Spring Flowers Mobile From Plastic Bottles

I finished my spring flowers mobile quite some time ago, but things have been so hectic nowadays that I didn’t get time to post it till now.

Can you guess what these flowers are made of?? (Of course you can – that’s plain evident) These were made of plastic bottles!

Recycling is the new buzz around the Blogland, and I’m into it as well. So this time it was plastic bottles – did you know that only 20% of the overall plastic bottles are recycled ever?

That seemed just so awful, and I decided my next project would be from plastic bottles- everyone has so many of them around! So here’s the final product: Spring Flowers Mobile!

I’ll be honest – the flower making takes some time and lots of patience. But I guess all of us ought to recycle things in our own style. If you decide to make this, then you will need:

Plastic bottles –lots and lots (I used about 20)

An old butter or normal knife 

Strong scissors with teeth or Exacto knife

Acrylic Paints

Fishing line thread

Embroidery or metal hoop

Satin Ribbon

Lets get started! In order to cut flower shapes we need to poke a hole at the bottom of the neck of bottle. Some choose to drill a hole, but I hate heavy machinery, so I found an old blunt buttering knife which I put onto the stove flame for around 30 seconds, and poked into the desired place on the bottle..it does melt a hole as if plastic is merely butter!

Easy Peasy! Now draw some flower petals around the bottle’s mouth and cut them by inserting your strong teethed scissors through the hole you just poked. This does take some effort in the starting stage, but slowly you get the hang of it. Don’t these flowers look very cute?

I also used the flower shaped base of the bottles by cutting around the shape. The middle part of the bottle looked like it could be used as well so I drew some flower shape on the middle part of the bottle as well and cut it.

Now for the fun part. Paint the flowers in your favorite colors..I guess its not difficult to guess which is mine!            
Right, I love blue! Now pile the flowers over each other the way you want them to hang from the mobile:                    
Now take a strong needle and thread it with some fishing line. Poke a hole through the piled flowers like this:         
Decide the length of the flowers to hang from the mobile and knot the ends accordingly.  Repeat the same for all the flowers.
Now take one flower pile at a time and knot the upper end of the fishing line onto the embroidery or metal hoop.  After you finish knotting all the flower threads, take a longish piece of satin ribbon, glue an end to the hoop and begin rolling it around the hoop. for more precise instructions regarding the making of a mobile, go here.
Now cut four equal lengths of ribbon and insert them into four opposite corners of the hoop so that they hold the hoop securely. Tie a knot and hang your mobile from a hook. 


There, isn’t it pretty! Some might not find it that pleasant, but I’m mighty proud of my recycling skills!

I'm going to join fab parties this time, but sorry that I can't include all the party buttons as it makes the posts look very cluttered. I'll just be including the link to the party now on..hope that's okay with the party organizers!!

Market Yourself Monday @Sumo's Sweet Stuff

Whatever Goes Wednesday @Someday Crafts
Make it Yours Day @My Backyard Eden
Penny Pinching Party @The Thrifty Home
Craft Schooling Sunday @Creative Jewish Mom
Show off your Stuff Party @Fireflies and Jellybeans
Get your Craft On Thursday @Life As Lori
Strut Your Stuff Thursday @Somewhat Simple
Great Idea Day @Infarrantly Creative
Craft Concotions Friday @That's So Cuegly
Creative Cats @Poppies At Play
Weekend Wrap Up Party @Tattertots And Jello

Fabric Scraps to Switch Plate Covers – Say goodbye to lifeless switch plates

I give up. There’s no point hiding it. I love colors. I tried keeping to neutral colors, but I just can’t keep off coloring anything and everything!

And I just cannot bring myself to throw away the remnant fabric scraps from any project. They are stashed away in hope of a reuse. The other day I noticed some scraps of a lovely fabric with pink and red patterns like cherry blossoms. My bedroom walls are alternatively pink and red, too, so I knew what I’d do with these. The husband cringed yesterday as I said I wanted to color up the switch plates,  like this:

But I did go on doing this, anyways, for I hated this drab white look of the switch plates:

So I transformed them to colorful and cheery looking by gluing some fabric scraps onto them. Isn’t that a great idea? All you need to do to make these beauties is a few fabric scraps remaining from your previous project which also coordinate with your walls. Simple as that!

You will need:

And of course, fabric glue or Mod Podge…Did you ever come across a project that needs only that many items?

