Upcycled Christmas Decoration: Clear Industrial Tube Light...Thing

All right, Guys...This one isn't necessary a DIY for the masses, but maybe it'll give you an idea!

So, remember when I got those awesome tables and cabinet for my craft room? (Click here if you need a refresher.) Well, I didn't tell you at the time, but I also grabbed this weird, clear industrial cylindrical thing off the trailer as well. It is from Duke Power, so who knows what it is actually used for! (If Shirley Coley reads this, maybe she can ask Eddy what it is actually for!)

Anyways, as soon as I saw it, I knew I could turn it into a Christmas decoration!

The first step was to remove the paper.

Then, I wiped it down to get all the dust off.

Okay, so basically, I was just going to stick Christmas lights into it and call it a day. You really don't have to read any more, because that's exactly what I did! 

Anyways, there is one important step that you shouldn't miss in the off chance you find one of these cylinders and are dying to make one yourself!

So, first of all, I looked at both ends and found that there was a little broken notch on one end. That was perfect. That was where the electrical chord would come out at the bottom.

Then, took a piece of brown foam and put the tube upright onto it. The cylinder's weight created a circular depression, so I put glue just inside that line. Notice, that I didn't glue all the way around. This is because I would need to fish the wall plug through this opening. 

(This foam was to protect the floor from scratches when I put it onto the hardwood in the living room.

Precautions like this one help a person stay married.)

Here you can see that I put the notch in the center of the un-glued part.

Then, I stood it up on a flat surface and let it dry for a few minutes.

Then, I fed the light strand down into the tube, laid the tube on its side and fished the plug out the opening in the circle. When I sat it back upright, I made sure that the chord was resting in the notch. (Incidentally, they are LED lights.)

So then, I carried it to its destination (the living room, beside the fire place) and plugged it in. I fed a few more lights into the tube but kept about 1/3 of the lights hanging out.

With 1/3 of the lights still hanging out, I got a plastic butter knife and hung the remaining 1/3 over it. Then, I fed the 1/3 into the tube. (The butter knife kept the lights from falling all the way into the tube.)

The finished project. Pretty unique and minimalist, wouldn't you say?

Do you like our Charlie Brown tree? This is about as Christmas-y as I get!

What weird household items do you have laying around that you can repurpose?

The End!!!

Refashioning: Turning an Old Lady Shirt Backwards. . .Literally!

I frequent my Goodwill on the weekends because all tags of a predetermined color are only a dollar! Honestly, most of the clothes you see in this blog. . .and on my person. . .come from this rack. Anyways, I'm always on the lookout for my "Type 4" colors, and my green in particular because it's my favorite. When I find it, I usually just buy it--even if the item is gross--because I love this color, and I know I can turn it into something else. I hope. . .as always, that this post gives you some ideas!

Here is an old lady shirt I found the other day. 

It's that really weird crinkly, yet stretchy, polyester fabric. It's usually really horrid, but on this particular shirt, the color really shines--almost sparkles. I can't stop looking at it. These pictures don't do it justice. (My camera has a hard time with greens, unfortunately.) Just picture the boldest green you have ever seen, and. . .that's it!

The first step was to cut the shoulder pads out!

Then, I cut the collar off.

Then, the sleeves.

Next, I pinned and sewed up the button placket. 

This used to be the front, but I wanted the buttons in the back, so I pinned it to the back of my dress form and used the form as my pattern. (This is actually a technic of pattern making called "draping" because you drape and pin the fabric onto a form and then cut away everything that doesn't lie flat. I don't do it very often, but I probably should. It worked really well.)

I also draped the front (which used to be the back).

Next, I worked on the sleeves. For this, I did my usual cheating method of cutting around sleeves of a shirt I already knew fit me well.

I sewed up the sides of the sleeves.

Then, I pinned the two bodice pieces together and sewed them.

