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Don’t be limited by the designs I have here. Have fun! Be creative!

For detailed instructions including ball stencils, check out my post called How To Make Fun Recycled Sweater Beach Ball Pillows.

Be creative and design your own leaves or use the Leaf Stencils for Produce Pillows

To make the leaves on these clever pillows you will need to score a wool sweater from a thrift store, friend or yard sale. It is not uncommon for people to accidentally felt their sweaters by machine washing with warm or hot water. During the felting processes, the sweater will shrink; thus, they end up at donation spots. Sweaters with a hole or stain can easily be worked around. Another good idea is to use an old army green wool blanket. I didn’t use it for any of these leaves but it works great.

Felting Wool Sweaters
You can intentionally felt old sweaters by putting it in the washing machine and wash with hot water and detergent. Not much to it.

Delicious looking Red Apple Pillow
To make an apple pillow, you will need a red sweater or a T-shirt, a scrap piece of a brown sweater and a small piece of a green felted wool sweater. Follow the general instruction on how to make a beach ball pillow only sew on a green leaf cut from the wool sweater. Felting instructions above.

Vine-Ripe Tomato Pillow
To make a tomato pillow, you will need a tomato red sweater or a T-shirt, and a few small pieces of a green felted wool sweater. I used a very thin red sweater. Follow the general instruction on how to make a beach ball pillow then sew on three green leaves cut from the wool sweater. Felting instructions above.

Berry Blue Blueberry Pillow
To make an blueberry pillow, you will need a blue sweater or a T-shirt, a scrap piece of the blue sweater for the top circle and a piece of a blue felted wool sweater. Follow the general instruction on how to make a beach ball pillow only sew the circle on top of the felted piece as in the picture. Felting instructions above.

Autumn Pumpkin
To make a pumpkin pillow, you will need an orange sweater or a T-shirt, a scrap piece of a brown sweater and a small piece of a green felted wool sweater. Follow the general instruction on how to make a beach ball pillow only sew on a green leaf cut from the wool sweater. Felting instructions above.

Orange Grove Pillow
To make an orange pumpkin pillow, you will need an orange sweater or a T-shirt, a scrap piece of a brown sweater and a small piece of a green felted wool sweater. Follow the general instruction on how to make a beach ball pillow only sew on a green leaf cut from the wool sweater. Felting instructions above.

To make your own clipboard, you will need to find a thin scrap board. If it isn’t the right size, you will have to cut it to fit standard office paper. If you don’t want to bother cutting your board, ask around until you find something approximately the right size. Paint it with spare paint from your shed or leave it natural. When it dries completely, attach a clip like the one in the photo. The clips can be found at office supply stores.

These clipboards make excellent frames for displaying artwork. The clips already have a hook which makes hanging up easy.

Also see: Adding pictures to clips, clipboards made from scrap wood, and salvaged laminate flooring clipboards.

Happenings At Our House: July

This morning when I was outside checking for squash and zucchini to harvest, I took time to cut some flowers off my hydrangea bush nearby. This hydrangea that I planted a year or so ago is looking great. No shortage of blooms on it. I can’t locate the tag I got with it but I think I’ve identified it as Hydrangea paniculata. It is so nice to gather a bouquet of flowers that are as clean and fresh as a summer’s day. Corny but true. When landscaping, don’t overlook white flowering plants or underestimate the beauty they add.

Front view

Back view

Pennant swags strung between poles.

Liven up a birthday party, beach party, or child’s room with these easy to make pennant swags!

How-to: Gather some thin sweaters and/or t-shirts in lively colors. Make yourself a triangle stencil out of an old cereal box or whatever. My triangles were 7 ¼ inches along the top edge and about 8 ¾ inches along the sides. You can make your triangles bigger if you prefer. The easiest way to make all your triangles is to use a rotary cutter. Using one is not necessary but sure is fast. Unlike the rotary cutter, when using scissors, you will need to trace your stencil before cutting. I liked to use the hemmed bottom edge of a shirt as the top edge of the pennants. I think it gives it a little bit more of a finished look to the swags. Work around any stains or worn places. Lay out your shirt flat on a cutting mat. You will be cutting two triangles at a time. After cutting out all the triangles, arrange them in the order you would like. You can be creative here. Next use a sewing machine to make one long running stitch attaching the pennants to the ribbon. Leave room at each end of your ribbon to make a loop or leave enough extra ribbon for trying.When using outside, I tie them to bamboo poles.

