The thing about the blog world is, that once something goes away it kind of goes away. Even though it still lives in the ether worlds, which is a far cry better than the nether worlds, it kind of vanishes. Until one brings it back again!! These yoga  pants from a t-shirt are one of [...]

Posted in Family Projects, upcycling 1 Comment »

 It’s that time of year again! Time for my favorite holiday of the year. Time for paper crafts and love and chocolate all on one day! This year we are oh so lucky that Valentines falls on a Monday this year. That means you have all weekend to cut and paste and stitch and draw [...]

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Rit Dye has a swank new website including all kinds of fun projects and ideas for crafters. Of special interest to us of course are all the upcycling projects. This week’s special featured artist is of particular interest. To me anyway. Well, it is me. So perhaps that’s why. You can read all about it   [...]

Posted in studio life, upcycling 1 Comment »

Years ago, I had a friend that worked in a giant print shop in Chicago. He would generously supply my kiddos, and my brother’s kiddos, and my sister’s kiddos, with piles and piles of endrolls – the too small rolls left at the end of a print job. Too small for print jobs mind you [...]

Posted in upcycling 2 Comments »

We are continuing our collaboration with Craftzine for fall with monthly projects under the heading Reduce, Reuse, Refashion. Last month we made produce bags out of mesh sports jerseys. And this month, just in time for Halloween, we present our Halloween t-shirt Trick or Treat bag. Check it out. Whip up a few and get [...]

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So we like to play around with burlap and banners and other cast off materials and it’s all well and good and fun and creative and useful even. But if you want to crank it up a notch, and get into some serious upcycling you can can actually dwell in, you should check out the [...]

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First off, I’d like to thank Livemom for giving me the idea of this blog post. She wondered about what to ask of guests coming to a birthday party. Can you ask guests to bring nothing? If someone did, would you follow suit? My kids are by now used to the idea that all the [...]

Posted in upcycling 12 Comments »

Nancy Judd is an artist/designer that is doing some fun and inspiring design with recycled materials called Recycle Runway. It’s haute couture from Obama signs. A dress train from origamied junk mail. Bathing suits from plastic soap bottles. Faux fur from cassette tape. It’s precisely this type of innovative material use that we want to [...]

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So, it’s not actually a competition of course. And each one really does have its attributes beyond what we could ever count. But there is no doubt teaching 8 kids ages 8-12, 2 days a week for 2 hours after school is a totally different experience than teaching 7 moms on a Saturday afternoon all [...]

Posted in Classes, Uncategorized, upcycling, Workshops Comments Off

That’s my new favorite word: upcycling. It’s about taking something that’s considered trash and making it into something totally cool or beautiful or all of the above combined with useful. I first heard the word from Virginia Fleck. I thought she made it up. I thought perhaps it was inspired by her amazing mandalas made [...]

Posted in upcycling 1 Comment »