You know all those envelopes that come with your credit card bill? i never use mine since I make my payments online. I always feel a little bad about throwing away a perfectly good envelope, so I decided to reuse them. Basically, I turned them inside out and added a little color. Now they are good to go. Want to know how? An abridged tutorial follows, and excruciating detail is available in my Flickr Set. click any of the photos for a larger version….

here’s what you need:

– Envelopes
– Glue Stick
– scissors
– Decorative paper
– Avery-type blank address labels or something similar.
– Freebie mailing labels (optional)
– Double-sided tape and regular transparent tape (optional – you need both or neither of these).

Before you start, cut the decorative papers to a size that is about 1/4 inch larger than the window in the envelope.

Gently peel open the envelope at the seams, and coax it with scissors if necessary. I have been really lucky and had no problem with this part.

Flip the envelope over so you are looking at the white side. Next, you need to block the little cello window. Place glue around the window being careful not to get anything on the window.

Place the decorative paper fancy side down on the glue.

Fold up the bottom of the envelope, and add glue to the side edge. now you can reconstruct the seam that you ripped open earlier. repeat on the other edge of the envelope.

Now you might start fretting about the fact that the glue is on the outside of your envelope.

I would recommend not worrying about it and just tucking the flap in after you moisten the glue. If you don’t like this idea, here is where you need 2 kinds of tape. Cover the original envelope glue on the outside with a piece of transparent tape (you don’t want it to get damp and stick to everything in the mailbox!). Then on the inside of the flap where you would expect the glue to be, place a strip of double sided tape. Don’t peel off the protective paper until you are ready to seal the envelope.

As an alternative to decorative paper, you can also use out-of-season freebie address labels to cover up the window.

This will be white when you flip the envelope over. As far as I can tell*, you could probably just use a sharpie and write on the cello window to address the envelope, and you’re done.

If you used decorative paper, you will need to add a white address label to make a position to write the destination address. Can you imagine how the USPS machines would freak out if you wrote the address on the security pattern?

That’s it! If you try it, i would love to see how your envelopes turn out!

* As far as I can tell, the only USPS requirement for the placement of the destination address is that it should be parallel to the long edge of the envelope.

These are the eyes you have been waiting for… I stumbled upon this idea after finishing an amigurumi cactus for my friend, and not wanting to sew on eyes. So I turned to one of my all time favorite crafting materials, Shrinky-dinks. I get my shrinky-dinks directly from the “Magical Land of Shrinky Dinks.” The shipping is a little steep (UPS) so the last time I

This one is really no biggie, and you probably already have it figured out after reading “polymer clay eyes,” but I’ll go into a little more detail for those interested. Polymer clay is widely available from two manufacturers, Sculpey and Fimo. It is available at craft stores as well as many art supply stores. Choose a color, sculpt your creation, bake it in the oven, then keep it forever.

For the eyes I chose sculpey (simply because it was cheaper). Before we start, preheat your (preferably toaster) oven to 275 F.

I cut out a small portion

and the kneaded it until it was soft.

I rolled it into two small balls of equal size, and squashed them flat. Then i used a toothpick to poke two holes in each eye, button-style. Don’t forget to flip them over and poke through from the other side so the hole is clean.

Finally they went onto a piece of foil and into the 275 F oven for 10 minutes.

Finished!

If you like your eyes shiny, you can seal the sculpey with commercially avaliable sealants. I have had no problems using clear nail polish. This method has the advantage of being able to create a wide variety of sizes. You can add color by using other colors of clay. Some of them are glittery which could make some nice eyes. **Note: These of course would not be safe for children.**

Next… Plastic eyes (my favorite).

Dreaded dropped stitch

Of course the best way to remedy this situation is to use a crochet hook to pick up the stitches.

Picking up dropped stitches with a crochet hook

But I don’t have one in my bare bones travelling sock project bag. So I decided to make one that I could keep with me, even on the go.

Behold! The keychain crochet hook.

To make one you will need:

• An Aluminum crochet hook of small size (less than 3 mm)*
• Wire clippers
• Needle-nosed pliers
• Jewelery findings: Jump rings and a clasp
• Eye protection

To start, clip the hook near the flat part in the middle. You want to keep the flat part connected to the hook, and move as far down the handle as you can. If you get all the way to the round part, it may be too difficult to cut through.

Then, use the needle-nosed pliers to fold the flat part of the handle back into a loop.

Use the same pliers to attach a jump ring and a clasp. Now you can clip it on your keychain and remove it whenever you have a dropped stitch that needs saving.

* I know that it is practically unbelievable, but I got this hook for 25 cents at a thrift store.

