Upcycling Tomato Paste Tubes

You can see my ideas on using Tomato Paste tubes in your crafting over at Crafting Ireland Blog today.

A recycling challenge...

Does the cost of fancy papers put you off cardmaking? Never fear. If you have a few paper punches in your arsenal, it is possible to produce cards relatively cheaply. Here I have issued myself a challenge. Decorate a card using packaging material.

I received this sweet little body wash set for my birthday in January. I have started using it, but instead of putting the card packaging in my recycle bin, I am going to use it to decorate a greetings card.
I'm not going to allow myself anything else for embellishing the card.

A few dabs of  Craft Tacky Glue later...

OK, so it won't win any design awards, but I knocked this up pretty quick. I even had enough of the packaging left over for another card.

It was relatively thin card, but it did punch really easily with the Tonic Studios Simplicity Geared punches. Now I have a couple of cheap and cheerful cards to add to the collection !

Do you think I should send the thankyou card to the person who gave me the shower gel to see if they notice what it was made from?

Tonic Studio Tools used...
Simplicity geared punch classics
Petal pairs box set 2 and Petal Pairs petite 1
Craft Tacky Glue
Shape mates

Over at Blog Tonic I have the same post but have also included a little challenge to YOU to make a recycled packaging card. Come on over and join us.

Salty pin cushion

I'm posting over at It's a Creative World today about my salt cellar pin cushion. Why not drop by and have a look.


We had a power outage from 6pm last night until about 10am this morning. I'm glad we have a log fire in our living room! The only damage that we can see so far due to the high winds is a fence panel has blown down. I'm glad the storm is over! It was a bit wild out there.

Vintage Leather

I finished this chair yesterday after I finally found the piece of leather I'd been looking for (while looking for something else of course). The cushion is one I made a long time ago. It is crazy patchwork and incorporates some hand drawn butterflies. It is trimmed with my favourite red pom poms. I love pom pom trim! Sad, but true!

Here it the chair in it's before state. 

It was another one of my £1 auction bargains.  I think it looks quite "gentleman's study" now. I love the look of the vintage leather, and I only bent a few of the brass upholstery nails in the process! 

I had a little scrap of leather left over, so I upcycled an evaporated milk tin and made a nice pen pot to go with the desk mat and the chair.

I cut the leather to size and then ran it through my "ready for a service" sewing machine before glueing it onto the tin. It's an easy make but looks quite classy. If you have any scraps of old leather, this would make a nice gift for the man in your life.

A Quick Lid Tip

Yet again it has been too crazy busy a week to do a Thrifty Thursday. I am just dropping by to say hi, it's going to be a busy weekend. I have two house guests as well as my son coming home for the weekend, and my daughter Naomi gets Baptised on Sunday. Should be a good time!

I have finally finished painting the panelling in my little girl's room. It took a while. I'll show you the finished room next week.

And I leave you with another one of the uses for bottle lids. I use them to prop up small items for painting to keep them from sticking to the newspaper underneath. Very handy! I'm on a bit of a picture frame painting frenzy at the moment. I'm trying to reuse what I have already to save me from spending anything.  

Thrifty Thursday

This week I wanted to tell you about my thrifty grandparents. It also gives me an excuse to share some lovely old photographs with you. I enjoy looking over old family photos and imagining what life was like for my mother and her two sisters as young girls. I hope you enjoy looking at them too!

I was over at Funky Junks blog today. Her use of crates for storage around the house got me to thinking of a special crate that I own. It must be about 65 years old and belonged to my grandmother. My mother can remember her using  Darkoline Woodstain on it.

The box came from the local greengrocers and originally contained Jaffa Oranges. My mother used it as a bedside cabinet as a young girl and can remember a little lace doily and a bedside lamp sitting on it . I have used it for various things over the years but for a while it has been  hidden in my wardrobe where it has been serving as a little storage shelf. I thought it was time to bring it out and let it see daylight again. 

