What a fantastic response to my last post, the hand-towel project– Thank you!
Speaking of towels…Go check out my latest post on SC Johnson’s Family Economics HERE to read about beach towel projects. Then hit the road to those end-of-summer sales and stock up on discounted beach towels for repurposing too!
Update:I was waiting for the sun to come out today to take a photo of the 3-towel blanket I made to keep in my car. (Petaluma’s been really overcast lately!) Now I need to go buy another matching towel for covering my black dashboard & steering wheel when parked in the sun.I’d just love if you visited my SCJ blog post to leave YOUR ideas in the comments section of cool ideas for repurposing beach towels. Thank you!
My tiny studio received another wonderful feature thanks to Kim of Everything Etsy! So I figured it was a great time to share some updated photos of my space, after all, I’d just spent the last day cleaning it. So take a good look around, it won’t look like this tomorrow! Since my last set of photos, found on Flickr HERE, you’ll see I’m quite a bit more about organizing than decorating, though I still have plenty of eye-candy to keep my buzz going. You can click on any of the photos to enlarge enough to spy little cobwebs.
I removed all the storage under my work table so that I can actually sit at it without cramming my legs into card cabinet drawers. The shelf above now holds a couple of my vintage toy trucks,and Kewpie is still around, but is currently the boy-in-the-bubble.I also moved my small-compartment mail slot piece out into the garage in a new area I’m still working on and hope to share soon. I replaced it with a shelf unit to hold my new obsession with cigar box storage. I moved my bin storage on top of that.My main desk area hasn’t changed much, but I could sure use a new office chair, the up-down mechanism is shot.I scored another tool trug for next-to-nuthin’ and pertied it up with red spray paint, some decals and vintage cigar labels. I now have 3 cool vintage rubber stamp racks to hold my assortment of stamps and a cute tiny empty 4-drawer cabinet begging to be used.The little green stool in the corner (below) is one I bought just for my husband for when he comes in for a visit so he has something to sit on, but for now, it holds my ice cream bucket waste can. I brought in my library of Dover books and various other art resource books from the bookshelves in my living room and keep some under my desktop printer, and some in my upside-down yellow cupboard. Oh, yeah, those are my Gocco printing sets from the early 90s. I moved my blue library cabinet, up onto my big chippy storage unit and covered it with more compartmental storage. (Uh huh, more cigar boxes.) I’m lovin’ the awesome wooden alphabet wall art I received with my new Eames font from House Industries!I’ve still got that faux deer head fetish. I sprayed this one with Sterling Silver spray paint for a dynamic effect.This one likely came off an old cuckoo clock and holds my tiny tourist mobile. I painted it blue and added magnets to the back of it and it stays nicely in place on my metal door. This head, next to my door, was a sweet gift from my friend, Wendy. She found it at a garage sale and painted it white just for me. What a great friend! It now dawns a wreath of buttons I made some time ago. Thanks for visiting my favorite place on earth, I hope to get some more shots of the rest of the garage space up soon!
There are some things in nature that strongly represent motherhood to me, such as sweet little nests and cute green pea pods. Like my wire bird nests, I also wanted to create a unique pendant of peas. The pea part was easy, I’d simply use beads strung onto a headpin and the pod topped off with a bead cap.All of which I found on sale at Michael’s Crafts yesterday.But the pod, well, that was where the hunt came in. Off to the local Goodwill, I went in search of green leather. I kept an eye out while looking through purses, pocketbooks, jackets and skirts. I wouldn’t need much as the pendant would be tiny. And lookie here! I found a pair of pea green leather shoes. Perfect!With my fabric scissors, I cut off a section of shoe.Peeled off the inside vinyl and folded in half, I trimmed out a pod with one straight side and one curved, careful to make it long enough to house the number of beads I planned to use.Once the pod shape was cut out, I took it to the sink and gave it a good soapy washing, because after all, it did come from a used shoe!
I used one of my sewing machine needles to pierce a hole into the fold for running the headpin through.I threaded 4 beads onto a headpin, one representing each of my children.I used super glue GEL to connect the end of the pod pieces then pulled the beaded pin up through the hole.I turned it over and again with the super glue gel, (great because you can control gel so much better than the runny stuff,) I sealed up the back curved side creating a seam, allowing enough glue to also secure the backs of the tiny beads, keeping them in the pod.The pod was still damp from its washing, so while pressing the seam as the glue dried, I pressed the pod around the beads. As the leather dried, it molded so nicely around the peas. Once dry, it’s easy to trim out and form your pod a bit nicer with a good, sharp pair of scissors.
I attached a bead cap, made a loop for hanging and added another piece of twisted headpin (with its head removed) as an itty-bitty vine.Strung onto a small silver chain, I just love it. Not a bad thrift-store shoe repurpose, eh?!UPDATE: After posting, I went back and tinkered a bit more, this time using a piece of leather that was previously hemmed and stitched. I also pinched the bead cap onto the top of the pod and used the extending wire from the original headpin to create the little tendril instead of adding an additional one, therefor only using on headpin per pod.Need something to put your pea pod necklace in? Check THIS out!
Go check out my latest post on SC Johnson’s Family Economics HERE to read about beach towel projects. 
Then hit the road to those end-of-summer sales and stock up on discounted beach towels for repurposing too!
I’d just love if you visited my SCJ blog post to leave YOUR ideas in the comments section of cool ideas for repurposing beach towels. Thank you!