The theme for this month’s whiplash competition is Accessories and this tutorial is my entry. I have been wanting to retire my hobo-style fingerless gloves, and find something more fashionable to keep my hands warm at work. I decided to turn a $2.50 thrift-store angora sweater into a pair of toasty handwarmers. I turned the sleeves of the sweater into a pair of fitted handwarmers, decorated with vintage buttons and a crochet edging.

Skills required:
Basic sewing (machine not necessary, but helpful)
Simple crochet
Knowledge of felting/fulling is also helpful

Materials required
sweater for sacrifice made of wool or a wool/angora blend
needle and thread
10 small buttons
A few yards of sock-weight yarn for the edging (i used knitpicks undyed sock yarn since i had some and it matched).

Felting
To turn the sweater into a dense, warm fabric that I could cut up without fearing unravelling, I felted the sweater. This is a process that involves a lot of agitation and temperature shocking of the natural fibers in the sweater (you can read more about it at knitty). For this reason, your sweater should be a NONwashable type of wool and/or angora with a low synthetic fiber content (less than 10%). mine was 60% angora, 40% wool. Keep your eye out at the thrift store for these. most of the angora sweaters that i have found there have already been accidentally washed and shrunk – a great bargain for you! you could also make this project without felting the object first, but you would need to machine sew all the edges to prevent unravelling.

Okay, on with the felting. i don’t have my own washing machine, so i boiled my sweater on the stove with some harsh detergent, then dumped it into my sink and ran cold water on it while agitating it with a wooden spoon. I am sure i looked like a crafty madwoman, but it worked. I then put it in the dryer to heat up and dry. it is very important that your fabric be completely dry before you start, otherwise you may stretch it and distort it while you work.

sweater after felting. you can see how it shrunk more in the vertical direction and is a little short looking

Cutting
The wristwarmers only utilize the sleeves of the sweater. the cuff of the sweater will become the cuff of your handwarmer. stick your hand up the sleeve to get an idea of where you will need to cut.

Chop off the sleeve above your fingers.
Put a pin in the fabric to mark the space between your thumb and your hand.

Snip above the thumb:

Trim off the excess fabric as you make a cut down to the pin to define the thumb of your handwarmer:

Cutting Complete (for now. don’t put away the scissors)! Now it is time for a bit of sewing.

sewing
We want to accomplish two things in the sewing section:
1) secure the raw edged to prevent fraying (just in case)
2) sew the side seam to close up the handwarmer.

The photo below illustrates where this is going to happen:

The blue lines indicate where first you should stitch over the edge to secure the fabric. this is probably unnecessary if it has been fully felted, but just in case…. Make sure you don’t sew the finger and thumb openings shut. Next turn the fabric so the wrong side is out. Stitch a seam where indicated by the red lines. When this is complete, you should have a loosely fitting fingerless glove! I folded down the finger edge and pinned it down (to be secured later). this way it will extra thick and toasty when i tuck my fingers in. to create a more fitted glove we will next cut open the other side… get the scissors.

More cutting and attaching buttons
Snip all the way up the edge of the handwarmer on the side opposite the thumb.

make sure you cut all the way up!
If you want, you can stitch over this edge as well to prevent unravelling. Remember how you folded the finger edge in and tacked it down with a pin “to be secured later”? Now’s the time. i just hand sewed a few stitches that disappeared into the angora fuzz.

The newly cut opening will be folded over and secured with buttons. Turn the mitt right-side out. Put on the mitt, fold over the freshly cut side edge until it is fitted to your liking, and use pins to mark the location of 5 approximately evenly distributed future button locations. Mine is folded over a lot more at the wrist edge than at the top (obviously since my wrist is narrower than my hand) and it makes a diagonal line of buttons that looks very nice on the finished product. Sew on your buttons where marked with pins.

So close to the end…. you can make it!

Crocheted Edging

The final step is to crochet along the edge to make a decorative edging complete with buttonholes. Keep in mind that I don’t really crochet. there may be more elegant ways to do this, but the final product works and looks good.

Use the crochet hook to puncture through the edge of the felted fabric and SC along the edge. When you reach a button, chain 5 stitches (maybe more for larger buttons) the reattach with a SC after the button. this creates the buttonhole. I found that i was able to just work along and eyeball where to add the buttonholes. You may want to mark this with pins before you begin. Once you have crocheted all the way up the edge, sew in your ends (yarn and thread) and you have completed your frist handwarmer.

Repeat everything for the other hand, and you will be done! make sure to invert the side for the thumb. Also pay attention to make sure that the buttons are placed on the opposite side so that the two handwarmers will be mirror images of each other.