My Busy Craft Life

Hi everyone! It's not technically upcycling as these are not in fact old or broken so I think it's more 'beautification'. I've been doing a LOT of runs recently (more on that later), and you know how some of them give you a shirt well in advance to wear for the event? I usually leave it too late to make changed, but this time I really wanted to make an effort with one of the shirts. Another one I wanted to amend was my standard MS Society tshirt, that I try to wear when I don't have an event shirt to wear. I really had to change it as the only reason I didn't wear it at the half marathon was because it was just too heavy and annoying for such a distance. Let's start off with the MS Society tshirt. I forgot to take a 'before' photo, but if you've read my blog for a while, you may have seen the shirt worn at several events. It's just never really comfy so I just really wanted to change it. I used the same idea as the last post I wrote, a...

Hello again! This post has been a while in the making... Just before Easter I treated myself to an overlocker. My first ever! Months of researching and doubting, do I need one, would I use it, etc etc... Then it arrived, and it took another few months for me to actually start using it. But once I'd started, the end was nowhere in sight ;) I had projects lined up that would have taken ages with the normal machine and would have come out nowhere as nice, so yay for my shiny new overlocker :) I loved the look of this one so I tried it at one of the shows and my decision was made. The previous model was purple, such a shame they changed that ;) When I bought a stack of tshirts for my family's Christmas presents, there was a rack of damaged shirts also. Of course I had to have a peek :) I found this one that I had my eye on for a while now, but as it was a proper tshirt I never bought it. The man from the stall knows me (I buy presents from him all the time) so he o...

Hi all! I have not been sitting still :) I made this fantastic yoga top out of three tops I had lying around and which ended up in my 'to amend' stash. One night, the inspiration fairy visited and this is a gorgeous result: I'm so pleased with it!! This was how it all started. One black top that I got at a sample sale for the bf a long time ago. He didn't wear it anymore and the fabric was just too gorgeous to bin/give to charity, two crop tops from Primark that I got on sale once for £1. I really thought I would wear those and I might have... once or twice... ;) I sliced the two crop tops diagonally, wove them together to create a new harlequin-like design, and pinned the lot together. Then the project kind of halted for a while as the sewing bit was very unappealing. In the end I did get back to it and zigzagged the lot together. That was such a lot of work! I don't have any pics of the process, I think I just wanted it to be done tbh. The insid...

Hello again everyone! After spending a few days repairing the fleece jacket from my last post, I've opted for an easy project today. I don't actually have a 'before' picture of this project, except on the mending pile. This was a sweater given to me by an ex-colleague who didn't wear it anymore and knew that I loved upcycling. It was one of those diamond-patterned knitwear thingies without sleeves. Not entirely sure what the correct name for those are actually. Oh, you can see it on the original mending pile picture. Hang on, let me point it out as well :) Yes, there it is, I've encircled it :) This is where I just emptied the mending bag and took a picture, but you see a bit of this top.  So that was it. Not my style although I could see it having some Lorelai Gilmore potential, but SO not my colour. What to do? And then I realised, this is really good quality knitwear, let's use it as my very first felting project! So in the machine it went. Eve...

Heyhey my lovely readers! Are you excited about my next project? I am, it's all going quite well so far! My next project in Fabulising February is a knit dress that I bought in the charity shop sale about £1 or £2 a little while ago. This is the one: Please don't ask me what era this is from, the print screams 70s to me but the size and the style more 80s I guess. It was huge and the guy in the store wanted to sell it to me as a dress (so more expensive) but it's clearly a very large sweater. Nevermind that I was going to turn it into a dress as I'm only a tiny little person ;) I LOVE this print though, it's a bit psychedelic so this sweater definitely has potential. Of course the first thing I did was cut off that ridiculous collar. It just made the whole thing look out of balance so it had to go. This is knitwear, but I just cut it and hemmed it and it was fine. It did leave behind a ton of fluff, but I shook it out outside and most of it came off.  ...

