Sunday, April 22, 2018

Make an Upcycle Magazine Paper Basket for Earth Day

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This is a re-post of a tutorial I did a couple of years ago on how to make a basket using magazine paper for Earth Day that's celebrated on April 22nd! I love recycling items from around the house to make craft items all year long! This basket is one of my favorite pieces and I love how it is still in great shape and still pretty to look at!

 There are so many crafts that you can make to celebrate Earth Day.  It's a great time to look around your home and see what you've collected to repurpose into something new. 

I keep a decorative container filled with magazines in my bedroom. I love looking at them over and over to get inspiration and sometimes use in recycle/upcycle projects.  I remember seeing a basket  made of coiled magazine strips shaped into open squares that looked so different and unique.  I filed that image away intending one day to create something like it.
It has taken awhile to finally put the basket together.  I actually started it last year, got discouraged, and put it away. A craft group that I belong to decided to do a blog hop on earth day crafts and I knew the magazine basket would be perfect for the event.
You really don't need a lot of supplies to make this adorable basket :

Magazine pages
Small square container
White glue
Wood skewer
Scissors
Hot glue gun
Mod podge
Cardboard
Begin by making the magazine tubes that will be shaped into squares.  Since this is an Earth Day project, I cut out only green & blue pattern magazine pages - green for grass, blue for sky. Cute, eh!  Fold the page in half lengthwise, and then fold in half again. Cut along the folds into four even strips. 
Take a skewer stick and place it on the corner edge of the magazine at an angle.
Then take the end tip of the page over the skewer and start rolling the paper on the stick until you get near the end. You might have to lift the paper up to tighten the roll by twirling the stick.  It takes a bit of practice to make tight tubes. 

Add white glue to the triangular edge and roll to the end. Flatten the finished tube. 
You will need to make lots and lots of tubes for this basket.
Next, take a small square container (I used an empty salt shaker) and wrap a tube around it a few times. Connect additional tubes, if needed, by adding a little white glue on end and inserting into opening of wrapped tube. 
 Seal end with hot glue.
You will need 54 magazine paper squares to assemble this basket.
To assemble, connect the squares in groups of three for each side. Apply hot glue along the connecting edges and press together. Then cut smaller strips of rods and wrap around the connecting sides and hot glue in place.  
For the shorter two sides, three rows of three squares were glued together and wrapped.
For the longer sides, and bottom, four rows of three squares were glued together, wrapped. 
All corners were connected in the same manner to form the basket.
Next, cardboard was measured and cut-out slightly smaller than the bottom of the basket, mod podge on both sides with magazine paper, and inserted inside the basket to prevent contents from falling out.



And finally, five magazine tubes were woven together to make the handle. You can see a full tutorial on how to weave here.  The ends of the handle were wrapped around the center square, hot glued together and secured with a piece of magazine tube and hot glue.


The basket can be sealed with mod podge or gorilla wood glue that dries clear.
This handcrafted upcycled magazine basket is perfect for showing off a huge array of items, one of which are beautiful spring flowers.


Thanks for stopping by,
                                                                           

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Paper Towel Tube Rose DIY

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Welcome to the March Pinterest Challenge Blog Hop, hosted by My Pinterventures.  If you aren't familiar with the Pinterest Challenge, it's a monthly event that challenges us to not just be pin hoarders, but to actually make it happen! 

So, for this month I chose to make a rose out of empty paper towel tubes and use it to dress up a cardboard container.  My pin inspiration happens to be roses made from empty toilet tissue rolls. I fell in love with the design shape and thought it quite different from the usual toilet roll crafts. I chose to use paper towel rolls instead because some think using toilet rolls in crafts might be unsanitary - although you can now buy something called paper craft tubes that look just like the real thing at craft stores. Also, I tweaked the method used to my liking just a bit in making the rose! 

This post contains links to products, if you purchase something after clicking on my link I may earn a small commission to help with my craft expenses (at no extra cost to you).Thank you!
To start, you'll just need a few items you probably already have:
  • Empty paper towel/toilet rolls
  • Flower pattern
  • Pencil
  • Scissors
  • Paint (gold leaf)
  • Skewer stick
  • Hot glue gun/glue sticks
Begin by cleaning off any paper residue on the tubes with a damp cloth and let dry.
This is a picture of the toilet paper roll rose  I admired on Pinterest. Pretty and perfect, isn't it? Too perfect, in my opinion, for a toilet paper roll flower!
And below is a copy of the pattern that was used to make the rose. I just couldn't see how the petals in the rose became so wavy and smooth using a plain pattern like this. I know the edges were curled but you can see how wrinkled the paper roll is, and it is rather rough, not smooth, to start.

So I drew and cut out a six petal flower pattern with curvy edges to help compensate the wavy look.

And then outlined it on flatten paper tubes .  .  .

 and cut out five flower pieces.
 To begin forming the rose, I cut out one petal from the six petal flower .  .  . 
 and use it to .  .  . 
 roll into a closed cone shape for the center of the rose.
 Next, I cut out two petals from a six petal flower to use as the first layer of the rose.

 Then, cut the flower in half  to shape the second layer.  
 The third layer is the four petal cut out.
And the fourth layer, is the five petal cut out.
The 5th layer is the full six petal flower. I made additional 1" cuts toward the center on each petal to make them easier to curl. Have you ever tried to curl a toilet paper roll? Well, a paper towel roll isn't any easier! It can crack and bend, especially where it's connected and divided if you aren't careful! How on earth is that pin rose so smooth and pretty?


