Repurposing Archives - Page 2 of 7

Easy no-sew T-shirt bracelets tutorial

May 9, 2016

Got some old tees? Turn them into these super easy no-sew t-shirt bracelets! The tutorial shows you how to in less than two minutes! www.cucicucicoo.com

In the years that I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve collaborated with lots of other blogs and websites. And today I’m so pleased to announce that I’m starting a new collaboration with the Italian handmade learning website Make It Land! I will contribute an eco-friendly refashioning tutorial every month for my special column of sorts called “Refashion Cafè” and, seeing as the website is only in Italian, I will publish the tutorial in English here on Cucicucicoo for everyone to enjoy!

I decided to start off with a very simple refashion that anybody can do, even if she doesn’t know how to sew, crochet or do any other sort of handmade crafting: no-sew T-shirt bracelets!

The idea is pretty similar to the no-sew t-shirt sleeve necklace tutorial that I published a few years ago, except it uses a different part of the t-shirt and I’ve figured out a better way to bind all the strips together.

These bracelets are ridiculously easy to make and it’ll take you about two minutes to make one, but they’re still really cute, especially when you make them colorful and with matching necklaces! I love wearing these in the summer because they’re light and don’t stick to my skin like most other accessories.

They’re also a great gift and, because you just use old t-shirts and they’re so fast to make, you can whip some up for all of your friends!

Want to find out how? Then keep on reading for the t-shirt bracelets tutorial!

Wine bottle crafts: 2 upcycled vases with materials you already have

October 22, 2019April 25, 2016

Wine bottle crafts: Make upcycled vases with craft materials you already have! 2 great ideas with paint and glue! A DIY tutorial by www.cucicucicoo.com #winebottlecrafts

Mother’s Day is creeping up and will be here before you know it. Have you started preparing gifts for the most important women in your life? Most mothers (at least the ones I know) are happiest to receive something small, but from the heart, and what could be more from the heart than personalized homemade gifts? And since all moms want to protect their children and grandchildren, even better is an eco-friendly gift that won’t have an impact on the environment.

I like wine and beer and basically anything alcoholic, and when I come across a cool bottle, I always make sure to save it for my DIY projects. Today I’m going to show you two really easy wine bottle crafts, making vases with customized words and designs for your favorite mothers and friends! You can even involve small children in decorating the bottles and, what’s best of all, if you’re a crafty person, you probably already have all the materials you need for both of these projects!

The first version of this project is a chalkboard vase, which is super fun to decorate with personalized or seasonal messages. Give kids one of these bottles and some colored chalk, and they are in heaven!

The second upcycled bottle vase is decorated with a glue gun and spray paint, for drawings and messages that will never risk being accidentally erased.

Both of these wine bottle crafts are really easy and very quick for a great last-minute DIY Mother’s Day gift. Now let me show you how to make them!

Make a bag from a T shirt: No-Sew Tutorial!

September 8, 2020April 11, 2016

Transform that T-shirt you never wear into something useful! This no-sew tutorial shows how to make a bag from a T shirt. Great upcycling craft for kids! www.cucicucicoo.com

My name’s Lisa and I’m a T-shirt hoarder.

Seriously, I have a problem. Come to my home, and you’ll find numerous containers full of t-shirts. I love them because they’re so easy to embellish or repurpose into other clothing and objects. But another wonderful thing about t-shirts is that the jersey fabric doesn’t fray and frequently it’s nice and stretchy, meaning you can cut it and stretch it out to get all sorts of cool effects, often without even sewing.

This past summer I was brainstorming different ways to reuse the classic tee for the “Reborn T-shirts” stand at the Kreativ fair, and I couldn’t leave out the ever-beloved t-shirt bag. There are so many ways to make a bag from a t shirt, but I wanted to propose something that ANYBODY can do, even without any sewing knowledge.

And just to prove my point, I also did this project with my 9-year-old daughter’s class while making upcycled crafts to sell at the school’s annual charity Christmas market. All the kids brought in at least one t-shirt and turned them into bags. And they LOVED it! They were so bummed out when we ran out of shirts to make bags from! (We also made these egg carton poinsettia ornaments, which are another eco-friendly and kid-friendly craft.)

Do you need one or two extra shopping bags, but don’t want to buy one? Or maybe you have a special t-shirt that brings back dear memories that you can’t bear to get rid of, even if it doesn’t fit you anymore? Or you want a fun activity to do with your kids? Then grab your scissors, and let’s get to work!

