Repurpose Jewelry

Beads are the only organized thing in my life, besides my pasta.

I have this lovely chunky necklace that unfortunately I never wear because I'm not much of a fashion risk-taker. One day it had mysteriously snapped it's little chain (It was assassinated at the bottom of my purse at one point), so I decided to turn it into something else.

 Was going to use this embroidery thread as well, but saving it for next week instead ;)

I've been on a bracelet kick lately so thought I would give it a go, and if it doesn't work I can always turn the bits into pendants for another necklace, earrings or maybe even a ring?

First things first, check out the necklace...

They say pictures that are off-kilter distract the viewer from their inadequacy...

This is only a small portion of it, it's one of those long necklaces and this diamond type beading repeats one other time. It's really quite pretty but I just never had an occasion to wear it.

Using my needle-nose pliers I opened the ring connecting all the beads, and just hooked them up to the next bead I wanted to connect. I ended up with a small-big-small-big pattern in the end. I saved the biggest diamond type bead for use in other projects.

Almost wish this was a candy necklace.

I took a large jump ring and clasp (they were silver unfortunately) and connected the opposite ends of the bracelet, using my pliers again.

Sorry for the claw.

In the end I got a sassy little bracelet that I've been wearing non-stop...

 It's very hard to find surfaces to photograph in my house... This is a wall.

And a necklace!

 The daylight was dying at this point, sorry for the creepy "internet-chat" setting.

And there's tons of beads left over for another project, any suggestions?

Recycle Yo Bacon Grease

I don't know if you guys know this about me, but I'm fairly obsessed with bacon. I get bacon related gifts every birthday and Christmas, I have a bacon fact-a-day calender at my desk, I even have an "I Heart Bacon" sticker on my car.
This past weekend I came into a great deal of bacon grease (Making BLTs for a party). You can't throw grease down the drain, so you're supposed to pour it in a disposable container, freeze it, and toss it when it hardens.
When I looked at the little can of grease all hardened up I realized it looked a lot like a candle. So much so that I started researching a D.I.Y. bacon candle recipe, only to find out you can pretty much jam a wick in there and call it a day. No mixing with candle wax or anything like that.
SO, I gathered supplies and picked my container:

Heated up my double boiler that is used for making regular candles, and poured a tiny bit of grease in the bottom of the container to hold the wick down.

Let it harden (It takes awhile so put it in the fridge), pour the rest of the delicious grease in there and find a way to keep the wick straight. I used chopsticks.

Let that set for awhile, and you have your very own bacon candle! Ready to light in the morning and trick everyone into thinking there's bacon on the table, BWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA!
But seriously it smells so delicious unlit I'm almost scared to test it out...

Headboard Out of My Mind

Get excited guys, because this month I actually made a craft someone would want to replicate!
I'm somewhat of a hippie, so even though I've been living at my apartment for 3 years I still don't have a bed frame or a headboard. I've seen so many projects of people that created their own headboards and thought, "Dude, I can totally make that."

So for the past few weeks I've been gathering supplies such as discounted particle board and 2x4's from Home Depot, batting and green high-density foam from Joann Fabric's (My alma mater), and pretty buttons and fabric from my family.

The measurements for all these materials are as follows:
1 piece particle board, 2' x 4' (Discounted because the edges were a bit squiffy)
2  boards about 1/2" thick and 4' long (Also discounted because they were a teeny bit warped)
1 inch thick high density foam, 2' x 4'
2 pieces of high loft batting, 54" x 36"
Giant piece of fabric (You'll want at least 5-6 inches on every side of the piece your making for stapling purposes)
Staple gun and 3/8" staples (In retrospect I would've gotten at least 1/2" staples, it was hard to get all that fabric underneath them)
Upholstery needle, upholstery thread, buttons, skewers (To anchor the thread on the back of the headboard), drill and drill bits (Thanks to Aaron Corp.)...

I prepped the headboard by measuring and drilling where I wanted my tufts to go. I decided to go small and only have 6. If you don't have a drill you can use a pegboard for the base, but they only come in 1/4" thickness and it makes it a bit wobbly. Drill the hole as small as you can, because when you start pulling and anchoring things through them it just makes the whole situation stronger.

Aaron Corp. has a whole mess of mystery items in the basement including a popcorn maker, crockpot and entire drill set! Who knew?

 This is called measuring... You do it twice...

Zombie sneakers.

 Baby Bell, inspecting the materials. Clearly they did not pass code.

 I ironed my fabric and laid it out on the biggest work surface I have, my living room floor.

 

Don't worry, I swept.

Then the batting and the foam:

 Predators was playing in the background for this whole project.

I folded the edges of the batting underneath to give the edges of the headboard a little more cushion.

I laid the board on top of the whole shabang and started folding the fabric in to be stapled to the back.

 Just like making a sandwich.

Please ignore my ashen claws.

 This was the fun part, I've always wanted to ignore the safety warnings on a staple gun!

From there a neat little tuck and fold to create the corners. I ended up having so much batting that the corners puffed out a little bit more than I wanted, so you just have to experiment with it to get it the way you like. If the batting is giving you too much trouble feel free to cut out a square right a the corner to lessen the bulk.
I didn't fold the corner all the way in like wrapping a present because that made the corner waaaay too bulky, so instead I went with this semi fold.

 This was more like making a gift than a sandwich.

I try to include my hands in posts as little as possible, but sometimes it's unavoidable.

 Staple, staple, staple allll over that beast. No such thing as too many staples. Try to staple farther away from the edges so that if you need to tighten the edges up in any sections, you can pull the fabric taut and just staple a little closer to the edge to even the whole thing out.

Whose couch is that? Jeez some people are just peegs...

 I then screwed my small boards to the back to prop up the headboard. I did some rough measurements, but in all honesty I haven't gotten my bedframe yet so I'll have to change the height eventually. You can always unscrew them and try again.

 This is going to be my picket sign. I'm not sure what I'm protesting yet.

 Recognize that gorgeous creature in the background?

 Now for the sewing portion of our day. I almost stopped right here because I thought this looked nice, but Aaron Corp. encouraged me to keep going because it would look nicer. And if a guy tells you something will look nicer, I think it's generally a good idea to keep going.

These are the hors d'oeuvres at the Hearst mansion.

 Broke up some skewers and found some pretty buttons. Using my upholstery needle and thread, I sewed each button to the front of the headboard through the holes I had made earlier.

 

Bing.

 

Bang.

 

Boom.

I used the skewers to tie the knot around to keep the buttons really sunk in on the front of the headboard. Some people use staples to anchor the thread, doing a lot of criss-crossing on the back to get them really tight. But I was so tired of using that gun at this point I just did this instead. It's easier if you tape the skewers to the board while you're tying the knot. It'll be easy to redo if the buttons ever fall out as well.

 When my laziness rears her head I get real creative.

I just noticed this looks like a belly button.

Four bellybuttons!

I had toyed with the idea of making the fabric brown so this would look like a chocolate bar :)