How clever of my grandmother to see the beauty in this little bit of wood. I'm sure she never imagined it would become a treasured possession of mine. 

My grandparents lived in a charming house in Morningside in Edinburgh, Scotland after moving up from Birmingham, England in the 1940s. I was wondering why my grandmother would have used an orange crate as furniture, but I guess she was just into upcycling long before it became trendy. My mum thought perhaps there was a shortage of goods in wartime and so she was just being inventive. The photo above shows my mum to the right and her two sisters middle and left. Behind them are a couple of neighbours and my grandmother. 
My grandfather was as an industrial chemist, I love this photo of him in a lab.

My grandfather was very good with his recycling too. He used to methodically go through the mail every day and  fold and  cut all the envelopes that arrived into neat little bits of paper with his paper knife so that they could be used as scrap paper. A little pad of this paper held together with a bulldog clip used to sit in the kitchen ready for making shopping lists or jotting down notes.  I still have some of his recycled envelopes in our Scrabble box where they were used for writing down scores. I couldn't part them. Precious memories.  ( He always beat me at Scrabble!) 
Here are some more lovely pictures...

Check out those baggy trousers!!! :-)

and check out the swimming cossie!! Trendy huh? The little girl in the picture is my aunt - my mother's older sister .

Here is my grandmother with the same aunt. 

and my grandfather as a young man. 

On top of the crate are photos of my great grandparents on my maternal grandmothers side. They were named Abraham and Sarah,and they came from Austria and Poland. The little chair belonged to my  my mother's older sister who is now in her 80s and the Cheeky Teddy bear belonged to her younger sister who sadly died of a brain tumour a few years ago. The cushions I made a long time ago. I hand painted the butterflies with fabric paint onto some nice thick cotton, and the floral cushion I embroidered before I had any children so about 20 years ago. 
I hope you have enjoyed reading a little of my family history. 

PS.  I'm joining Funky Junks Copy Me Challenge here

Every week, on Thursday I hope to show you something I have either made or bought for a snip. I love my local Thrift Stores/ Charity shops and Auction House. It makes sense to me to buy second hand where possible. My house is furnished mostly from pre-loved items, and I am always on the lookout for a bargain.

Here are some lovely laces and trims that I bought last week in a tiny little charity shop in the next village. The larger bundles were only 50 pence and I paid less for some of the others. I'll be able to use them for cardmaking, sewing and crafts. They can be so expensive to buy new, so I was really delighted with these.

And here is some marmalade I just made. This was my first attempt at marmalade, and I'm pleased to say it turned out delicious. I bought 2 ruby grapefruit for 25 pence each, three lemons that were going for a snip and a couple of oranges that my husband said weren't particularly juicy for eating. With one bag of sugar, I made 8 jars of chunky marmalade. (The jars are recycled of course - wouldn't have it any other way!) I thought that the flavours would all just kind of meld together, but as you are eating it, you get citrus explosions on your tongue of the three different fruits - I have to say it's tangilicious!

brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Here is our little house in the Highlands. As you can see, it is rather chilly right now.

Current conditions are freezing fog. I am trying to keep my little girl cosy inside as she is cough, cough, coughing away at the moment.

...and now to warm your heart, a couple of pictures of my two silly girls. I don't really know how Naomi took these photos of herself and her sister, but they are cute aren't they?

...and I showed you these a long time ago, but here is another use for the plastic milk bottle lids I save. These are my pin cushion brooches. Very handy to have when you are sitting doing hand sewing and need somewhere to stick the pins and needles. Have you ever stuck a needle into the arm of your sofa only to forget about it until you prick yourself on it later? Hmm? No? OK! Anyway, they are very handy, and the plastic means that you don't stick yourself right through the brooch with a pin. I was going to list some in my Ebay shop eventually, but because I have been busy with the house at the moment, most crafts have taken a back seat. Although I have started to crochet a blanket in the evenings. I might show you later.
...I'll be back soon with a little giveaway... until then...stay warm and cosy :-)