Perfectly Imperfect: a fabric doll pattern review

September 8, 2020February 16, 2016

The Perfectly Imperfect Play Doll: a fabric doll pattern review by www.cucicucicoo.com

Finally I’m ready to show off my Perfectly Imperfect cloth dolls. I’d been working on these dolls and posting in-progress pictures on Instagram for months. My original plan was to make a bunch for Christmas presents and the kids’ various charity Christmas markets and giveaways.

My original plan failed and I only managed to get this one doll out of the 11 I started ready in time for Christmas.

I made these little guys from a pattern by Allison from Sweater Doll called the Perfectly Imperfect Play Doll, which is currently available in the Sweater Doll Etsy shop or in Tickle the Imagination, Issue 21. I love Allison’s work (have you seen her Glovosaur tutorial which she graciously shared with Cucicucicoo readers a few months ago?) and her whimsical style, and I was immediately drawn to this cloth doll pattern when I saw it. Let me tell you a little bit why.

DIY Paper Poinsettias from Upcycled Egg Cartons

November 17, 2020December 9, 2015

When my daughter’s teacher invited me to come into the class to make crafts with the kids that could be sold at the school’s charity Christmas market (a couple of years ago I did the same thing with these yarn Hopi Eye ornaments), I was …

Tutorial: Crochet Carry Bags from Fruit Nets

November 23, 2015

DIY Tutorial: Crochet carry bags for kids from upcycled fruit nets. A quick gift in under an hour, perfect for collecting treasures at the beach or in the woods! www.cucicucicoo.com

It all started with this. My son found some fruit nets in my collection of recycling-for-crafting and decided to use one to hang up his toys. Total genius right? And so, I came up with these:

Oh yes! I took those fruit and onion nets and crocheted around their edges, creating a comfy shoulder strap and… voilà: kid’s carry bags!

These are seriously so awesome. They take about one hour to make, are cost free to make (unless you count random yarn you already have hanging around) and are a perfect gift for kids. Over the past six months or so I’ve given away loads of them, usually with some candy or other goody inside (because you can’t give a kid an empty bag, right?!). They fit comfortably over a child’s shoulder and are wonderful for collecting treasures at the beach, in the woods or in the yard because sand and dirt just fall right through the netting, leaving just the things that count most! And you don’t have to be a crochet expert to make them. All you need to know is single crochet, double crochet, chain and slip stitch. Want to find out how to make these sweet crochet carry bags? Then read on!

How to sew reusable produce bags

August 22, 2020November 10, 2015

I hate plastic bags. I really do. I hate the smell of them, how hard they are to open up the first time you use them, how easily they rip. I hate knowing what they’re made of and how long it takes for them to decompose. I hate how quickly they accumulate and I hate stories of sea creatures and birds eating them. Have you seen this video showing a seagull swallowing a plastic bag over 5 minutes that never seem to end? You should. It’s pretty horrifying.

I started making reusable produce bags years ago (you can see my first ones here) and I love them! Not only do they help me avoid using plastic bags for my fruits and veggies, I can also store my produce in the fridge inside the bags, because the fabric allows them to breathe. Over time, I’ve given them away as gifts and tried out different fabrics and sewing methods. And today, as the tutorial going along with the buttonhole lesson in my Learn to Machine Sew course for beginners, I’ll teach you how to make two types of reusable produce bags with drawstring closures!

But even if you’re not interested in making produce bags, I still suggest you try out this technique, because it’s always useful to know how to make a drawstring bag! And just to prove it, I’ll show you at the end of this post how to make some other cool drawstring bags for other uses using the same slightly modified techniques!

There are lots of ways to make drawstring bags, and these are only two of them. Because chiffon-like fabrics fray like crazy, I’ve designed these bags to have all edges enclosed inside the casing or french seams. Don’t worry, it’s actually really easy! Let’s get started!

