Printing Cabinet to Thread Shelf

Posted on October 12, 2010 by city-made_admin

If you don’t know, Christian and I (Carol) are the proud owners of a printing press. Christian bought it right before we were married, so I guess, in a way, it counts as a wedding gift. .  .? Anyway, when you have a printing press, you need to also have type (the little letters in which you can print). When you have type, you need a place to put it. So you have a type case.

When you have no room for type cases (or printing presses for that matter), the cases can be used as a way to store/display thread.

It is much easier to see all the colors we have available to use when we display them like this.

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Shelf Week

Posted on October 11, 2010 by city-made_admin

This week citymade is tackling repurposed shelving.  Today we have a handy jug cubby system for you.  We used water and other drink jugs, removed the labels, cut off the tops and hot glued them together.  Simple and functional…that is how we roll.

Of course we did not have any trouble finding things to put in our new cubby system.

This project can also be done on a larger scale using bigger water jugs.

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Another take on Bike Baskets

Posted on October 10, 2010 by city-made_admin

We LOVE when we receive things that our friends/family has re-purposed!

This one comes from friend of citymade, Heidi, and features her adorable daughter, Natalie.

Heidi took an old pair of Nat’s jeans and sewed them into this cute, and very practical bike basket. Heidi told us that the project was simple and did not take her very long. She added the ties for extra fun for Nat’s bike.

Awesome re-purposing! Thanks again Heidi and Natalie!

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Car Organizer

Posted on October 9, 2010 by city-made_admin

With all of our children in school now, we spend a significant amount of time in the car taking children to where they need to be. We often end up having snacks in the car to save time.  We made this handy hanging trash bin for the backseat.  All of the fabric we used for this project was re-purposed.  The outside was made from an old shirt and a piece from an old curtain.  The inside was from an old shower curtain so it is water/spill proof.

We also added a couple of pockets from some fabric scraps onto the front to store snacks, books, paper and crayons etc. You may recognize this fabric from previous posts.

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What to do with tile samples

Posted on October 8, 2010 by city-made_admin

After you have re-tiled your kitchen or bathroom we know you have asked yourself “what can I do with these tile samples?” Well, even if you haven’t, we think you will enjoy this.

We were given some random tiles form citymade MIL, Nancy. We decided to turn them into hand painted coasters.

Before I (Carol) painted them, I had to apply some etching cream. The etching cream makes it so the tile will hold the paint. I use Genesis Heat Set Oil paint.

The fruit design is from friend of citymade and artist extraordinaire, Mary Gibilisco. Check out more of her work, all about her studio and information about Genesis Heat Set Oil paint at painting@kingslan.com.

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Mirror Gets a Facelift

Posted on October 7, 2010 by city-made_admin

Today we decided to try glass etching on a mirror.  We used a small framed mirror that Carol had but wasn’t using.  Carol had to etch this design in two steps.  First, she etched a bottle stencil that we had, designed by Lotta Jansdotter.  Next she took a flower from another stencil and etched it so it looked like it is in the bottle.

Here is the finished product:

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From jelly jar to toothbrush holder

Posted on October 6, 2010 by city-made_admin

With 5 sets of teeth in our house, there has to be a place to put all those toothbrushes. (Most commercially made holders only hold 4.)

So, we took an old jelly jar and etched the word TOOTHBRUSH on it.

Now it is a convenient place to hold the family’s toothbrushes.

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Milk Bottle

Posted on October 5, 2010 by city-made_admin

We had this great little glass bottle that was the perfect size for a little milk pitcher.

We made our own stencil using an Exacto knife and a blank stencil.  Using the same process we used on the tree glass we etched the letters M I L K onto the glass bottle.

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Etching Glass

Posted on October 4, 2010 by city-made_admin

This week citymade is branching out and trying some glass etching projects.

We started out by doing our research and taking a trip to Hobby Lobby to find some etching cream.  Our next step was to find and create stencils to use.

For our first project we used a glass container that once held a delicious Tikka Masala simmer sauce.  We chose a tree design for this project and drew a tree freehand on paper and then cut it out.  Using a glue stick, we glued the tree to the glass.

To do the actual etching we used a paint brush and brushed on a thick layer of etching cream around the tree. After 60 seconds we rinsed off the cream and…voila.

Adding a candle was the perfect finishing touch for this glass.

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Ceral bag to mini book

Posted on October 3, 2010 by city-made_admin

For this little gem of a book, we used a bag that held cereal.

We just cut around the bag to fit to small pieces of post consumer cardboard (double re-purpose!) Then we applied glue to make the outside, slipped some paper inside, and there you have it!

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