Playing around with buttons

Who remembers playing with the button box as a kid?  I do.  My mum had an old biscuit tin full of buttons that I think must have come from my grandma's house, and it was always the biggest treat to be allowed to sort through them.   And nowadays, buttons are cool and crafty, and I've been using them to make pictures as birthday gifts:

There is method in this madness

Happy BD Lesley!

I've been using a combination of new ones, vintage ones from the op shop, and also adding beads and other elements to create texture and interest.  I'm pretty happy with the results so far!

crochet  +

Catie's birthday tulips in progress

Almost finished tulips - just needs some bling.  Catie loves it!

The other IKEA chair hack

As before, the chair was found in As Is for a third of the RRP.  But it came with boring old fabric on the seat.

For this hack I got assistance from my Darling Son (age 7) who thought the staplegun looked like pretty good fun and wanted to have a go.  Other than jamming my finger in the mechanism in his initial enthusiasm (ouch), he did a pretty good stapling job, and before you could say 'chickens' we had another awesome IKEA hack completed:

The photo is probably a bit wobbly because I was still nursing an injured finger at that point! Yes of course it's chicken fabric - what else could I possibly use?  So this chair is for my red and white bedroom, to sit at my sewing desk.  Now to actually clear off the desk so I can sew at it.  But that, dear friends, is another story...

Fair trade craft (with chickens)

This little picture has been in my collection for donkey's years, I picked it up at an op shop (AKA charity shop, thrift store, the usual translations!) for a dollar.  Of course it has chickens, but I also like it because of the charming scene, it's got lots of green in it (my favourite colour), it's clearly hand-stitched, and I'm quite keen on Indian regional fabrics.

Approx 5x7 inches in the frame

It says 'Aarong, Bangladesh' on the back, and until today I didn't know what that meant.  Turns out that Aarong was established in 1978, and is 'a fair trade organisation dedicated to bring about positive changes in the lives of disadvantaged artisans and underprivileged rural women by reviving and promoting their skills and craft'.

So while I'm a bit sad that my dollar didn't go directly to Aarong, at least I've now learned something new, and I get to promote Aarong through the magic of the interwebs.

IKEA dining chair hack

Today I took one IKEA Norrnas chair, scored for $45AU in 'As Is' section (RRP $145)

I selected some chicken fabric that happened to be in the craft drawers, grabbed my staple-gun, and 10 minutes later, voila!

 
I added some fabric tape to cover most of my hideous staple-gun work (weak wrists suck, trying saying that 5 times fast!), and I'm pretty pleased with the final result.
 

A big fat hen!

Here's a nifty piece of re-purposing.  My mum, knowing my love of all things chooky, sent me this large gingham girl already 3/4 made up as a tea cosy - I just needed to hem her.  However, circumstances conspired that we had to get a new teapot (DD or DS broke it, can't remember who or how!), and we now have the the IKEA Anrik 'coffee pot/tea maker'.

First world problem: tea cosy to teapot disproportion.

Solution: turn tea cosy into doorstop.

Method: stuff her with wadding (old cushion inner), put a nice half brick inside (wrapped in some old towelling to protect toes from stubbing), sew her up and away you go.

Sometimes even I am surprised by my genius *modest blushes*