Organising lunch

Few months ago I made a meal voucher holder as Xmas gift for my colleague Floriana, and as my old voucher hoder was falling literally into pieces, I decided it was about time to make one for myself too… this time I also added two smaller pockets. I also handstitched a tab which I think looks cute. 🙂

lunch voucher holder closed

lunch voucher holder open

detail: handmade tab

Remnant case

Here is another project I made last weekend. Again I used some remnant of my “cushion-project” here. I’m not completely satisfied with it… I even forgot to add flaps on both to make it easier to zip/unzip. Anyway, next time I’m going to try to make a case with the end tabs of the zipper too!

the “left-over” case

The origami bag

I worked a bit with my sewing-machine this past weekend and, among other things,  I made this lovely origami market bag. I used some remnant from this project here, and I got the tutorial from here.

It is very quick to do and you can also easily modify its size: you can make it bigger or smaller depending on your needs! This one is 30×30 cm.

The origami bag

Good marks bracelet

Here is a brass wire bracelet I made for Marta, Paola‘s daughter: she’s has been very good at school this year  too so I thought she deserved a little gift. 😉

Marta’s wire bracelet

Marta’s wire bracelet

A gift

I made this necklace, which is a variation of this one here, as a gift for a friend’s birthday. It is made with hammered copper wire and glass beads…

Necklace for a birthday…

detail

 

 

Smocked top

A couple of years ago I bought a lovely dress at my local market, just to find out that I didn’t like how it looked on me. Anyway, as I really liked the pattern of the fabric I decided to unstitch it to make something new out of it. It took me almost 3 years to decide what to do, but in the end I came out with this smocked  top….

top

 

detail

 

 

Blue glass

Here’s a new necklace I made with some copper wire and light blue glass beads. I really like the contrast among the two colours.
I hammered and shaped the copper wire and added the beads. Very simple!

Copper and light blue glass beads necklace

Detail

Welcome to my place

I’ve been thinking to re-organize the entrance hall of my flat for a while, and finally I came up with what I think is the most unexpensive solution: I wanted to add a little bench at the entrance but I couldn’t find a suitable one. They all were too big, then my father gave me this old tea-table solid enough to be upcycled to a bench. As it was dark brown and a bit run-down I decided to paint it “ivory” white, and then to make a cushion to match with it.

First I made a squared cover for the pillow stuffing, then I sewed a zippered pillow cover with some lovely Ikea fabric. I also managed to sew an invisible zipper…. which was a first time for me! And guess what? It was easier than I thought!

The final touch is the hanger coat rack that I bought from Ikea too almost a year ago and that finally my brother had the time to come and secure to the wall. …. drilling is definitely not my piece of cake!

My upcycled bench and a brand new pillow

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The pillow perfectly fits the bench! incredible, uh?

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It looks nice.

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The invisible zipper!

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An organized entrance hall.

Chopsticks

I love chopsticks. Despite being Italian, I use them quite often to eat my meals, even though I’m not eating Far East food. 🙂

Throughout the years I found out that chopsticks are extremely adaptable, and I’ve found quite few different uses for the old ones…. I use them to support plants, as knitting needles and even as paper windmill stalks!

And now I’ve found even a newer use for them…

In my previous post I wrote about adding curtains to the glass doors of my TV unit… here is how I’ve done it with the help of 4 old chopsticks and 4 recycled springs from used-up pens….

STEP 1: Curtain, Chopsticks and spring

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STEP 2: insert spring onto chopstick

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STEP 3: insert chopstick+spring into the casing for the curtain rod

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STEP 4: fix the chopstick/rod into the window frame

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STEP 5: DONE! 🙂

 

Curtains

My house is small. I don’t have either a hobby room or even a lumber room where to store the material for my little works, so I had to turn my living room TV cabinet into a storage unit. That’s why I decided to shade its glass doors with two made-to-measure curtains.

It took me a while to complete the task because the fabric pattern didn’t help me much at cutting the panels.

Moreover to make the curtains stick to the glass doors I used a funny trick: I happened to have two sets of chopsticks almost the same measure of the width of the windows, so I sanded the excess, added an upcycled spring each form some old used up pens and used them to prop up the curtains.

See my next post for details… 🙂

Anyway, here’s the result. I’m quite satisfied with it.

TV unit “before”

TV unit “after”