Magazine letter magnets are perfect for teaching. Use with a child that needs to learn their ABC’s or with a beginner reader. He or she will have fun playing around with these tiles and showing you what words they can spell. Pretty soon they will be making whole sentences!

Use on the refrigerator or on a magnetic cookie sheet.

Note: not for the very young; tiles may be a choking hazard.

Teens and preteens will enjoy leaving messages or sayings for others to read. Or they can make sets of tiles with their friends’ names and gift them. Magazine letter magnets will personalize your friend’s locker.

How-to:

A. Cut letters from magazines. You will find a great variety of fonts in all sorts of colors. Go searching for just the right ones. You may want to find all the letters in the same color or you might want the letters to be as varied as possible. Cut out the letters and make sure they fit on the tiles.

B. I used the tiles from a salvaged My First Rummikub game which was missing some of the pieces. Paste a letter on the front of each tile.

C. The magnets I used are promotional flat flexible magnets. (Promotional flat flexible magnets are often given out by businesses for promotional reasons, are ususally business card size and are easy to cut.) This is a perfect use for those unsolicited magnets. Use scissors to cut a piece large enough to cover the back of the tile and glue it there.

Fabric sewed together to form a long strip.

View of pillowcase inside-out.

Detail of the flap and the snaps.

These jean pillows also look good on my fading denim couch.

Casual comfort for your bed. If you are ambitious, a recycled jean duvet cover would look fantastic too! A duvet cover is just like an extra large pillow case.

Here is a quick guide to making durable recycled jean pillow covers.
First collect old jeans. Don’t worry if there are holes in the knees or frayed bottoms, you can work around those areas.

Second, you will need to cut the jeans into strips. I made a stencil four inches wide out of cardboard. It doesn’t matter how long. I traced the stencil on the jeans, making the strips as long as I could. Slide your stencil up or down to lengthen or shorten the strip.
You can choose to make your strips wider or narrower, whatever works for the jeans you are salvaging and the design you wish to make.

Next, sew the strips together end to end to form a long strip. This method results in a random pattern and allows you to get the most out of your fabric strips (reduces waste).

Then, figure out how big you would like your pillow cover. At this point you should consider whether to have the stripes go up and down or across. Cut the strips to length, remember to leave extra for seam-allowances- a half inch for each side is good (width) and add about 4 or so inches extra so you can fold the fabric over forming a flap (length). Sew your strips together to make two rectangles (the top and bottom of your pillow),

Last, simply sew your pillow pieces right sides together. Leave one side open. Finish that edge (fold over and sew). Try it on your pillow, use extra fabric to make a flap. Add snaps.
E-mail with your questions or comments.

You will have fun making your own sweet bird’s nest. They are lovely as centerpieces in a garden wedding or for spring decorating. Nests look amazing displayed under a glass cloche. These nests have all the charm of natural bird’s nests so you can leave the real ones for the birds. (There are laws in the US and Canada prohibiting the collecting of eggs and nests.)

They also make a beautiful gift for an expectant mother. They adorn the nursery with a natural reminder of the new life and the comfort and protection she will surround it.

How-to:
Step 1. Gather some vines. I made these examples from the vines of the fragrant honeysuckle flower but you could try other vines as well. While the vines are still fresh, twist them around your hand; making tight circles then gradually spiraling bigger until you form the desired nest shape and size. Tuck in the ends to prevent unraveling. No glue is needed.

Step 2. Add a layer of dried grass and/or dried fall leaves. Look on the side of the road in the fall or early spring for different dried grasses. You might want to put a pouch of rice or sand into the center of the nest to weight it down while your nest dries a bit. Keep it there until it holds its shape on its own -usually the next day. This gives the nest its great cozy feel; like a mommy bird has been sitting in it getting it ready for her little ones.