Now proceed! Measure the dimensions of your switch plates, and size the fabric scraps into strips of suitable size. Note that you will need to leave some allowance if your switchboard is in an angular shape like mine. Those with straight switchboards can relax.

Now  glue or Mod Podge all over your switch plate carefully so that none of it goes into the cracks (If it does go into the cracks, then you can kiss the circuit goodbye!). 

Cover with the fabric strips on all sides. It is okay to let the strips overlap sometimes, it wouldn’t be visible. Let dry.

We’re done! So fast and easy, and adds such dash of color to the room!

 
Got some fabric scraps? Bring them on, Ladies!

Linked to these fab parties..come join the fun!
Tip me Tuesday @Tip Junkie
Great Idea Day @Infarrantly Creative


Its So Very Creative @ Its So Very Cherie
Market Yourself Monday @Sumo's Sweet Stuff


Whatever Goes Wednesday @Someday Crafts
Show and Tell @Blue Cricket Design

Butterfly and Glass Gem Mobile - I'm in love with it!

I've been busy since a few days, making....THIS! Click on the picture to get a better view, as these pics do not do justify the beauty of this mobile. But then I think any project involving butterflies is a beauty! 

Butterflies fascinate me..I'm obsessed with them. Makes me wonder why I never posted any projects related to butterflies, but here I am anyways with an alluring mobile with butterfly and glass gems. One can find butterfly mobiles all over the blogland, but I wanted to make a difference by adding some glass gems or pebbles which shine and shimmer prettily, thus creating a nice ambience.

Here is how its done! You will need:

You can do it with just one hoop if all you desire is a single tier mobile, or two hoops for making it double- tiered. I intended to make a two- tiered mobile, but was too lazy ran out of time so made a single tier. That looks good too!

 I cut all the butterflies in 4 different wall papers all by myself (took me 2 days to cut over a 100 flutters!). You can choose coordinated colors, but I went totally berserk and chose a wild combination of red, white, pink and blue, and colorful glass pebbles. I found a fabulous butterflies template HERE! Thanks Lolly!

Lets get started! Place your hoop on a flat surface and mark the distance at which you would like the strands of the mobile to be. Should not be too far or near ideally. Mine had around 25 strands.

Do not worry about the visibility of the marks, we shall cover them later.

Now take your yarn ball and cut the individual strands. Decide the length of the mobile according to where it will be hanged. Leave an extra allowance of 5 inches on each strand length. My mobile was 25 inches long, so I cut 25 30 inch strands (Huge, yes!).

Now start working on individual strands. Note that glass gems are heavy, and should be ideally glued onto something wider, as we don't want a pebble falling suddenly onto a child, do we? So for a long-lasting glue bond for the glass pebble, follow these steps to make a 'seat' for the pebble where you could glue it:

Make a simple knot onto the yarn strand at the distance of 4 inches from one of the ends.

Make these knots all over the strand at a regular interval of say, 5 inches. The more the use of pebbles, the prettier you mobile will turn!

Now put a dab of tacky glue or hot glue over the 'seat' and press the pebble onto it. There, let dry and it is permanently stuck. Here's how the strand looks like after this step:

Do this to all the 25 strands. Now for the butterflies! Glue the flutters in between the pebbles. See to it that the distances are more or less equal.

Needs some patience, I know, but the result is worth it! Repeat the above for all the strands. Here were some of the finished strands. Let dry.

Now temporarily hang your embroidery hoop from a hanger or suspend it from wires like me. Take the strands and tie them one after the other onto the marked place on the hoop.

Nearly there! Use a coordinated satin ribbon to cover the ugly hoop and the knots. I used pieces of red and pink ribbons. Simply glue one end of the ribbon onto the frame and keep on rolling and wrapping around. Keep gluing at regular intervals. 

Now the final act! Insert 4 equally wide and long ribbons and tie them together to form a hoop to hang. Now hang it from your chosen spot with a hook or chandelier. Our dining room looked like it needed some dash of color so I hung it from our pretty chandelier.

I love to gaze at it while the lights are on!

LOVE this!!

Linked to these lovely parties!

Its So Very Creative @ Its So Very Cherie

Market Yourself Monday @ Sumo's Sweet Stuff
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 Made-it-Monday  @ The Persimmon Perch 



Whatever Goes Wednesday @Someday Crafts
Show and Tell @ Blue Cricket Design