recycling – Dabbled

The Homemade Shrinky Test Lab (redux)

Dot — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 13:29:45 +0000

So way back in 2008, one of the first big “experiments in craft” I did for Dabbled was what I called the Shrinky Dink Test Lab. I had run across the idea for using #6 plastic to make homemade shrink plastic (aka ‘Shrinky Dinks’) at various places on the crafty webs, but I decided to delve a little deeper. I started with a basic project (Doodle Charm Earrings), and that led to other questions. What about coloring with other materials like colored pencils? How do you seal your plastic afterwards so the marker doesn’t rub off? And successes and failures in all this also led to interesting effects that could be achieved.

So flash forward to 2012. Blogs are prettier and fancier now, and more professional looking. We have Pinterest and Facebook and all kinds of visually focused sharing tools. The technology is cooler now. Dabbled gets a bunch more traffic than it did back then. I ran across a really cute tutorial to make a shrinky bracelet and it made me look back at these old Shrinky Dink Test Lab posts and they just look so ….old. Well, I’m not going to totally redo them or anything, but I did think that perhaps an index of them was in order, for better referencing in the future, and maybe some pretty graphics, too –in case you guys..um…I don’t know… wanna Pin this? ;)

Part 1: HOW TO- Doodle Charms – Jewelry from recycled plastic

This section is a good basic tutorial on how to make shrinky jewerly from old takeout containers, with just sharpies, scissors, a hole punch, and a bit of creativity. Be sure to read the comments, there are extra tips there about how long to heat them, and whether there are issues with fumes, and some other good points.

Part 2: What would happen if..? (The Shrinky Dink Test Lab)

This section is the first of the experiments. We cover several cool ideas, like drawing on the front and back of the plastic. Also we tried several ways of sealing the charm, which produced different effects. You could totally incorporate these effects into your design. The comments include several good suggestions for other methods of sealing the shrinky.

Part 3: More experimentation in the Shrinky Dink Test Lab

The second day of odd experiments included what would happen if you sealed the shrinky PRIOR to shrinking, as well as a really neat effect using spraypaint. We also shrink non-flat plastic (the side of a to-go box) and make a ring out of it. And we combine several of the techniques to make a giant suncatcher, seeing just how big a shrinky we can make! Finally, we use colored pencils, rather than Sharpies, to color our design.

Part 4 of the Shrinky Dink Test lab: Successful sealing.. maybe

This is the post where the commenters really come through. Not only do we have the (mixed) results of my sealing using polyurethane, the commenter pipe up with a bunch of other solutions, and several do their own tests to really give us all the data. If you’re interested in sealing, this is the post to read (including the comments).

Shrinky Dinkies – Special Edition : Make Wraparound Wine Glass Markers

This is not really part of the test lab, but was a fun project tutorial to make temporary wine glass markers. Plus the idea of doing a shrinky making party with your friends!

Some Other Shrinky Projects:

PS: To the always fab Alice of Futuregirl , thanks for inspiring me to go back to look at my old stuff and clean it up for the future, with your “What I posted In” series!

Simple Sewing: Recycled Sweater Card Holder

Dot — Wed, 19 May 2010 14:16:34 +0000

Joanne, at Ready, Set, Craft!, asked me to do a guest post on her blog today (and she’s done a great one for Dabbled previously–the flower pinata!), so I figured I’d return the favor! So pop on over there and see how to make a business card holder (or mini-wallet) from recycled sweater material!

I had a scrap piece of sweater fabric, which had a lovely beading design, that was left over from the original Ele-purse from way back in 2007… and it was just waiting to have something done with it. As per usual with my sewing related tutorials, this is a great project for beginning sewers!

Go to the Tutorial!

…

Tutorial: How to Make Environmentally Friendly Reusable Sandwich/Snack Bags

Heidi — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:43:28 +0000

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!

How to Make Silly Sweater Monster Puppets

Dot — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:17:00 +0000

My friend Holly and I had craft night the other night, and this time the assignment was puppets! I brought a stash of sweaters and other goodies I had over, and we set to creating. No pattern, no plans, these are a great way to have fun and get creative. And when we were done, the boys had some fun monster puppets to play with.

This would be a great project to do with friends for your own craft night, or to make with kids.

Behold! The Flying Purple People Eater and the Fluffy-head –>

This tutorial is less ‘step by step’ than my usual ones, since the object is not to create what I created, but to make your own monster up!

So, what do you need?

Sweaters, preferably already shrunken/felted. You’ll need a sleeve that is big enough to be the body of your puppet.
Scrap felt/sweaters to make your embellishments.
Eyes – either safety toy eyes, buttons, or you can make out of the felt scraps if you like. That’s of course assuming your monster has eyes! (I was lucky enough to have a few toy eyes that the lovely Colleen from Some Art Fabric had given me, and they worked great!)
Embroidery thread.

