citymade

Re-purposed Heat Safe Curling Iron Carrier

 No need to wait for the hot iron to cool down before you pack it.  The lining of this bag is made from an old ironing board cover so it is heat safe.  

Winter is over and it is time to put away the scarves…or is it?   Why not re-purpose your favorite scarf into a table runner, no sewing required.  This way you get to use it all year!

Easter Aftermath

If you have children, you may have an abundance of easter plastic left over from the holiday.  Here are some ways to repurpose that pesky plastic:

Easter Baskets– Remove the handles from the baskets and use them to store toys in a child’s room.  They are colorful and just the right size for putting on a shelf.  

Plastic Easter Eggs– Use them for learning games such as counting, color recognition, color sorting and pattern making.  When you are done you can donate them to your local pre-school teacher (teachers love getting recycled items to use in their classrooms).  

You can also use plastic eggs to store little items such as tacs, screws, and batteries in a junk drawer.  This way you don’t have to dig through the drawer to find a thumb tac when you need one.  

Going on a trip?  Use the plastic eggs to hold little items such a earrings, necklaces or cotton balls.  They hold up better than plastic zip lock bags.  

Easter Grass– If you are anything like us, this stuff makes you crazy.  I usually don’t even like to let it come into my house.  Instead of pitching it right away, use it for packing fragile items.  

I know there are many more possibilities for repurposing all of that easter “stuff”.  Leave us a comment and tell us what you repurposed.  

For our re-purposing project today we made a little game/activity container.  This can be used for babies as a shaker or a game to fit the pieces into the hole or for a toddler/pre-school child to learn the letters in their name and put them in order.  Here is how we did it.

1. Remove the label from a plastic frosting container and cut a small rectangular hole in the lid.  

2. Cut letters and pictures from magazines (we chose pictures that the particular child would be interested in).  

3. Choose and wash lids for the game pieces (I used larger juice bottle lids for the baby so that it would not be a choking hazard and smaller milk jug lids for the older child).

4. Decoupage the pictures onto the frosting container (you can use ModgePodge or just Elmers glue and a small paint brush).

5. Decoupage the letters of the child’s name onto each plastic lid.  

Storage Box

For today’s project we used small pieces of cardboard from food and snack boxes.  We sewed the cardboard into fabric and hand sewed  the bottom piece on last.  We hot glued the inside pieces in for separate storage compartments.  Carol uses the storage box to hold her essential oils.

Happy Egg, Bunny, Candy day! (Oh, and Easter).

We did some egg coloring with re-purposed items from the compost pile. We saved purple onion skins, yellow onion skins and coffee grounds.

For the coffee, we wrapped the eggs with rubber bands, boiled them in the grounds, with enough water to cover the eggs, for 10 minutes.

With the onion skin dye, we wrapped the eggs and tied them with string. Then, we boiled the eggs for 10 minutes.

The result is some really earthy, cool looking eggs, without the expense of an egg dying kit.

Egg carton week project #4: decorative lights.

We cut out the individual egg holder, shaped them and used a paper punch to make decorations. Then cut a center, put a small Christmas light through, and we have a sweet decorative light.

Kid week meets egg carton week. The action figure tank.

By taking an egg carton, some paint and some bits and pieces of various things,( like bottle caps, plastic toy parts ) we created a fun army tank that fits action figures.

Our third project for egg carton week is a bulletin board.

Stay with us. Using 2 cartons, cut the tops off (to use in another project), tape the 2 carton pieces together on the inside, making sure there is a flap at the top. Punch 2 holes in the top flap, add string and hang. We used pins and tacks to put up pictures or important notes.

Egg Carton week continues. Today’s project: drawer organizer.

By cutting up one egg carton to fit a small drawer, we were able to turn a messy junk drawer in to a functional drawer.