One of the most creative people I know, Colleen (of the great indie online fabric store Some Art Fabric & and the brand new Sloth Craft) has gifted us with this fabulous blue jean remake tutorial.  Born of a wrong sized thrift store purchase for jeans for her daughter,  this is a great example of how to take something ordinary and turn it into something way cool!   As always, we LOVE our guest posters!  Hope you enjoy this great tutorial as much as I did!  — Dot

Blue Jean Remake – by Colleen

I sew. Sewing defines me as a person and as a crafter. I don’t remember learning to sew, I know I did not spring from my mother’s loins with the skill. My dad taught me some time between yesterday and forever ago. I had my first job sewing before I was double digits, child labor was not an issue, since I worked for my dad.

Sewing lead me down the wicked path of fabric and fabric brought me to where I am now, someone who owns an online fabric shop, Some Art Fabric.

I also love thrift stores, I purchase most of my kids clothes there, as well as supplies for much of my craftiness. Recently I went shopping sans children. I found some jeans that I thought would fit #1 child. I was wrong. So I decided to deconstruct the jeans and add in some space so that they would fit. This tutorial is an idea, and assumes that you have made a pair of pants before or at least worn a pair enough time to be able to figure out how they go together.

If it don’t fit! Alter it!

Colleen has lovingly prepared the tutorial as a pdf.
Download the 5 page tutorial: Jean Remake

Hope you enjoy!
As always, we’d love to see it if you try it!
And if you want more inspiration from Colleen, be sure to follow her blog, Some Art Talk!

In addition to the traditional felting techniques that everybody uses (needle & wet-felting, dying my own wool, accenting with tufts of colored wool)  I also use an Airbrush to add shadows & gradients to my pieces.  I’ve found this to be a super easy & fast way to give my felting that little somethin’-somethin’!!

Airbrushing some Chocolate Frosting!!!

Here are all the supplies you need to help paint & shade your Felted Sculptures!!

*Airbrush, Compressor, & bottles
*Watered down Acrylic Paint
*Yummy Felted Cupcakes!!

This is what the cupcakes look like BEFORE any paint has been sprayed. Just plain, white frosting all ready to be transformed into Chocolate!!

I didn’t want to get any over-spray of the brown onto the “cake”, so I put a little paper & masking tape to cover that part. First layer of color is a warm yellow!!

I like to paint in light layers of many different colors. I think this gives the colors more depth instead of just blasting a color onto the wool. Also if you get too much acrylic paint onto the wool, it tends to bleed & get a little crunchy.

Slowly getting darker & darker!! Going from the yellow base to a warm brown.

Starting to look like chocolate with the darker brown!! This could pass as a Milk Chocolate, but I want a darker frosting.

Working with the darkest (almost black) brown to add some dark shadows within the “twirl”.

Yummy Yummy!!! Looking Delicious!! Love the dark shading in the creases!!

Almost done just need….

Cherries On Top!!! Yea! All done!

Thank You Dabble.org for letting me share!!  I hope this tutorial has inspired you to take another look at your chosen medium & maybe think outside the box!  Never feel confined by the “traditional” way of doing things!!

If you are interested in learning more about felting, or seeing some fun Tutorials on the felting process, Please visit my Blog:

FeltedChicken Blog

We’ve features her fabulous work here before (here, and here), and she has graciously given us a tutorial on how to make some lovely V-day cupcakes.

See below for

• The Vanilla Cupcake recipe
• How to Decorate them

(a few translations from us Yanks, to the best of my ability: Icing Sugar = Powdered Sugar.  Castor Sugar = a superfine sugar, which you can purchase in speciality stores here in the states, or make by pulsing regular sugar in a food processor or coffee grinder)

I’ve included the pages as printable pdf’s at the bottom…

Download:

• Vanilla Cupcake Recipe – by Naomi Henderson
• Decorating Valentines Cupcakes – by Naomi Henderson

Thanks so much to Naomi for sharing!

Oh, and by the way, if you like food and cupcakes and dinner and such, check out the new Foodwhirl.com! I’m so excited about it.. stop by!

