DIY - Envelopes made from fashion magazines

Do you find hard to bin fashion magazines? Well, I do. I find it very inspiring to look through those glossy pages and see various fashion clothing. They are useful resorts for me as I sew and design a lot. What I only dislike about the fashion magazines is that they are full of adverts! Errrr... But back to the point. I wanted to use these old fashion magazines somehow. I made vintage envelopes just couple days ago and I was thinking this could be great project for recycling magazines as well. So I created these tiny little envelopes to hold my business cards!

If you want to do this craft here is the tutorial: 

What do you need?

-          Old fashion magazines, such as Elle, Vogue, ..

-          A pair of scissors

-          Pencil

-          Glue stick

-          Ruler

-          Carton/cardboard (i.e. cereal box)

Steps:


             1. Draw and cut a template out from carton as per below picture.
  

2. Now place your carton template on magazine paper, draw the lines

3. cut  your envelope with a pair of scissors. 

4. Fold it up. Do the sides first then use the folded sides as a guide on where to fold the top and bottom.

5. Use a glue stick to stick your envelope together.

And that’s it! Enjoy your new recycled envelopes. You can use them as a gift card envelope; business card holder or you can store small things in it such as earrings, rings.. You can also draw bigger templates and do larger envelopes for wrapping a book, cosmetic, accessories or whatever gift you want to wrap up!

DIY project - envelopes made from vintage wallpaper

When I moved into our house three years ago, I found a bag full of very vintage wallpapers under the stairs. I didn’t want to use them on my walls, as I prefer modern style interiors. But I loved their pattern so much that I couldn’t bin them. I found them again after 3 years and I decided to do some paper craft with them and make them useful! I made small envelopes for a start. I might use them as a business card holder when shipping items from my shop or I will store my labels, stickers or tags in it!

What do you need?

-          Wallpaper or wrapping paper, magazines, or whatever paper you like

-          A pair of scissors

-          Pencil

-          Glue stick

-          Ruler

-          Blank A4 paper

-          Carton/cardboard (i.e. cereal box)

Steps:

1.Draw and cut a template out from blank A4 paper as per below picture.  (The reason why I draw it on blank A4 page first is because I wanted to see how it folds.  You can skip this step and draw the template directly on cardboard)

2. Trace it onto a cardboard and cut out with a pair of scissors carefully.

3. Now use your carton template on wallpaper/wrapping paper and cut your envelope with scissors. 

4. Fold it up. Do the sides first then use the folded sides as a guide on where to fold the top and bottom.

5. Use glue stick to stick your envelope together.

And that’s it! Enjoy your new recycled envelopes. You can use them as a gift card envelope, business card holder or you can store small things in it such as earrings, rings..  You can also draw bigger templates and do larger envelopes for wrapping a book, cosmetic, accessories or whatever gift you want to wrap up.  

.. I have also created a smaller version 

Enjoy your new weekend project! 

DIY Dog Bed

If you have a dog you know how hard is to keep his bed clean at all times. My dog Floo has several pillows and I wash these almost every week! I have quite small washing machine and sometimes it's difficult to get rid of all the dirt as pillows are quite huge :-/ That's why I decided to sew a pillow case that I can easily remove and wash properly anytime it's necessary. 

What you need:
- 2 rectangles of durable fabric such as denim, corduroy, or heavy cotton
- 4 side rectangles (as on picture)
- fiberfill stuffing or previously used dog pillow (in my case),
- zip 16-18 inches long
- sewing machine & polyester or cotton thread
- scissors, chalk and ruler

Instructions:
1. Measure pillow first. My pillow is 65 cm long, 60 cm wide and 10 cm high. 
2. Cut two large rectangles ( length x width ) and 4 side rectangles ( 2 rectangles = length x height and 2 rectangles = width x height ) from desired fabric as per below picture:

3. Pin and sew all side rectangles together to create large "square". If you want to make the project easier use only 1 long stripe for sides instead of cutting 4 smaller rectangles. I personally think the pillow looks better when sides are created from 4 individually cut rectangles.

4. Pin and sew this "square" with one large rectangle together. Make sure right sides of fabric face each other. For added durability, create a second row of stitches right inside the first row of stitches.

When you turn right side out you should have now clean edges like this on each side:

5. Pin and sew sides of "square" to the other rectangle. Leave 1 shorter side open. We will add a zipper to this side shortly.

6. If zip is shorter than width of the pillow, sew few cm/inches from each side.

7. Sew the last piece of "square" and zipper together using a zip footer. Make sure you leave a zip half open so you can turn right side out through it when you're finished! 

8. Turn your case right-side-out and fill it with a pillow. And that's it! You have just created easy-to-remove, machine washable pet bed!

If you have any question about the project or any recommendation and useful links please leave a comment! Thanks!!