worry about the webby bits. Once the glue dries you can pull them off. Just get all glue happy and be careful of your fingers.

Once dry, tack it to your wall and salute!

All in all I think I made this flag for around $5 or maybe even less as many of the ties came from Nikki and/or a $5 bag sale from a local thrift. The velvet top was $1.50 and the baubles were from granny. In retrospect, I am wondering if the flag would be more stable and less wavy if I stitched my ties to the pillow case I had originally intended to use as a backing. So, think about it, gather up some ties and go for it! And if you do make one, please, please, oh pretty please send me a link and/or a photo! 

still mulling but there is eye candy for you to enjoy over at craftzine.com

check it out.

holiday countdown: upcycled christmas tree on Craftzine.com

i have always wanted to make a Christmas tree from an umbrella and now I finally have. twirl on over to Craftzine.com to see how I did it and to make your own! happy december!