Today we have another lovely guest poster here on Dabbled,  Kelly from Tresijas!  I discovered Kelly through some of the really cool creations she had posted in the Dabbled Flickr group–especially her vinyl record creations–, and I asked her if she’d honor us with a tutorial.  And she agreed, so here it is…  Enjoy!

How to: Make A Bracelet from Vinyl Record

List of materials:

Toaster oven with tray
An old pair of scissors
stretchy gloves (to protect from heat)
record album
low grit sand paper
bracelet mandrel or other cylindrical object (a soda can or skinny glass bottle will work too)

Most of these items can be found at a second hand store. I usually work with 45’s because they are often times the most abused/non-playing. I try not to harm a record that cans till be enjoyed for its original purpose.

Instructions:

[Note, see photos following instructions for a visual perspective]

1. Heat toaster oven to about 150-200 degrees.
2. Since all ovens are different, take some time to get to know yours. Place the record in the oven for a minute or two, if the record doesn’t “relax” (see photo) turn the heat up slightly every few minutes until it does. If the record starts to melt or have a strong odor, the temp is too high.
3. Once the record relaxes, put your gloves on, have your scissors ready, then remove it from the oven. Quickly cut about a 5 1/2 inch strip from the record. The album will cool fairly quickly, but never fear because the beauty of vinyl is that it can be reheated. If you want to trim a little from your strip simply place it back in the oven and repeat steps 1-3.
4. Once you have cut the strip to your satisfaction, use the sand paper to take off any sharp edges. It helps to wet the sandpaper first.
5. Place the strip back in the toaster and wait for it to relax. Have your mandrel ready.
6. Once the strip is ready, with gloves on, remove it and quickly wrap it around your mandrel. Hold it there until it cools (about 15 seconds)

Voila! You have a new bracelet! Remember, if it doesn’t fit the way that you like, just reheat and form it again. Have fun and experiment, the possibilities are virtually limitless with this material.

Photos

[Click any photo to view larger/as a slide show]

About Kelly:

I’m a 35 year old, stay at home mom of 3 girls. My husband is from Argentina so we spend a lot of time in South America. The handmade culture is booming there and has had a tremendous influence on my own work. I started beading about 10 years ago, but quickly realized that although I enjoyed working with beads, I was beginning to look for another hobby that was less time consuming and that my young children would be less likely to throw all over the floor.

One day I was watching Reading Rainbow with one of my girls and saw a segment about a man that made unique record bowls on a vacuum form. I thought that it was a very creative idea. A few weeks later I found some red and yellow record albums at the thrift store and felt compelled to buy them to experiment with. My first creations were rough to say the least, but slowly but surely I became very comfortable working with vinyl. The rest, as they say, is history.

Even though I love my record creations I never stop looking for new materials to work with. Last year I started using wood salvaged from burn piles and this year I began experimenting with paper mache. Any project using recycled and readily available materials makes me smile! My kids also have their own Etsy shop where they sell their artwork. It’s very important for me to include them in the creative process and they inspire me every day.

Visit her Etsy shop to see more of her cool creations!

I’ve been admiring Kerry’s resin work in the Dabbled flickr group, and resin is something I’ve never worked with, but always wanted to try! I’ve asked Kerry to share a simple tutorial to take some of the mystery out of working with resin. And so she did! These little Christmas tree decorations would be fun to give as gifts, top a package, or decorate your own tree… hope you enjoy! – Dot

Resin Star Christmas Tree Decorations

From Kerry at www.pennydog.com

You will need:

• Resin of your choice- polyester or epoxy
• Star shaped flexible ice cube tray (mine is from Ikea)
• Fine glitter in your favourite colours
• Plastic cup
• Lolly stick
• Drill with 2-3mm bit
• Bakers twine

Step one:

Pour some resin into the cup. Add catalyst according to your product’s instructions- they vary between the different types. Then mix thoroughly with the lolly stick- try not to whip it though as you don’t want lots of bubbles!

Step two:

Add your glitter- be quite generous- and mix it in. I have used black and green here.

