Something Old, Something New

Here are some projects I recently finished.  A couple of them are classic, things a few of you may remember doing yourself, or at least something similar.  The others may be something you’ve thought about doing at one time or another, or maybe after seeing this you will want to try them.

These are classic fabric yo-yos, at least I think they’re classic.  My mom has been making them for years.  I used some fabric scraps I had and some old buttons, and I glued magnets to the back.  I also made two more with pin backs on them for pins.

 

These are painted bottle caps that I also made into magnets.  I’ve been on a magnet kick lately since I bought a package of discs at Wal-Mart.  I’ve made tons of these already.  I think people have been using bottle caps as craft supplies for a while now.  From scrapbooking to jewelry, they have a lot of uses.  I once actually made a necklace out of them as a Christmas  present for my older sister.  For that I didn’t paint them because I thought the logos on them were kind of cute, although ironic.  Neither she nor myself actually drink.

I got the idea for these painted thumbtacks in Wal-Mart while standing among all the office supplies.  They did have pretty and colorful thumbtacks, but I didn’t like any of them.  I thought I could do much better, so I did.  I made other ones in complementary colors. I’ve been into painting things since I found paint on sale.  What better inspiration than a good sale. :)

This is a chain belt I made with jump rings and key rings.  I happened to come across an assortment of key rings in a variety of sizes, but didn’t need all of them.  So rather than waste them I chained them.  The clasp is something I saved from an old hand-me-down dress from one of my sisters.  The dress was awful, but clasps were cool.  It wouldn’t the first time ugly clothing became useful for me.  I used to have this really odd bright orange bathrobe, can’t really say who gave it to me.  It was perfect to make stuffed animals out of, including a certain little orange cat that was quite popular awhile back.

Yep, it’s more painting.  Again, I thought I could make office supplies more fun so I thought, painted pencils would be good.  You may have noticed I have a thing for polka dots right now. What can I say, they’re super easy and super cute.  I’ve also made some with stripes and some that are sparkly.  A few of those are already up in my shop.  I don’t  think I’ll ever get tired of these, although I still would like to look for pencils that are more environmentally friendly.  At least these don’t use rainforest wood.