Recycled Paper Badges

Some time ago a comment posted on Hayley's blog, Heidi&Seek(now http://thinkermaker.com.au/), inspired me. In the comment, the follower asked what she could do with all her old magazines and that got me thinking. There are so many things you can do with paper! I had a heap of old Getaway magazines that were on their way to being recycled. I paged through them and thought, "why not make recycled, home grown South African badges?" and so I did. I tore out all the pages with images on that were small enough to fit onto my badge size...

1) I cut the images into smaller pieces and used my little die-cutter to cut the circles.

2) I put the backing of the badge face down in the back slot of my button-badge-maker and the front-piece, the picture and then the plastic cover, in the front slot.
3)The slot with the picture slides in underneath the punch and the lever is pulled down and lifted. The slot with the backing is then slid underneath the punch, the lever pulled down and lifted.
4)When the last slot is slid out, the badge is complete.
5)A pretty recycled-magazine-paper-badge!

6)Now repeat steps 2 through to 5 as many times as you want.     

I just love recycling! Not only is good for your planet, it also makes for great fun-filled projects and minimizes consumerism. I have a lot more paper craft projects coming your way, so be sure to keep an eye on my blog :)

Bellbottoms:P

This "outing" happened some time in June, when we were still staying in Pretoria. Bellbottoms is one of my favourite antique shops in Pretoria! When you walk into the shop, you are greeted by a friendly shop owner, the smell of old dusty antiques and the sound of an antique Gramophone playing old records. Here you can find anything your 'antique-loving-heart' desires, from old tins to old-school sweets. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me that day, but I took some pics of my lil' package as soon as I got home that day...

Oooohhh....brown paper packages! I probably spent an hour scratching around in a big old glass jar to pick out these pretty vintage buttons. Mr. Kudu here, was part of a Coca-Cola wild animal collection. The shop owner told me that, back in the day, you got a token in the bottle-top of your buddy-coke which you then handed in at the local cafe to collect your little animal.     

It's a couple of squirrels!!! See how pretty they piece together:) These little critters came from inside a Dairy Bell ice-cream, or so I've heard...also part of a collection.   

Whoo-hoo? Little Miss Owl, was hiding in the display case at the counter, waiting just for me to sniff her out. She's such a finely painted pebble, I wonder who found this pebble and thought "you shall be an owl".

Peaches, nickerballs and milk toffees! Yum! I just love these old-school sweeties, he-he:) Half of these went straight to my tummy and the other half went to Dave's tummy.What an Awesome way to end the day.

Just check this out:P

This music video is just an absolute work of art! I know this might seen weird, but the music of Regina Spektor keeps finding me. I accidentally recorded "fidelity" onto a video cassette a few years ago and that song and music video has given me such inspiration. An old friend of mine created a play list for me and the song "us" just took my breath away. A few weeks later I found that "raindrops" was also in that play list. So having three song replaying in my head constantly, I found this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzrC72Xv6pE, one on youtube. It is really AWESOME:)      

My First Felted Beadies:)

In the month of July, I found a few pieces of mohair fiber. As I don't have a spinning wheel and can't do any thing else with the fiber, I thought I'd try my hand at felting. Knowing the basic principles of felt-making, I thought it would be quick and easy. I found d.i.y. instructions, on how to make felted beads, on the Net and I was all set. So I took my pieces of mohair, a bowl of hot steaming water and a bar of soap out onto the veranda and started with the steps I had printed out.

Step1: Take your piece of fiber with wet, soapy hands and roll between hands to form a snake. Do not let the fiber foam-up. So that didn't work! I then dipped the fiber in the hot water, burning my fingers and rolled the soapy fiber between my hands.
Step2: Cut the snake into even pieces and rub the edges in the palm of your hand, in circular movements. When I tried that part, the fibers came loose and went all over the place! So, I tried layering the cut pieces with wet-webbed pieces of fiber and rolled it into balls in the palm of my hand. I stood out on that veranda 'till the sun went down, rolling, rolling and rolling... When I finished, my hands were so sore. I looked at the instructions again and realized that I had to use Merino wool and not silky mohair.

The next morning I was quite chuffed with my handful of felted-mohair beads, although at the back of my mind I was thinking "Is this it?! Is this what I spent my whole Sunday afternoon on?"

After having left the beads out in the sun to dry, I took some string and a needle and started to thread the felted beads and buttons until I used up all the felted beads. I tied the end and I now have a beautiful felted necklace:p