Step three:

Pour the glittery resin mix into the ice cube tray. I fill them ¾ full for a nice thick piece. Leave to set for at least 24 hours.

Step four:

Pop the pieces out of the ice cube tray. Drill through one of the points in the star from one side through to the other.

Step five:

Cut a piece of baker’s twine approximately 5 inches long. Thread through the hole. You may need to use a needle or a pin to help feed it through. Tie a double knot close to the thread ends to create a hanging loop and you’re done! I’ve been using these as samples for goody bags, they’re a great way of demonstrating the material I work with in a festive and cheap way!

About Kerry:

About me and my shop: My name is Kerry and I live in the UK. I make jewellery, homewares, knitting needles and all sorts really using resin, and I’m based in rural(ish) Leicestershire in a listed farmhouse. PennyDog came about when I adopted a greyhound- Penny- and I wanted to donate money through my craft to rehoming more of these ex-racers by donating to the Retired Greyhound Trust. I now have another greyhound- Fletcher too. I’ve always made things. My first craft fair was when I was 12 selling beadwoven jewellery. I booked the table myself, with my younger sister as my assistant. I think my Dad enjoyed having the house to himself that day, though it chucked it down and we barely sold anything! I’ve always been quite entrepreneurial, selling jewellery to teachers at school even! It was just second nature to me. I have an Etsy shop as well, my main website being www.pennydog.com and I also sell through 12 retail outlets here in the UK.

Hi! I’m Heather from Dollar Store Crafts, a daily blog devoted to making cool crafts with dollar store stuff. I’m so excited to be swapping holiday posts with Dot!

Do you love felted sweaters as much as I do? Felted (or technically, “fulled”) sweaters are made from animal hair-based yarn (like wool, alpaca or cashmere), and washed in hot water and dried in the dryer until they shrink up and the fibers are fused together (kind of like dreadlocks on a micro scale). Once a wool sweater is felted, the fabric can be cut and it won’t fray. It’s an amazing material for crafting. You can use a felted sweater as the base for all kinds of cozy winter goodies, like these cute mittens.

You can find wool sweaters at the thrift store. Just make sure the tag says it is mostly or 100% animal fiber. Need to know more about the process of felting? Check out this post by Diane Gilleland at Craft Stylish about felting your sweaters.

Project Materials:

• Felted sweater
• Scissors
• Sewing stuff (sewing machine & thread)
• Paper and pen

To Make Mitten Template:

Trace your hand (or your child’s hand) on a piece of paper.

Add a seam allowance line about 1/2 inch around the outside of your traced area.

Place template on sweater and cut out two pieces for each hand.

Place pieces right sides together and sew around the edge. Be sure to reinforce the seam at the cuff of the mitten by backing your stitch up a bit.

Clip any excessive extra fabric (pay attention to the area near the thumb), and turn mitten right side out. Try on mitten to see if it works. If you need to, you can turn it back inside-out and adjust.

Smile because that was so simple and quick!

Visit me at Dollar Store Crafts for more great holiday ideas and tutorials!

Hi! I’m Heather from Dollar Store Crafts, a daily blog devoted to making cool crafts with dollar store stuff. I’m so excited to be swapping posts with Dot!

Fall is here, and with it, an abundance of oak leaves and branches in my yard! I love our old-growth oak trees, but they sprinkle me with more presents than I can handle. What to do with nature’s bounty? Craft with it! I spent a couple minutes gathering branches to transform into this spooky Halloween-themed tree. Ornaments are quick and easy: dollar store erasers!

Project Estimate:

• Tree branches, gathered from outside
• Halloween erasers, $1
• Ribbon, on hand
• Acrylic craft paint, on hand
• A mug, cup, jar, etc., on hand
• Floral foam, on hand (or use playdough or dried beans)
• Hot glue, on hand

Total cost: $1 and up

Making the Ornaments: My biggest stroke of crafting genius happened when I was in the checkout line at the dollar store: the impulse buys near the counter included a set of Halloween erasers. Perfect for ornaments for my tree. I found ribbon to attach to them in my stash, but you can also use yarn, thread, embroidery floss, or whatever you have. I glued the ribbon to the backs of the erasers with hot glue (I pressed the ribbon into the glue using the tip of a pencil, thus avoiding the typical hot glue finger burn scenario!).