Hi everyone! It's the first of February and that means it is finally time for my February project :)I had a hard time trying to think of name for this project as 'mending month' sounded a bit boring. So I have come up with Fabulising February. What do you think?  You might remember that over the course of last year, I've gathered a serious amount of clothing that needed to be changed in one way or another. Some things just had to be repaired quickly, others just needed to be changed completely. By serious amount I mean one of those giant Ikea bags FULL of stuff. Oh my, where to start? Yep, this is the lot...  it may not look like much, but there are several layers here... Mending can be really boring and I had lots of new projects on my list but I've finally sat down and started some of the work. During this month, I will hopefully have emptied the bag and shared many of my new creations with you :) My frst project was an easy one. The bf once gave me a...

About 5 years ago (wow, 5 years already! And at a time when I thought that all medieval dresses had to be velvet), the bf and I and some friends went to the Joust. At the time this was a huge festival and it was the first year of having a medieval banquet of the night before. We even had a private concert by the Mediaeval Baebes ! Sadly the festival went bankrupt due to flooding but I think they're up and running again now. A lovely banquet of course called for a lovely dress and I had this fabric lying around that I once bought for only £5 at the charity shop. it had a good few meters so enough to make a lovely dress. I had it all planned... and then discovered that the fabric was stretchy so all the plans went out the window. The entire dress was made without a pattern and had a empire line and 4 panels. The ribbon was handstitched on and the back had to be tied as the ribbon doesnt stretch but that part of the dress really does! The end result wasnt too bad: I even made a matchi...

Well, the rosette mentioned in yesterday's post will have to wait. Let's mend some more first rather than start something new. After all, this bag needs to become empty (or emptier at least) One the same thrift shopping day as mentioned yesterday, I also bought this: Yes, o£1 again and totally cute :) Or so I thought... I actually did wear this to work once or twice and people asked me if I had made this myself . Not sure if that was a compliment really... I love the neckline but wasnt a bit fam of the sleeves. They were too ruffly as they actually stood away from the sleeve most of the time, making me look like some sort of winged creature, and not in a good way. So the sleeves had to go, at least partially. I cut off the ruffles and added some of that ruffling elastic thread (cant think of the name right now). They didnt work out quite as fuffy and princessy as I wanted them to be but all in all this is better than the ruffle sleeves. And yes, this is the same top, though th...

During one of my thrift shopping trips , I came across this dress: I thought it would be really cute for summer, but alas the top bit was so low that it nearly ended on my belly button. Not something to wear in public. As this was only £1 at the time and I liked the fabric, I figured I would do something with it sooner or later. And now I have! All I did was cut up the top, hem it, add some elastic, and voila: my new summer skirt: I love it now :) I actually had to tighten the elastic a bit after making it a little too wide at first, but it fits really nicely and it's very cheerful for summer. Mmm, I might go mini this year :) I still have the remainder of the fabric left, maybe I will make a head band or so for it? Definitely not a flower again at least hihi! Oooh maybe one of those spin rosettes that everyone seems to be made now :) Watch this space!

Day two of Mending Week. Remember the jeans skirt from my ' One Jeans, Two Outfits ' post way back when? Well, I never actually wore it as the elastic was never really right and I always felt there was something missing. This was the skirt. Cute but no cigar. It needed something... I know, it needed a flower! So after fixing the elastic properly and adding the flower, it fit much better and looked even cuter :) I need to put it on over my head but that shouldnt spoil the fun. Check it out: I dont know about you, but I suddenly like it much better and may even wear it to work on Friday! Dont mind the picture btw, the bf was away and I had to use the self timer... Anyway, another item fixed, this is going well so far :)Mind you, I have a very large bag of items to get through...

Let's have a theme for a change. The whole week I will share with you some easy projects I did by mending/changing some of my clothes. I'll start off easy ;) On Saturday evening I suddenly got the urge to sew. The question was, sew what? I didnt want to start a new project as I have too many ideas for stuff to make that I just didnt know where to begin. So I decided to take some stuff out of my 'to mend bag' and start from there. There were quite a few easy projects in there and in the end I was sewing until 5am! But I got some nice things done which I will share with you in the Mending Week. A whole week of mended stuff, some big, some small, but all with just that extra difference :) Let's start off with something that made re-discover my love for Halloween. I had these PJ pants that have been in this bag for about a year now *blush*. All it needed was some new elastic, but as I was putting the elastic in, I noticed that the legs had this pink on black ribbon on t...