First, pick your sleeve. You can use a solid color (we both did purple here) or stripes, or whatever works for your monster. Cut off the sleeve, trimming the part near the shoulder so it is even all around (like a giant sock).

Next, plan your head. We did a couple of different things here, but here are a few options:
1) Square – just turn inside out, and sew the cuff together in a straight line.
2) Curved – sleeve inside out, trim a curved line, and stitch together.
3) Rounded – See the example below. Although my ‘spikes’ should have been shorter. It was pretty messy, but that was ok, since I was adding a horn.
4) Fluffy – See the example below – with sleeve right side out, gather a few inches from the top. Weave thread back and forth, and pull tight. Afterwards, you can cut the cuff to resemble hair! (Note, in the pictures, this was done after creating the mouth. Either way works)
One thing we would do, in hindsight, would be to stitch in some scraps or padding in the inside of the top of the head. This would help the head stand up better on a small hand.

You’ll also need a mouth. Here’s a couple we did:
The Fluffyhead has a mouth with lips, created by turning the puppet inside out and stitching an oval of fabric on the inside.
The People Eater’s “scary” mouth was done by whipstitching on the mouth from the outside.

The rest is all embellishment and adding personality.

Arms: Since ours were for 3.5 year olds, we decided against arms, as they are hard for small kids to manipulate. If you like you could just stitch on non-functional arms.
Horn: For the people eater, I made the horn by cutting out a circle of sweater fabric, cutting a 2/3 “pie piece” out of it, and wrapping it into a cone. Very trial and error. I stuffed it with a few fabric scraps and stitched it on top of the head with a whip stitch.
Eyes: Sew on buttons, press on toy eyes, cut fabric circles for eyes… For the People eater I used a fabric circle cut out of felted sweater, made a hole in the center for the post of the toy eye, and pressed it through. Then I used a blanket stitch to attach the felted circle to the head.
Nose: Holly’s Fluffyhead had a couple of felt circles bunched and stitched on in the center. You could also do buttons, or whatever.
Other: I cut out wings out of sweater material and used a simple straight stitch (it was getting late!) to sew them to the sides of the People Eater Body. Holly attached a felt star to the belly of the Fluffy head. Use your imagination here!

The finished puppets!

Hope you enjoyed this and it gave you some ideas for a fun evening of puppet making!

Octo-puppet – this one is more of a typical tutorial, making an octopus puppet out of old sweaters and buttons.
Sweater snake
Elephant Purse

How to Make a Lovely Eco-Friendly Disc Bracelet

Dot — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:48:00 +0000

This is a fun and easy project, costs less than $1 to make, has tons of possibilities for customization, requires no jewelry making skill or real tools, and is a way to recycle stuff that would be thrown away! What could be better??

This was inspired by something I used to do when I was a kid back in the eighties, make friendship bracelets out of fishing tackle (specifically a barrel swivel). You can buy these anywhere they sell fishing gear – I paid 99cents for a pack of 12 and didn’t even use them all.

I combined that with my love of faux shrinky dinks from #6 plastic (previous instructable here or check out my Shrinky Dinky Test Lab experiments) for a fun, updated twist!

Of course, bracelets aren’t the only thing you can do with this — you could make drop earrings, necklaces, bead curtains, or whatever! This would also be a great project for kids to do, I could see this at a pre-teen girl birthday party…

All the instructions are here as an Instructable

PS… Don’t forget to please go vote for my Chocolate Dipped Chocolate instructable in the Sweet Treats contest!

I don’t know if anyone else did these in the Eighties, but if not, maybe you can find other Eighties stuff you did do at Crafting with Cat Hair!

Oh, and the winner of the Anti-Valentines contest hasn’t contacted me yet. I’ve tried to find him/her and haven’t been able to. So please contact me in the next 2 days for your choice of prizes. Otherwise I’ll just start giving them out to the other winners, and you’ll have to take what’s left :)

Tutorial Link Day – Go Green for the Holidays

Dot — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:28:00 +0000

Be sure to check out the latest contest at Tissuepapers, to win a mini camera! (Tell ’em you came from Dabbled!) She asks how you are going green for the holidays…

On that note, here’s some ideas for you to go green and handmade for this season! Tutorials — Try Something NEW..
– Lots of different Crafty “Can”dleholders, made from aluminum cans – Tutorial at esprit cabane.
– At Whip up – How to make an adorable toddler skirt out of an old cotton ribbed sweater. I love the ruffled edges!
– Via Craftershock – Make garlands of nifty star decorations out of plastic bottles! Tutorial Here.
– A fun project for fall! Leethal turns an old sweater into a fun and funky cardigan. HOW TO here… so many possibilities.
– At Whip up – Make a pretty little book out of recycled junkmail envelops – HOW TO here.
– How to make Homemade Aromatic ornaments at Crafting in A Green World.
– Tutorials on Handmade gifts:
**Bowling Bunnies at Bitter Betty,
**A really pretty purse at oh, fransson! (via Craft), and
**Cute Pajama Pants from Craft Stylish
– Love love love this pocket advent calendar from My Little Mochi! It counts down with gum!