You can also just make your own ornaments out of paper cut outs, or other dollar store Halloween decorations you come across. I think it would be really cute to accent the tree with tulle bows in black, purple, or orange, but I was trying to keep this really simple and low-budget, and I don’t have any in my stash.

Painting the Branches: I chose to use acrylic craft paint for this project–it’s usually my go-to painting solution for dollar store crafting because it’s cheap, comes in a ton of colors, and is easy to clean up. Craft stores have acrylic paint in small bottles for about $.50 or less, and usually have hundreds of colors. The main drawback to using acrylic is that it will take you a bit of time: it’s easy, but it takes a few minutes. Like about fifteen minutes, depending on how many branches. I just put my branches on a paper towel and painted them.  Oh, and I kept one leaf on a branch just because I thought it might be spooky. I just painted it along with the branch, and I really like how it turned out!

However, it would be quick and simple to use spray paint to paint the branches. You could probably be done painting in about two minutes if you use spray paint. I glanced at the spray paint aisles at my local stores, but I didn’t find the color I wanted (chartreuse), and all the fashiony colors were more expensive than I wanted for this project. You can find black or white spray paint at your local big-box retailer for less than a dollar, though!

Potting the Tree: I used a dollar store mug I already had on hand to pot the tree. You can use pretty much any sturdy container, though: jars, flower pots, vases, etc. I don’t have any floral foam on hand, so I filled the mug up with dried split peas and stuck the branches in. This works to keep the branches fairly upright, but they did shift around with the slight weight of the eraser ornaments. This method might work better if you are using lightweight paper ornaments. Also, I have little kids, so there’s no way I’m actually going to leave a decoration out with tiny loose objects within easy reach because they know how to reach messy town in seconds! Another good option is to put playdough in the container to anchor your branches. You can make your own for pennies (my favorite no-cook playdough recipe is in the first comment in this Instructables tutorial).

You can customize this project any way you want, but it could be a fun one for kids (just do the hot glue part yourself).

Thanks, Heather, for sharing!  I’ll be visiting Dollar Store Crafts next week to share a Dabbled project! – Dot

So, read the tutorial here...Make cool stuff by fusing plastic bags!

In my house, we (and by “we,” I mean me and my uninterested husband and kids that I am forcing this on) are doing our best to be better stewards of our environment.  So when Dot asked me to be a guest poster on Dabbled while she sunbathes on an exotic beach being served fruity cocktails by 22-year-old buff cabana boys (I am now thinking I got the raw end of this deal), I immediately racked my brain to come up with a crafty “green” project.

And thus, the reusable sandwich bag project was born. Here in the South, school starts ridiculously early – like next week.  So since we are heading back to school, I thought it would be the perfect time to make

these bags.  These bags are the perfect size for holding sandwiches, cookies, crackers, chips, apple slices, grapes and all the other lunch staples.  And while you might not want to store watermelon or last night’s pot roast in them, they work really well.  Not to mention, they are simple to clean and can keep untold amounts of plastic bags out of the landfills.  So without further ado . . .

Reusable Sandwich Bags

Materials for one sandwich size bag

• 7”x 15” piece of plastic or vinyl lining (This is located in the home fabrics section of most craft stores.  This is a much easier project if you buy the plastic lining that DOES NOT annoyingly sticks to itself.)  If you want to make snack size bags, cut your plastic into a 7” x 8” rectangle.
• Construction paper/cardstock/heavy duty paper template – 6.5” x 10” will work
• 7” piece of sew-on velcro
• (2) 7” pieces of Decorative Ribbon

Step 1.  Place your vinyl right side up on your working surface.  On each of the short ends, you will sandwich the vinyl between a piece of velcro and a piece of ribbon(ribbon on outside or right side edge, velcro on inside edge).  Pin in place.