DIY Necklace Hanger from Driftwood or a Giant Cane Root

September 16, 2019October 26, 2015

How to create a diy necklace hanger from a giant cane root or driftwood. No sewing or manual skills needed! www.cucicucicoo.com

My family just loves the beach and we always pick up some sort of natural treasure when we go. I am always drawn to driftwood, but usually don’t know how to use it. But when I found one particularly large giant cane root washed up on …

Glove animal tutorial: Upcycled Glovosaurs

September 4, 2021October 19, 2015

Jumping with Jurassic Joy! Upcycled Glovosaurs. Glove animal tutorial (dinosaur softies) by Sweater Doll for www.cucicucicoo.com

Today I’m so happy to back with my Cucicucicoo’s Eco Crafters and Sewing series with the one and only Allison from Sweater Doll! Allison is a US expat, like me, living in Australia and creates the best fabric dolls and softies ever. Seriously, next time …

DIY Flower pots from tin cans

February 29, 2016July 27, 2015

A wonderful thing about summer is being able to spend time gardening gorgeous flowers, delicious veggies and flavorful herbs. Well, at least you can if you have a garden! For those of us who live in an apartment, a few pots on the balcony and in the home have to suffice.

Today’s guest poster for the Cucicucicoo’s Eco Crafters and Sewers series is Cristina from Cri Erre Handmade. Cristina is an expert gardener, but also a lover of upcycling and organic foods. Today she will show us how to make a personalized flower pot from a simple tin can and a few other materials!

How to sew a refashioned DIY lace t-shirt top

July 4, 2015July 3, 2015

How to sew a DIY lace t-shirt top from an old tee! A sewing tutorial by Green Issues by Agy for www.cucicucicoo.com!

Welcome back to the newest tutorial in the Cucicucicoo’s Eco Crafters and Sewers series! If you follow me on Facebook, you might have seen my notice that, due to the transfer of my website’s hosting and domain to a better, FASTER, service, I wasn’t able to publish earlier this week. But now everything is back up and running better than ever, and I’m thrilled to have Agatha Lee from Green Issues by Agy as our guest today!

Agatha is an eco-designer and passionate environmental educator, combining her love for making and the environment. She previously worked as a policy maker at the National Environmental Agency, Singapore for over 10 years before founding Green Issues by Agy, where she transforms textile waste into creative wearables. She holds regular talks and shares how you can get more out of your old clothes at workshops such as Fix It Friday and DIY Your Clothes. Her current blog series is Fix It Friday and Fashion Designers Do Good.

You may remember Agy’s name because I was fortunate enough to participate in two of her fascinating blog trains, “I didn’t throw it away” and “Making good.” I love Agy’s ecological spirit which shines through in her creative re-use of materials. So, without further ado, here’s Agy’s tutorial for a lovely hand-sewn upcycled lace top using an old t-shirt and a mended piece of lace!

How to Sew a Felted Wool Pillow with Leaf Appliqué

September 23, 2020June 22, 2015

Tutorial: How to sew a felted wool cover with a leaf appliqué from old sweaters. Free template included! www.cucicucicoo.com

Today’s sewing project combines four of my favorite things: felted wool sweaters, DIY pillows, applique and free sewing patterns! Yes, get ready to sew your own felted wool pillow with a free pattern for leaf appliqué! This sewing tutorial and pattern are part of the …

How to sew a clutch bag from repurposed jeans

June 10, 2015June 8, 2015

Today’s guest for the Cucicucicoo’s Eco Crafters and Sewers series is the lovely Laura from Le Pecionate! I love the tireless spirit and sense of humor with with she approaches her projects, which, as the name in Roman dialect (from pecione, meaning “bungler”) says, don’t always come out perfectly. But in this age of Pinterest perfection, the motto of Le Pecionate (Laura and her friend Claudia) is spot on: “Done is better than perfect!” Well said, ladies! This is the real handmade spirit, and most importantly, to have fun!

But I would say that the name is a bit too much on the modest side, because this pair creates lots of really cute and useful things. And so let me free up the stage for Laura and her tutorial on how to sew a clutch bag from repurposed jeans!

Tutorial: upcycle egg cartons into Flower Fairies

May 28, 2015May 18, 2015

DIY tutorial: How to make Flower Fairies from upcycled egg cartons | a Mammabook tutorial for www.cucicucicoo.com

For our third guest post in the Cucicucicoo’s Eco Crafters and Sewers series, I’m thrilled to have Silvia from Mammabook! I’ve known this Italian mom living in Germany for years now, and it’s amazing how close you can feel to a person without ever having seen her before! I love her creative drive, always creating new things in her very own personal style. Feeling passionate about upcycling, she’s organized two editions of the Creative Recycling for Kids initiative (and I participated in both 2014 and 2013 with guest posts). She has a unique and whimsical drawing and painting style, which you can see in her Etsy shop, which features intricately painted rocks, which she turns into brooches, toys, magnets and more.