Step 3. Looking for things to decorate your nest is half the fun. Go for a hike.
Adorn your nest with a variety of native and locally grown ornamental plants including dogwood blossoms, hydrangea flowers, grasses, and herbs. In addition, you could add moss, bark, leaves, and feathers. Don’t overlook the tiny dried seedpods of last summer’s flowers.

You may try lining your nest with downy feathers like in this nest or use a striking feather as an accent.

Moss looks very natural in a nest. Moss can be found in shady areas which tend to be damp.

Flowers like the dogwood blossoms on this nest can be dried in silica (a desiccant). There isn’t much to it really. Just place the fresh flowers in a container of silica and then gently pour more on top until the flower is completely covered. Check it after a few days, if it is dry, shake off the excess powder and you are ready to use them on your nest.

Try adding fresh herbs to make it smell good. Thyme was used in this nest but I also like Sage.

I think these adorable ceramic speckled quail eggs make a nice addition.

I encourage you to make your own but if you would prefer to buy, you can special order the nests for garden weddings or otherwise from Fun In The Making (contact). Nests can also be custom made for dolls such as the impeccably made Fairy dolls seen at www.PixieKissedBabies.com. *Click Rosella’s Auction.

Wheat-grass growing in Clementine box.

This re-purposed Clementine box doubles as an attractive green focal point. It looks great around the house: kitchen, dinning room, office - anywhere you want to be reminded of spring. I love it! I like to jump-start spring by growing grass or wheat grass indoors before the grass outside greens up. It is a super easy centerpiece for a spring or summer party; it looks amazing and is so inexpensive. Use as part of an economical eco-friendly garden wedding. You may also want to try growing a living Easter basket.

How-2: Early in the year, ask all your friends to save their Clementine boxes for you. These boxes have quite a few uses so don’t throw them away after you are done growing grass! Preparing the box consists of lining it with a piece of plastic. Any kind you have handy (a scrap of construction waste, the plastic bag that your bag of dirt came in, whatever). Wait until after you put in your growing medium before trimming off the extra plastic. Next if you are using soil, add a half inch more or less of pea gravel or other small stones for drainage. If using Vermiculite, it is not necessary to add rocks for drainage. Just remember not to flood your container. If you add too much, try pouring off excess water.

growing wheat grass

Wheat berries (also called wheat grass) can be found at your local health food store. This is the stuff that some people juice (with a special juicer) and drink for its health properties. Unlike growing rye grass, you must first soak and sprout your wheat berries before planting. To do this, place your wheat berries (less than a cup for each Clementine box) in a clean jar or bowl and cover with plenty of cool water and let sit overnight. You do not need the lid on at this point. Keep your jar out of direct sunlight and at room temperature during the sprouting process. In the morning rinse with cool water, drain off the extra water and put the cover on your mason jar. You should rinse one or two times that day and the next day. The idea is to have the wheat berries sprout a little root while avoiding mold or slime to form on the seeds. I didn’t have any problems with that. You should see roots forming within two days (more or less). Distribute the sprouted wheat berries across the top of the soil or Vermiculite. They should be sitting right on top of your growing medium. Use enough to cover the surface with some overlapping. Wet the soil/ Vermiculite in the box but don’t drown it. To keep my new “seedlings” happy, I put a clear plastic bag over the top to keep the humidity high. After about two days when the wheat grass starts to grow and the roots have gone into the soil/ vermiculite, you should take off the plastic. Place in front of a sunny window. You will need to check on it and mist as needed.

growing rye grass
Growing rye grass is even easier than growing wheat grass because you don’t need to pre-soak the seeds. Just distribute a layer of seeds across the top of the soil. (I use soil not vermiculite when growing rye grass.) The more seeds you use the thicker your “lawn” but don’t go overboard. Next, I sprinkle just a bit of soil on top. Water, cover with plastic, and mist when needed. Take off plastic when the grass starts to grow. Place in a in front of a sunny window and water when needed. So easy the kids can do it.

I found this vintage vegetable puzzle at a thrift store. I thought it was charming so I give it new life as refrigerator magnets. They are a perfect accent for my kitchen. How-2: keep an eye out for a vintage puzzle of your liking. Alternatively, use a puzzle that your child has outgrown. These puzzles turned frig magnets will make a fun keepsakes. Use a hot-glue gun to attach strong magnets to the back of each piece.

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