A Jar for March - Pin Cushion Jar

Would you like to make this sweet little pin cushion jar. It's really easy to do, and would make a thoughtful gift.
You will need:-

• a small jar. Mine is one of those little sample pots from jam that I saved from afternoon tea on a day out.
• a small amount of stuffing/wadding
• a small remnant of plain cotton fabric. You can use tea or coffee to dye it a nice vintage colour.
• some ribbon or trim for the edge
• thread - in this case I used strong thread for gathering and a single strand of red cotton for the bird embroidery.
• some thick card - but not so thick that you can't cut it with scissors. I recycled mine from some packaging.
• a compass - or a saucer roughly twice the size of your jar lid.
• scissors, needle, and a glue gun

You will need two discs of card. One will be a template for your fabric. Make this one about twice the diameter of your jar lid. I did this and then when I cut the fabric out I added a quarter of an inch extra for gathering. The other disc is just fractionally smaller than the lid of your jar. This will be going into the pin cushion.
Cut out your circle of fabric and then transfer your chosen design being sure to place it in the centre. I used my favourite pen that disappears when you spray water onto it. My fabric was thin enough to see through so I could trace the bird from my paper. You can use this simple design or you can make your own .
Using a single strand of red cotton thread, I backstitched the birdy. I like the look of redwork.
Now, using a strong or doubled thread, use running stitch around the edges to gather the circle of fabric. Please do use a strong thread, as there is nothing worse than being in the finishing stages and the thread snapping!
Gather the fabric and stuff as firmly as you can whilst placing the disc of card on top of the stuffing before tightening the thread. Now this is a bit fiddly, and another pair of hands could come in useful here so if you have a friend handy - ask them to help. You can make the cushion without the disc of card, but it gives it a much better shape and a nicer finish, so give it a try.
Tie a secure knot to finish off this part .
Now it is time for the trusty glue gun. Glue the pad to the lid, and then glue on your trim around the edge of the lid to make it all look neat, sweet and complete.
Using this technique, you can make a whole family of jars, big and small. You can use a variety of fabrics, or embroider your own designs. I have a few of my own and I find them very useful as well as pretty. Let me know if you make one!

Frugal February Jar - a fun little project for you.

Finally, now that our heating is back on after four days of freeeeeeeeeeeeezing, I bring you a inexpensive little idea for jazzing up a little jar for February - or what is left February, but that is not to say you couldn't do this project whatever the month! Am I rambling? Sorry!

You will need...

A little jar, just the right size for a tealight. I used a tuna paste jar. I'm sure you can find something - maybe a baby food jar?

A glue gun, a pair of scissors a heart punch - or some other decorative shape, and a biro.

and...wait for it...I kid you not...an empty tube of tomato paste/puree.

This is an easy make.

Cut the ends of the tomato puree tube. I used a tomato paste and a garlic paste tube in this project. Very carefully insert your scissors into the tube and cut down the edge to open it up. Now wash with some nice hot soapy water. Please be careful with this. It will have sharp edges!

Now you have something like this...

It's a bit crinkly, so out with the rolling pin...

Now comes the heart punch...

Now emboss however you fancy with a biro on the back of the hearts...

You end up with something like this...
Now it is time to get the glue gun out - sorry couldn't coordinate glueing and taking pictures at the same time! I also fashioned a rim out of the foil, embossed it and made a bow to cover the gap as it wasn't long enough to go round my jar. And here you see the finished product. I told you it was easy !

Tomato paste foil is great for embellishments for many other projects too.If the colour on the back of the foil bothers you when using it on glass (it does show on this project) you could always give it a couple of coats of craft paint first. Or if you are really energetic, you can use a course grade wire wool to rub it off first. Me...no...that was too much effort for now.

I hope this project inspires you to start chopping tomato paste tubes! It's great fun, and a good way to recycle/upcycle.