Silvia has created a tutorial for an incredible transformation of egg cartons, so let me show her in!

I’m so glad to have the chance today to write for a blog which I truly adore, and that I’ve been reading for such a long time; thank you, Lisa! I am also really happy because I’ve been invited to present a tutorial about creative recycling, and that’s definitely one of my favourite artistic topics.

There are a lot of recyclable materials out there, but egg carton boxes are for me among the most beautiful and flexible. Today I prepared for you an easy DIY to create decorative flower fairies, perfect for every season – wouldn’t they be cute also in red and white hanging from a Christmas tree?!

To make these fairies you’ll need wooden beads about one and half centimetres in diameter, beads about half a centimetre in diameter, string or twine, and, of course, egg carton boxes. Please place on your work space also watercolours and acrylics colours, a thin brush and a thicker one, scissors in various sizes, and a hot glue gun.

How to felt wool sweaters in the washing machine

February 4, 2019May 13, 2015

With summer just around the corner, it’s time to pack away all those warm woolies and bring out light hot-weather clothing. So what do you do with those sweaters with little moth holes or stains, or with the ones that are stretched out or a bit shrunken? Put them in a big pile and get ready to make some awesome crafting/sewing material because they’re perfect for machine felting!

Say what? Felted or boiled wool is super easy to make and can be used for a gazillion crafts and sewing purposes! It’s all natural and, by upcycling unwanted garments, you avoid wasting fabric and spending money on new supplies!

Everybody’s accidentally shrunk a wool garment at some point, so don’t deny that you have. Boiled wool is basically wool that’s been shrunk til it can be shrunk no more. This process changes the fabric completely, giving it totally new properties. Felted wool is super thick and warm, so it’s great for cold-weather clothing. It doesn’t fray, so it’s fantastic for crafting with or creating embellishments with unfinished edges. It’s also waterproof, so a fantastic natural resource for those who want to avoid synthetic waterproof materials in cloth diapers or menstrual pads. And some people simply prefer its thick and rough texture to that of regular knit wool.

So today’s Learn to Machine Sew lesson is not actually about machine sewing, but about creating an excellent fabric to sew with! If you want to learn more about how to felt wool sweaters in the washing machine and how you can use this fantastic material, just read on!

18 Mother’s Day DIY gift ideas with upcycling

May 11, 2017May 8, 2015

18 Mother's Day DIY gift ideas with upcycled materials: make a gift for little to nothing by repurposing materials! | www.cucicucicoo.com

Mother’s Day is right around the corner and, if you’re anything like I am, you want to make something for your mother, grandmother, mother-in-law, best friend who is also a mother, etc, but you haven’t even started yet and you probably don’t want to have to pay very much, either.

Well, don’t fear, because today I have gathered 18 great tutorials from around the internet with Mother’s Day DIY gift ideas made with upcycled materials! So choose one or two from this list, click on either the image or the links, and get to work!

Upcycle yogurt cups: Primrose flowers

April 20, 2015

Here we are for the second guest post for my Cucicucicoo’s Eco Crafters and Sewers series! Last time we had a refashion, and this time an upcycle with my friend Silvia Brentegani from Tocco di Lìllà! I’ve known Silvia in the blog world for years, but we’ve never met in person, although, strangely enough, she met up with my mother a couple of years ago and took her around Venice!

Silvia is passionate about creative recycling (but also about crochet, sewing and mosaic), which she uses in projects for the home, accessories and jewelry for adults and children. She likes to observe materials and objects that could end up as trash and transform them into something once again useful. She arranges courses, lessons and meet-ups to experiment and learn more about reusing plastic, fabric, paper and more. What’s her wish? To help leave the world a little better than she found it!

A recurring theme of Silvia’s is upcycling yogurt containers to create snowflakes, flowers, candle holders and a wide variety of decorations. (You can see them here.) I’m always amazed at what she manages to make out of this material and this is why I asked her more than a year ago, when I started thinking about this series, to create a tutorial with them for me. And so, now let me pass you on to Silvia, who will show us how to upcycle yogurt cups and fruit nets to make primroses!