Elephant Purse HOW TO

Dot — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:23:00 +0000

Dot had a great time at a mystery party last night, so today you are treated to a re-run of one of Dabbled’s popular projects!

How to make a cute little elephant purse by recycling old sweaters.. I did this as a Christmas gift last year. It’s simple to make, cheap, and was much loved by the recipients. This is my own design, and I encourage you to try it yourself and add your own spin!

The Process:

In case anyone wants to try it, here’s how i did it. And please do, just give me credit ;). I’m sure someone with more skill could do a much better job, and this is a very creative project, in that you could vary the materials, face, or construction and come up with a very different outcome. Be warned, this was a no-pattern trial and error experiment, so the directions may not be the best I’ve ever written. If I do it again, and anyone is interested, I might make a pattern.

I picked a sweater from the ones I had bought. This one was a light green lambswool, either a ladies or girls size.
The original idea was a backpack, but I didn’t know how long to make the straps, so I decided to go with a bag instead.

The Sweater collection:

the “body”
I started by cutting a square out of the bottom, leaving one side seam intact. I reversed it, and sewed it into a pouch (if i’d done the backpack idea, this would have also been when i added the straps in). The bottom finished edge of the sweater serves as the open top. The size could vary dependant on the size of the sweater (and the desired end result), but i made the pouch just slightly wider than the top of the sleeve of the sweater. Stitch a ribbon or whatever you want to use as a handle on either side of the pouch. If I’d been feeling ambitious i might have tried making the strap out of the sweater material, but I wasn’t.

the trunk/head
I cut the sleeve off straight at the shoulder. Since this sweater had 3/4 length sleeves, I used the whole thing, but basically, you need it to be a few inches short of the length of the pouch. Turn the sleeve wrong side out, and center the seam in the back. Now to make the trunk skinnier: About half way down the length of the sleeve, mark with pins. Come in about 3/4 in (depending on the size of your sleeve) on either side of the finished sleeve end, and mark with pins. You want a couple of inches between the pins. Then one each side, sew diagonally from the end pin to the middle pin. Turn rightside out and see if it looks vaguely elephant head like!

Turn the pouch so that the front is showing. Turn the trunk so the back is showing, trunk pointing up.
Slide the top of the sleeve into the pouch about 1/2 in and sew in place to the back of the pouch. The head and trunk should form the flap of the purse now.

the face
I just guessed on the ears. Trial and error gave me a 45 degree triangle, with one side rounded off, and folded a bit to make them stand up. Hard to explain in writing :). I just tacked them on the sides of the head, and covered with buttons. Then added buttons for eyes, and that was about it! More embellishment might be fun too.

Finished project, and other versions:

Ginny the Baby Ele-purse

Dot — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:14:00 +0000

You remember the Ele-purses, right?

Well, this is a Baby Ele-purse, and her name is Ginny. Please welcome her into the world.
I envisioned the pattern for this one the other day, and couldn’t stop myself from attempting immediately. Except for the strap, she’s made entirely from one felted sweater sleeve. If you guys are interested, I’ll do a tutorial..

Coming tomorrow: The Shrinky Dinky Test Lab

Dot — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:32:00 +0000

Armed with a bunch of old #6 plastic to-go containers, the Dabbled Lab performs a series of experiments on techniques, and you’ll see the successes, the failures, and the “hmmm, what if I tried this instead”s.

Just like the shrinky dinks you played with as a kid, but cheap and good for the earth!

Check it out!

Recycling! (A late earth day post)

Dot — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 01:20:00 +0000

In honor of earth day, i was going to ‘recycle’ some of my posts on using recycled materials for cool stuff. then i got busy and missed earth day. so even though it’s late, i hope you enjoy it!

Sweater recycling:
Old sweaters (and you know we all have them) are a fun and easy thing to recycle. They are forgiving of mediocre sewing skills as well..
here are some ideas…

The Ele-purse – great for little girls!

The easy peasy hostess gifty – the wine cozy!

The always adorable Octopuppet

Another cute toy, the sweater snake!

non-sweater related…
Recycling furniture into toys!
The uber-cool play stove-includes tutorial