Step 2.  Stitch the ribbon/vinyl/velcro together.  The end product looks and works best if you hem both the top edge and bottom edge of your velcro.

Step 3.  Fold the vinyl in half (wrong sides together) so that you have a 7” x 7.5” rectangle (7” x 4” for snack size bags) with the velcro on the inside.  Place your paper template inside the folded plastic so that ¼” overhangs both sides (template will overhang top).

Step 4:  With your iron set to a medium heat, fuse the vinyl together on the edges using your paper template as a guide.  DO NOT place the iron over the entire piece of plastic.  Instead use the tip of the iron to seal the edge.  When you’re done, let the pouch cool for 30 seconds and then remove the template.

Step 5:  Stitch the now sealed sides using a 1/8” hem.  Be sure to hem the entire length of the bag, including the ribbon/Velcro portion (I suggest backstitching this portion as well) to ensure your bag can endure repeated use.

This project is easy, fast and cheap.  You can easily make a dozen bags in an hour, and when all was said and done, the cost for each bag comes in at just under 30 cents.  And best of all, most vinyl is dishwasher safe on the top rack (test a single bag first to make sure).  Enjoy!

And maybe you’re thinking so is Dot? Where is she you ask? Um… she didn’t tell me?! I think she’s on a super secret mission? She promises to be back soon though? Maybe she’ll have additional robots for her collection.. ya think?? In the mean time… you’re stuck with me. Carissa. Mom/writer for 1 GoodNCrazy blog and chief craftster/boredom wrangler/mother to 3 kids. When Dot asked me to guest post for her.. I said oh girl.. I’ve got the perfect post…food, luv, chocolate, bananas… what could be better!?

I heart Bananas.

Join me at the smoothy store? Yes, I’ll take the bananaberryverydelicious option.{ Man I hate saying that out loud.}

Recipes that include bananas in them? Oh yeah baby, I’m all over ’em. Pancakes? (Cue the Jack Johnson song…makin’ banana pancakes…) I have a rockin’ banana pancake recipe that is more hearty than most people’s turkey dinner! In fact we often eat these for dinner! How about banana breads and muffins? Cakes you ask?

I do not discriminate! In fact if offered a flavor choice from LaffyTaffy to Lollipops.. even my kids already know the answer… ‘Are there any yellow ones??!’ They hand ’em over with no questions asked! A few weeks back I came across a friend’s Banana Icebox Cake with Chocolate Cream Frosting! Um? Hello… YES! I stumbled that post and begged her to mail me a piece of the cake… still waiting for that package in fact!? About that same time I was talking to my twitter posse of pals and one mention of my love for all things bananas and we were off and runnning! I had to create a hashtag to make it legit of course… #bananachat was born! (It lasted about 15 minutes.. but feel free to share your banana luv with the hashtag if you feel inclined!) Here’s one response to my call for a banana shout out:

THANK you Gina!  Grilled bananas? All over that. (Feel free to chat with her about all things lactating and apparently banana related too!) Here is the most fabulous banana recipe bustin’ link up list EVAH! {at least as created by me?} I plan to try out every. single. one. But I’ll share I promise!

Enjoy— Let’s go bananas together!

	Orange Spice Banana Bread My pal Katie from GoodLife{Eats} bakes up wonders so it was no surprise that she had a banana recipe spectacular when I asked!
	Frozen Banana Wonders! Another foodie buddy Chris from BlogWellDone never fails to amaze me! From Turkey Brining to kids cooking, basically whatever I ask for.. he’s got it! Kind of like a personal online chef! You’ll love his site!
	Triple Chocolate Banana Bread From Lobolita.
	Banana Flapjacks From Epicurean Escapism.. these look more like oatmeal bar cookies?
	Bananas as aphrodisiac? Okay with me! From Anne of Carversville.
	Monkey Bars! These are Gluten Free.. from Healthy Tasty Chow.
	A whole banana bunch of healthy recipes From Green Lite Bites.

A history of the banana? Whatever.. just be sure to check out the Best Banana Recipe Contest!

Gold Coast Banana Loaf Cake {Pictured at top of post} by Inn Cuisine