Tutorial: Make Easy Recycled Crowns for Kids

January 12, 2017April 6, 2015

Happy Easter Monday! Hope you had a lovely day yesterday! And if you have children, I’m sure you now have insane amounts of candy and chocolate in your home. Here in Italy there’s no Easter Bunny, but kids get these huge chocolate eggs with a little gift inside. The eggs are wrapped in big squares of fabric or, more commonly, foil wrapping, similar to the type used for gift wrapping.

It drives me nuts to have to throw away all of that wrapping, so I always flatten and fold it the best I can, and put it aside for wrapping future gifts or, as my kids prefer, for making easy recycled crowns that are shiny and fun! Oh, and did I say easy? Well, let me say it again, because you get a LOT of kid satisfaction from this 5-minute project! And it’s pretty mamma-satisfying, too, because by using upcycled materials, it’s totally free! Woohoo!

In order to make these crowns you need:

a big sheet of upcycled foil wrapping (from Easter eggs or gift wrap)
strips of lightweight cardboard (in Naples, they put these in packages of fresh pastries to keep the wrapping from touching the gorgeous creams and other decorations, but you can use any bendable cardboard)
glue
a big paintbrush
scissors
a stapler (not pictured)
permanent markers
glitter glue.

Let’s get started!

Crochet T Shirt Yarn Baskets: Four Styles

April 10, 2015March 13, 2015

So, what do you do when you’ve accumulated way too many old, ugly, worn-out, stained or otherwise ruined t-shirts and other jersey clothing items?

Easy! You cut them up into strips and wind up your lovely new balls of t shirt yarn! (Read how in this post from nearly five years ago!)

There are all sorts of fun ways to knit or crochet with this upcycled yarn, such as a squishy knitted bathroom rug (and I will add that the rug in that post is still in near-perfect condition despite the fact that it gets used a lot and doesn’t get treated delicately).

This past summer I decided to turn that pile of unwanted clothing into upcycled yarn, and crochet T shirt yarn baskets for my loved ones in the United States. But I couldn’t just stick with one type of basket, oh no! That would’ve been much too boring for my over-active mind and fingers. So I ended up making four different styles. Earlier this week I wrote about a couple of knit projects, so now let me tell you about these crochet projects!

Sew a bathroom rug… from towels and sheets!

February 29, 2016January 19, 2015

How to sew bathroom rugs from upcycled towels and sheets! Fast, easy and ecofriendly! | www.cucicucicoo.com

I just love making my own bathroom rugs! They’re small so they’re generally fast to make and I just love the feeling of a squishy bathmat under my feet when I get out of the shower! So we have quite the collection of bathroom mats that I’ve made over the years. Ages ago I showed you how to knit a bathroom rug from strips of old t-shirts, and that rug is still one of our favorites. Then I sewed a bunch of rugs from upcycled towels and bedsheets (and then realized the hard way that it makes much more sense to zig-zag the edges to avoid fraying). And after that I made some smaller mats with feet for my daughter and I to use in the locker room at the pool. (She no longer takes swimming lessons, but I am still going strong and still use both of those mats myself.)

However I never created a real tutorial on how to sew these bathmats and decided to do so as the practical tutorial for the latest lesson in the Learn to Machine Sew series: the zig zag stitch!

And another great thing about this project is that you just need old towels and bedsheets (or whatever other cotton fabic instead of sheets). So if you raid your linen closet and clean out things you don’t need anymore, these rugs are totally free to make! Yah! I used part of an old sheet that I’d already cut up to sew a cover for my husband’s amplifier, scraps of a green towel (that I used for the pool footmats) and a hand-me-down hooded towel for babies that was wearing too thin for me to feel comfortable with handing down to someone else.

In this tutorial I will show you how to make rugs in two different styles, but you can really personalize these however you want: stripes, circles, swirls, shapes, letters… I suggest you take a look at the other posts that I linked to in the first paragraph of this post to get an idea of some options. You could also make a rectangle with a curve cut out of one long side to put around the base of the toilet. The sky’s the limit!

Today I’ll show you how to make a bathroom rug with stripes and a smaller rug with two circles to put your pet’s food dishes on! In theory it’s the kids’ job to feed and water the cat each evening before bed, so I thought it would make it fun for them to center the dishes on the circles, which are also handy for soaking up the water which always ends up sloshing out of the water dish! Let’s get started!

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