Upcycled Wrist Pincushions: craftLAB recap!

Posted by Crystal Pepperdine, Founder and Executive Director of Flint Handmade

We had an awesome time at craftLAB on Sunday making upcycled wrist pincushions. 

Here's a good tutorial that shows you step-by-step how to make finger and wrist pincushions as well as pincushions you can mount on your sewing machine or ironing board.

And, now for the pictures!

Sarah, Nicole and Ali (l-r) cheese it up for the camera while selecting their pincushion fabric. :)

 

Nicole (r) was interviewed by Ryan Czachorski of The Flint Journal.  Check out the article!  

Ali smiles sweetly and shows off her two pincushions.

Cindy (l) and her daughter, Melissa, each made two pincushions.  Can you see they made one set to match?

Nicole, Michelle and Ali (l-r) look so cute with their double sets of pincushions.

Group Photo!

Mike was kind enough to take the group photo for us, so we got a shot of him with Marie and her pincushion.  Thanks, Mike!

Me (r) and my mom, Mary, model our pincushions.  I love that my mom is wearing a Flint Handmade Knuckles shirt and I am wearing a red "END MASS PRODUCTION, BUY HANDMADE" shirt from Deadworry.  I bought the shirt at Wholly Craft! in Columbus.

Suzanne (l) and Amber were the last two ladies to make their pincushions and were featured in the photos taken by Matt Bach from The Flint Journal!  Suzanne is wearing an FH Knuckles shirt that she screenprinted at our Yudu Demo in March!

Keep Genesee County Beautiful Conference to Feature Upcycled Crafts!

Posted by Crystal Pepperdine, Founder and Executive Director of Flint Handmade

My 29th birthday is this Saturday, March 5th.  I am excited to be spending my birthday morning at the Keep Genesee County Beautiful Conference!

Our good friend Nayyirah Shariff of Revolutionary Bread will be offering a workshop at the Conference called "Reduce, Reuse and Recycle: Lighten Your Load in the Landfill" with Holly Lubowicki of Keep Genesee County Beautiful:

Green your wallet and the environment!  Reduce waste by learning how you can make your own cleaning and personal care products and by creatively reusing items that are often discarded. Find out how to “pre-cycle” and set up a recycling collection center in your home or office.

Since Nayyirah knows that I reuse materials that would otherwise get thrown away in most of my crafts, she asked me to lend her a few of my beautiful JUNK upcycled goods to show to workshop participants.  Of course, I'm going to give her Flint Handmade brochures to distribute, too.  ;)

The 7th Annual Keep Genesee County Beautiful Community Beautification Leadership Conference and 2010 Beautification Awards Program is on Saturday, March 5, 2011 from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the University of Michigan-Flint at the Harding Mott University Center.

For more information, check out this Flint Journal Article about the Conference.

Hope to see you there!

January 2011 craftLAB Recap: Paper Globe Ornaments

Thank you so much to everyone who came out for craftLAB on Sunday! 

We had so much fun making paper globe ornaments out of old holiday cards!

Even babies love crafting!

So many happy crafty smiles!

Jeanette loves her paper globe ornament! 

Sue came to craftLAB to learn how to make paper globe ornaments to take the project back to her church...we love when our ideas get out into the community!

Maureen was so excited about the project that she made two ornaments!

Allie put her paper globe on a knitting needle and plans to make paper globe flower bouquets and topiaries.  Special thanks to Nicole for the awesome bouquet idea!

Stephanie, Leo and Lisa were experts by the end of the workshop!

For more photos, visit our craftLAB: january 2011 Flickr Set.

We hope to see you at craftLAB in February for the first Craft Supply Swap of 2011!

PiP = Project in Process: Upcycled Fabric Button Magnets

Posted by Crystal

I have a button maker.  I love my button maker.  I have decided to use my button maker to make upcycled fabric button magnets. 

Several years ago, I got a bunch of quilt fabric from someone who donated it to The Lunch Studio.  I've been hanging on to it for all this time just waiting for the perfect project to come along.

And now it has!

First, I use the circle cutter to, well, cut circles.  Duh!  The circle cutter works very well on paper, but you have to be more careful with fabric.  Be sure to cut on a old surface because the cutter leaves a mark.  I'm using an thick, hard plastic placemat I got at a garage sale for FREE!  I love free. 

Then, I put all my cut circles in a little dish for safekeeping.

I'll post another PiP once I actually make the buttons.  Then, I just have to figure out packaging and I'm good to go!

For now, I'm trying to decide if I want to do matching sets of magnets with all the same fabric or coordinating sets of magnets with all different fabrics.  What do you think, blog readers?

I am the Leslie Knope of Craft...

Posted by Crystal

Confessional Time:  I am a nerdy birdie county parks junkie.  I love, love, love that there are so many parks and nature preserves in Genesee County.  I go absolutely bonkers when I see deer or rabbits or other woodland creatures in nature.  I don't know why.  I just do.  :shrugs:

So, when Genesee County Parks and Recreation invited Flint Handmade to host a craft workshop for their summer programming, I was like, "HECK YEAH!"  This, of course, prompted a ton of Leslie Knope jokes at my expense from my fellow FH committee members.  Thanks, girls!  :P

We decided to go with a 2-part family-friendly upcycling series.  At our first workshop, we taught kids and their parents how to make chip bag wrapper chains that we turned into bracelets.  We learned this awesome skill from Mercedea at The Flint Public Library who created an upcycling info page on the FPL website. 

Michelle uses the rotary cutter to cut chip bags into strips while A'lasia (l) and Megan look on.

Katie from Genesee County Parks became an expert at the wrapper chain...by the end of the workshop, her chain was so long that she made a tiara!

All of the kids show off their awesome chip bag bracelets!  Bottom row (l-r): A'lasia, Derrick, Malik, Megan.  Middle row (l-r): Kai, Tenajia, Madie.  Top row: Me.

At our second Genesee County Parks workshop, we are going to make no sew duct tape bags which we also made at the June 2010 craftLAB.  Feel free to join us at Davison Roadside Park on Wednesday, July 28 from 7pm-8:30pm if you would like to make a bag!

Upcycling Love: Spare Metal Car Parts into Home Decor!

Posted by Crystal

What do you do when you are an automotive engineer and you love cars and you have a ton of spare metal parts laying around?

Well, if you are my friend Tom, you bust out your welding gun and make some sweet ass candlesticks and a toothbrush holder!

The bases of the candlesticks are spider gears from a rear axle.  The stems are exhaust valves from an engine and the candle holders are valve springs.

The toothbrush holder is a large intake valve from an engine with two valve springs welded to it.

Close-up of the toothbrush holder.  The metal can get a little rusty in the moist bathroom, so make sure to apply lots of layers of clear coat!

How cool is it to take something you love and bring it into your home in creatively upcycled ways?!?  

So, blog readers, do you have any nifty upcycled projects made from things you just adore?  Are you a bibliophile and make purses/lampbases/shelves out of books?  Or maybe you love vintage china and use it to make trays/wall decor/mosaics? 

Email us at flinthandmade@hotmail.com and we'll post your upcycled projects on our blog!