RING-A-DING - 8/8/2008

These are some of my first jewelry-making endeavors. I had bought some 20-gauge regular wire to practice on. It was too thick and hard to work with, but I did get an idea about how to work it. I bought some jewelry wire (24-gauge) and made some rings using some fun buttons. These will give these to MBG as she likes cutie things. If she doesn't like them, she can give them back to me. Also made a bracelet using clear stretch cord and makings from some jewelry I'd taken apart. White and red. It came out okay. Kinda of cute. I'm giving it to MBG also.

MY FIRST JEAN PURSE - 8/3/2008

This is my first jean purse. I used a pair of little girl jeans in cute orange print and lined it with a bright green fabric from my stash, and even put in an inner zipper in the lining. I used Velcro as closures for main part of bag and outer pockets, and trimmed it with some cute sequin trim that I had bought a while ago. For a handle I used silver rings to make a chain by joining them together with an orange scarf that I have had in my closet for some time. I will construct the next one a bit differently for a neater look, but I am satisfied with the overall outcome. I thought I might give this to my granddaughter, but she's very conservative, so I will keep this one for me.

SOME "GREENERY" - 7/27/2008

One of my favorite easy serger projects is a head wrap. This one was for my granddaughter. It's made from a thrift towel which looked new. It's was a quick and easy project. This is a handy thing to have. Instead of wrapping your head in a towel and having it fall continually, this little wrap fits your head and has a little piece of elastic that the tail goes through which helps keep it in place.

Another green project was making note pads using paint chips as the covers. This too I gave to my granddaughter, when she was fixing to head off to school. I cut scrap paper (paper with printing on one side), so this is totally a recycling project. I had seen these on the internet and thought I'd give them a try. The ones I had seen used o-rings to keep the pads together. I used cuff links, which can be removed/replaced. Now they're refillable. So cool!

MORE DECOR - 7/27/2008

I made a bulletin board. I had found a frame at Hobby Lobby that was 17"x43" in the super-dooper sale section for a mere $14 or so. I covered a piece of cardboard with some green upholstry fabric that I found at Wal-Mart for under $6 and placed it in the frame. Voila! A beautiful bulletin board "on the cheap". It looks very nice. I like it a lot. It's so fun to have a project turn out the way I imagined it. Here's a couple of pics.

BARGAINS GALORE - 7/11/2008

"Church Garage Sale". These are some of my favorite words. I like to go garage-saleing and church garage sales are mostly indoors with everything in one spot. Plus at church GS's the prices are usually really LOW. Some of my great finds: a drill press, home-dec fabric for purses, a blue pot (for a plant), couple of belts (for purse handles), a big box of 3-1/2" floppy discs (for crafts), and more. I made 2 trips in to find those items. It pays to look a second time. That's when I found the drill press. Also, I bought a couple of plants. A jade plant for $1 and -- this is such a bargain -- a bougainvillea (in 5-gal bucket, thick and about to bloom) for just $5. I planted it in the flower bed, which has been bare but for one lily for years, as soon as I got home. I'm now on the lookout for a trellis.

At my latest church garage sale, I netted 11 pieces of clothing to use fabric for handbags and other crafts. The price $2.00. Another big benefit of church garage sales: if you go later in the day, late morning or early afternoon, they're ready to make it all go away and hand you a bag and say, "Fill this up for $1.00." You can get a lot in those bags. Way cool.

MY NAME IS JIMMIE AND . . . 7/29/2008

I'll take anything you gimme. That was the theme for a few Sundays ago. Went to MTS' (my talented sister) after church. She's been cleaning out her project room and magazines, pulling out articles she wants to keep and handing the rest off to me. She also gave me a few items that she had two or more of: set of scrapbooking scissors with 12 different cutting edges, a pair of round-nose pliers, a bead palette, a paper shape punch and a tracing light thingy, plus the huge pile of magazines. Wow, did I make a haul!

Have been going through the jewelry-beading magazines and tearing out the articles that I want to keep. I'll either pass the remains on to another beading enthusiast and/or put them in the paper recycling bin. I've got my eye on a couple of jewelry items that I want to make. This will be a new endeavor for me. Have only made bracelets with the elastic string before. Nothing fancy. Am really interested in wire wrapped jewelry. I think it is so cool looking.
The other magazines from MTS are scrapbook-cardmaking magazines. Haven't started going through them yet, but that's next. Will probably pass them on to MBD (my beautiful daughter) who is a scrapbooking guru.

TRIAL RUNS - 7/4/2008

Here's some of the things I'm practicing on to see if I want to do them. First is a tote bag made from "plarn" (plastic-bag yarn). As you can see, I just started it. So far I haven't enjoyed the process so much, but as I get further along and get more used to the plarn, I think I'll like it better. Actually I think I'll have to start again and use a much bigger crochet needle.

The other is wire wrapping. It's done with some wire that I found on the street coming back from a recent run. It looked like it had been run over by several Mac trucks so, pretty as it was, purple and white, the plastic cover was a mess. So I stripped it to find the copper wire, mostly intact. It's a great practice medium -- cheap (free). I made an "M" and a "Chis" and some squiggles. I did keep the little plastic pieces that I stripped off the wire. Who knows, they may turn up in some fabric art piece.

MY CREATIVE SPACE - 7/4/2008

Thought I'd post some pics of my sew-craft-office room. I framed my Vestival patterns and added wooden letters spelling "CHIS" above them. These are on the wall above my serger. I will have to paint "Chis" though. The current white didn't show up as well as I had hoped. I think I'll do them in the same green as the matting in the pics.

I found some great pegboard. It's white, made from plastic. Great for my larger notions.

The cross stitch pics were done by my talented sister. I just recently reframed them.

The hat rack shows off my running medals, retreat name tags and some little sequin purses.

We just finished some major redos on our house, and I got the sew/craft/office space I'd been wanting. What I had before was just too cram-full of stuff on the walls, on the floor, everywhere. I culled out a lot and planned ahead for what I wanted to accomplish. I still have too much stuff, but it's better organized, and I can actually get things done. My closet is wall-to-wall shelves and storage drawers. I love my space.

A BIT OF HISTORY - 7/2/2008

The first few posts of this blog are from another blog which I no longer use and have deleted. That's why there are dates next to the titles of each post, the dates of the original posts.

I sew and craft. I love to go junkin'. And, lately I've become very interested in recycling, thanks to my teenage grandchildren. So what would be the best of all worlds? Combining those interests -- RE-creating. You know, the whole trash-to-treasure thing.

My first entrepreneural venture was CHIS, back in the late Eighties, with my sister. We did sweat shirt applique. I had the great and goofy ideas. She was the craftswoman. We didn't make any money as we spent everything and MORE on supplies. Then appliqued-everything became available in every store in the nation, so there you go. We had a lot of wonderful designs though, some of them quite intricate.

I continued with CHIS, with my sister's blessing. My next venture came in the Nineties when vests were the rage. I designed the VESTIVAL, which hinged around a reversible vest back and interchangeable vest fronts. I did the whole holiday and theme vest thing. I did publish two of my patterns, "HALLOWEDGE" and "STARS & STRIPS". I sold a few patterns and even conducted a couple of workshops at a local sewing machine store. It was fun.

I went through a long dry spell of not sewing or crafting. Life happens. But I'm at a place now where I'm gathering ideas and supplies. My current endeavor is YAYAMADE, and my main focus is RE-creating, using anything from plastic bags to junk mail and thrift shop finds to make purses and bags, booklets and more. I'm having a ball.