I added elastic to the tops of the shoulders as reinforcement. This fabric is super stretchy and I didn't want the shoulders to stretch out. I've noticed this method on factory-made shirts I own. Turn your garments inside out sometimes! You can learn a lot!

I pinned , then sewed, the sleeves to the bodice.

Then, I sewed some black stretchy fabric to the neckline, but. . .I guess I forgot to take a picture. (I get ahead of myself sometimes and forget that blog posts need pictures. . .Tons of my projects never even make it on here because I forget to take pictures. . .Oops.)

Okay, so. . .It kinda looks like Star Trek, but. . .I love Star Trek (especially Mr. Spock, may he rest in peace), so I'm okay with that!

I added a leather Peter Pan collar necklace that I made (example of a project I never photographed), and wore it with a jumper so I wouldn't look like a Starship Trooper.

The End!

Refashioning: Making Clothing More Functional - Two Okay Dresses into One Great One

Okay, so at first glance, you might wonder what is wrong with these two dresses. They are both perfect Type 4s and seem to be exactly my style. Well, honestly, this is just a personal preference thing to me. This is what I find wrong with them: The dress on the left is just boring to me. I have a couple other hounds tooth dresses that I end up wearing when I am in the hounds tooth mood, so this one always gets neglected. The dress on the right is actually a weird tunic thing and while it looks great in the picture right here, scroll down one.

See??? Who designed this? The pleats billow out right at the boobs, making the wearer have absolutely NO SHAPE!

I am actually a fan of a good Korean hanbok, which also cut off at the boobs, but this dress is trying to attempt the same thing but with slinky fabric, so the result is an epic fail. However, I LOVE the red polka dots, so let the harvesting begin!

So, if you remember my blog post about turning dresses into skirts, you will remember that the placement of your zipper is very important before you start cutting. In this case, I was harvesting the top of the hounds tooth dress, so I made sure that the zipper was zipped all the way up.

Also really important: I cut below the bodice and left about 1/2 an inch of the skirt part. This is to allow for seam allowance.

To free the polka dots, I cut the skirt off the. . .can I even call it a bodice? Anyways, you will notice the skirt part has those pleats and if I had cut into the skirt, I would have had to re-pleat them, so I cut into the "bodice" part up 1/2 an inch to allow for seam allowance and also to save having to re-pleat the skirt.

See the line of black at the top? That's the seam allowance I'm talking about.

Then, I pinned the first bodice to the second skirt.

I used my quilt seam allowance measurement thingie (I don't know technical terms sometimes. . .It's that metal arm thing next to the outside of the fabric) to keep a steady measurement of an inch seam allowance.

The finished dress.

Okay, so the belly is still a little pouchy, but at least the skirt starts well under the chest, so you can see that the wearer has a shape! I will definitely wear this dress more often! 

                           It may not be your cup of tea, but hopefully you got an idea from it!

                                                                             The End!

Refashioning: NO SEW! Making Clothing More Functional - Dress into Skirt

Here is a "no sew" version of my last blog post about turning hard-to-wear clothing into more functional pieces. 

(Before I begin, I need to mention that you can do the same method as the aforementioned post if you peel off one side of iron-on adhesive tape and--after cutting the bodice off--iron the tape onto the inside of the top of your waist hem. Then, remove rest of the backing off the tape, fold the hem down once, and then iron the fold. The only problem will be around the zipper if your dress has one, you may have to take the old sewing needle and thread to that part to tack it down.)

Here is a second method and it requires no tool skills except cutting with scissors! The only thing is that it can only be done on dresses with elastic waist bands and no zippers.

For this type of dress, the waist band is not only already cinched in with elastic, but also, the band has been finished on both sides, so all we need to do to turn it into a skirt is to cut the bodice away from the skirt. Cut as closely to the waist band as you can with out cutting into the waist band.

 

Hopefully this picture is clearer.

A close up of the waist band. You can barely tell that anything was cut because the waist band is already finished!

Finished skirt! It took less than five minutes!

The End!