Anyway, since I'm using my rose to decorate the top of a cardboard container, I painted all the pieces, including the box, in gold leaf to look like metal. And curled the petal edges after they dried, using a skewer stick.


 To assemble, I glued the first layer together at the side edges, adding additional glue to the middle and inserted the center piece (which I had to cut almost in half, to fit)
Next, the second layer was glued together at the edges, and the first layer inserted and glued down into the middle of layer two.

 Layer three was glued together at edges and layer two inserted and glued down into the middle of layer 3. Continue gluing together remaining layers, four and five and inserting previously glued layer in the middle until all layers are glued together for a completed, beautiful rose.
 To attach the rose to the top of the gold leaf painted box, glue down an additional full rose layer on top and .  .  .

 glue the completed rose to the center top layer that's there.

I'm really loving this paper towel tube rose look! 
And the gold leaf makes it all look like a beautiful metal container!
Just perfect in any décor!
My only caveat for this pin is that the paper tube flower is not as smooth 
and curvy as the original pinned rose appears to be in the photos. There may be a few cracks and nubs along the way. But it's very attractive and worth making none the less! Perfect for any project you might have!

Now let’s see what other Awesome things Pinterest inspired! Head over and visit the other hosts to see what they crafted, cooked, built, or tried!

Pinterest Challenge Blog Hop


Erlene - My Pinterventures  Lauren - Mom Home Guide








 Debra - Shoppe No. 5








Cherryl - Farm Girl Reformed  Kelley - Simply Inspired Meals 






Samantha - Little Bits of Home Kristie - Teadoddles  

An InLinkz Link-up

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Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Monday, April 9, 2018

Twisted Paper Napkin Flower Motifs on Cardboard Box

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Welcome again to our Monthly Challenge Blog Hop! I've joined a group of creative bloggers to bring you a themed monthly challenge blog hop on the 2nd Monday of each month! For April, the challenge is to upcycle cardboard, paper or wood. 
That sounds pretty easy if you think about all the paper, cardboard and wood  that's thrown away every second of the day! We all can make the world a bit better just by upcycling a few of these items instead of trashing them!

For this month's challenge using paper and cardboard, I'm showing you how to twist paper napkins to outline flower motifs on a cardboard container and top, while adding wrapping paper cutouts for a decorative effect!

I'm always on the look out for unusual wrapping paper - especially with the color purple in it, so when I found matching paper napkins at a different store a few months later, I was beside myself and grabbed them up! I thought the combination would make a great craft item but I didn't have a clue as to how. And to tell you a little secret, I'm still not so sure. I did manage to use some of the wrapping paper in an earlier project. But combining the two - napkins and wrapping paper - well let's see what I came up with!
Materials: 
 Paper napkins
Wrapping paper
Cardboard box
Acrylic paint/brush
Scissors
Hand towel
Parchment paper
Flower pattern/tracing carbon paper/pen
Aileen's Quick Grab Glue


To begin, I already had a cardboard box in my stash that I got on clearance for 97 cents .  .  .
 that I painted a shade of pink to blend with the floral print of the napkins and wrapping paper. I tried different shades of purple paint, but pink was the best choice.
While the painted box and top were drying, I cut a napkin into one inch strips.
Next, I dampened a bath hand towel with water, wringing out any excess water.  Then, after smoothing the towel down on my work surface, placed a napkin strip on top - patting it down gently to absorb the moisture from the towel.
After the napkin strip becomes damp, fold in half lengthwise with the pattern facing out and begin twisting the strip between forefingers and thumbs .  .  .
until the entire length is twisted. Repeat for all of the cut napkin strips.
 Lay the twisted napkin strips on parchment paper until completely dry. You'll find that they are soft and very pliable!

Next, you'll need to either free hand draw a flower motif or print out a free pattern found online to trace. I wanted a flower with six petals so I sketched a simple one to outline, scanned to save and printed it out. 

Then I placed the pattern over carbon tracing paper and traced onto the front, back and the top of the box. 

Next, I outlined the flower petals (one at a time) using quick grab tacky glue.

Then began pressing down the napkin twist on top of the glue, following the flower pattern. Any excess glue around the napkin twists can be easily removed using parchment paper. I thought it easier to cut the twists as I finished each petal instead of trying to loop it around the outline in a continuous pattern. Use the glue sparingly - it only takes seconds for it to set and hold the napkin twists.

 Continue outlining with tacky glue and adding the napkin twists .  .  .
 until all the petals are formed.
 Dampen and twist additional  green napkins strips (2") for the stem and leaves, let dry and glue on.
Twirl a remnant napkin twist into a circle to glue onto the center.
I also wrapped the paper handle with a wider napkin strip to match.
And added smaller cut out petal pieces of wrapping paper to glue in the centers of the outlined petals. This is how I used the wrapping paper in this project. I thought about adding strips of wrapping paper around the sides of the top, but liked the cleaner, plain look instead. 

Makes for a cute decorative storage or tote box!

I love this decorative look for a box and I hope you do, too! I think the technique is quite unique!
Imagine the possibilities using different patterns and containers!

Be sure to visit my co-hosts below to see how they met this challenge with their creative upcycle projects:

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to come back next month for our Family Recipe Challenge!