Earth Day + May Day = Fabulousness!

I have a confession. I'm not a fan of trash crafts for me. I'm all about using trash items to make crafts with Isabelle - that just makes financial sense and those types of projects don't need to last more than a day. But when it comes to making a gift or something for the home - I'm a snob.. Until today!

CSI's theme this week was all about reuse/recycle in honor of Earth Day. I searched my studio high and low. I came up with fabric remnants, an old yarn spool, and a Rx container. Sounds like the start of a bad joke, right? For some reason I've been keeping my plastic Rx containers for a craft, and this one is perfect!

And what we will be making with my treasures?

A shabby chic May Day door vase!

Don't you just love it?? It reminds me a sunny parasol. It's super easy to make and no one would ever guess it came from items that would have otherwise been trash.

What will you need?

*fabric strips

*a tall Rx plastic bottle

*a yarn cone

How long will you need?

less than an hour

What do you do?

1.) Cut your fabric into strips and run them through your ruffler. Don't have a ruffler? Well immediately put it on your to-buy list and in the mean time you can do a basting stitch down the center of the strips and gather.

2.) Roll a few of the strips up to create shabby roses.

3.) Hot glue a ruffle strip across the wide top of the yarn cone - this will be the handle.

Hot glue the remaining ruffles around the cone in your desired pattern.

Hot glue shabby roses to the top.

4.) Place Rx bottle in cone and fill with water. Add flowers and enjoy!

Pretty ol' flowers from my own garden...
And you can push the handle to the back and use it as table vase.

Love it! And if this dumpster craft snob thinks that it's adorable, I'm guessing you do too..

Anthro Knock It Off - Lucid Outlines Pillow

We love our Anthro don't we? It would be fabulous if we could afford their amazing designs, but most of us just drool, stomp our feet over the price tag, and contemplate how we could make it ourselves. Well today, I'm going to help you make the Lucid Outlines Pillow.

((Please keep in mind that these tutorials are for fun & personal use. Please respect Anthro's designers and don't try to sell these for profit...))

Now the Anthro pillow is 12"x20", sewn in zipper, and was hand woven. Um, not today folks!

We are going to make a smaller version that is perfect for the bed, mantle, or sofa. There is no zipper, just some machine sewing and a wee bit of hand stitching. And well, no I didn't weave the fabric, I used some scraps.

This project is completely beginner friendly. The only advanced sewing step is pintucking. Normally there is measuring and precision, but not today! So have no fear..

Below is my final pillow - adorable isn't it?

Well, let's get started!

Materials needed:

grey textured fabric - I used a "whoops wool doesn't go in the washer" sweater

green textured fabric - I used a beautiful green linen remnant from Joann's

some polyfill stuffing

How long you'll need:

about 1 hour

1.) Cut out your pieces. We are making a pillow about 1/2 size of the original.

You'll need:

(1) piece of grey cut 7"x11"

(1) piece of grey cut 2"x7"

(1) piece of grey cut 6"x7"

(1) piece of green cut 8"x7"
2.) Let's start on the hard task first to get it out of the way. If you have never heard of pinktucking, I recommend reading the Burda tutorial here. Rather than make measurements, we are going to make random sized tucks; the Anthro pillow had a very organic feel to it and that is what we are trying to replicate.

We want our final measurement of the green portion to be about 4"x7". While you are making the pintucks, be sure to measure it to see how close you are.

For my tucks, I grabbed anywhere between 1/4" to 1/2".

3.) Let's put the pillow together. We will put the front together first. For this project I used a 1/4" sewing allowance. You'll need your 2 small grey pieces and the tucked green. With right sides together, sew the 7" sides of one of the grey to the green. Then with the remaining small grey piece, place it rights sides together with the green piece and sew down the remaining 7" side.

Now you should have (1) solid grey piece 7"x11" and the front piece 7"x11"

We are going to sew the pieces right sides facing each other. You will need to leave a 2-3" gap somewhere along the border so that you will be able to turn it out. Before you turn, clip the corners close to stitching - this will you give you sharper corners.

4.) Turn the pillow right side out. Use a chopstick or pen to gently poke out the corners. Fill it up with the polyfill stuffing.

5.) You will need to hand stitch the opening close with a ladder stitch. Don't know how? Check out this great tutorial! I use this stitch several times a week - it is one you should learn!
And there is my sweet little Anthro pillow... Now it wasn't handwoven in Ethiopia, but it also didn't cost me $118.00. More along the lines of $10..

Hope you love it and if nothing else were inspired to make some kind of pillow. They are super easy and a great way to use up left over fabric.

Have an expenisve brand name item you are lusting after? Want to see if I can make a knock off, feel free to submit an idea!

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