Ever see  fancy  area rugs online and marvel at their steep prices? Of course if you ever find any of them locally, the price would almost certainly be triple. On occasion, I see beautiful fabric and think of how pretty it would be as a rug. I wondered how that would work and kept shoving the idea to the back of mind until I saw a particular fabric that I couldn't ignore. I just had to try. Surprisingly, it was super easy to do!
Now, this isn't a comfy rug for you to lie on but rather one to 'prettify' your space.


 What you would need;

• Upholstery fabric ( The fibers are really thick and lend some weight to the rug)
• Fusible wool interfacing (Called 'thick gum-stay' in Nigerian markets)
• Coordinating thread
• Iron
• Scissors
• Energy! Lol

1) Cut out your fabric to your desired dimensions. It wouldn't hurt to iron it out before cutting :)

Fusible wool interfacing. It has two sides; the shiny one which is coated with adhesive and the plain side

2) I cut the interfacing 3 inches smaller than the fabric and placed the adhesive surface on the wrong side of the fabric.



3) After making sure you have eaten, use all the strength you can muster to iron the interfacing onto the fabric. Trust me, you need alooot of pressure. The wool is thick (obviously,lol) and burns easily so you have to use a medium-low heat setting of the iron. When the interfacing is adherent to the fabric, your work is done. If you aren't so patient and hate ironing like I do, concentrate more on the edges of the interfacing. Once the edges are stuck on, your work is mostly done. The essence of this step is so the fabric and the interfacing are seemingly 'fused' into one fabric, this way there are no folds on the surface of the rug.



4) Fold the edges of the fabric over the interfacing and iron the folds in place. Pin them to make the extra secure.


5) Sew round, and you are done!

This took me about less than an hour from start to finish. I spent maybe 40 minutes of that time ironing. Sigh.
I don't have a home yet for my rug though, I'm still trying to set up my little 'workshop' and it would fit perfectly there.
Thanks for stopping by.xx

Next,I ironed my fabric...a step I should have done before cutting ( you would see why in a bit) but I loathe ironing. Sigh.


I sewed  1/4 inch hems on the shorter sides of the fabric. My sewing machine has lines that tell you how much hem you are sewing. But usually, a 1/4 inch hem should be on the same line as the right edge of your presser foot.


All done! Now you see why I hate ironing? The fabric is all rumpled again. Arrgh


I wish I had better pictures to explain this next step. I folded the fabric as shown above with the top fold over lapping the bottom fold by about 4" and then I ironed the folds in place, that way I could avoid using pins (I hate pins even more than irons. Some crafter I am huh?)

You see how my edges don't exactly line up? This is the reason why the experts say you should iron your fabric before cutting.

                                    
Now sew both ends shut and you are done with the pillow cover! Okay, there's one more optional step....

I trimmed off the excess edges and attempted to 'serge' them with my sewing machine to reduce fraying. I used the No. 6 zig zag stitch. Serging is called overlocking or sometimes 'finishing' in the market, in case you ever have a need to take something to a tailoring shop to get that done.

Making the Pillow



Fold the fabric along the longer side into two and sew around it starting at one of the shorter edges so you can sew round in one swoop. As I approached the middle of the long edge I raised the presser foot and pulled the fabric away from me, leaving a gap wide enough for my hand to fit into and then placed back the presser foot and continued sewing. You can leave your gap on any edge you want.

Fiber fill

Turn it out, stuff with fiber, sew the gap shut and put on your pillow cover and c'est finis.

My pillows looked so plain, so I made a couple of rolled fabric flowers and attached them on.

Better!

Now the chair doesn't look so lonely anymore :) Would you try this out? Let me know if you do. Send me pictures on hazelandcinnamon@gmail.com.
Thanks for stopping by.x

What you would need;

• Cardboard (Carton paper)
• Mod podge ( I wish I had an alternative because I know this isn't easy to get here in Nigeria)
• Sponge/ Sponge brush
• Spray Paint
• Scissors and Exacto knife (Pen knife, Switch blade, whatever precison cutter you have)
• Computer paper to print out your letter template
• Printer
• Double sided tape
• GLITTER

Since I was using gold glitter, I decided to spray paint the cardboard gold first. This way any spaces in between the glitter wouldn't be blatantly obvious. In a well ventilated area, nose and mouth covered (we don't want any lung diseases) I spray painted the letters in a cardboard box in two batches.
When the paint dried, I used a sponge (regular kitchen sponge which I cut up) to apply a thin layer of mod podge as you can see in the picture. I used about a coin size amount per letter. Then with a paper underneath to collect the excess, I poured the glitter on and set aside to dry. After applying glitter on a letter, I shook off the excess and turned it from the paper back into the glitter bottle before applying glitter on the next letter.
 After the glue had dried,i applied a second layer of mod podge using the same quantity but dabbing it on this time so i don't brush off the glitter. This helps to seal in the glitter and also reduce the shine. You can see the difference in the picture above. Then I let this dry out (about 15 minutes)

Initially, I hung up the letters banner style but then It wasn't working for me, so I took them off and used some mounting tape I had on hand to put them up.
If you are going to hang them up with ribbon like I did, turn the letters and place them in reverse. It should read WES YPPAH with the Ps facing backwards. Then apply glue on the top edges of the letters and apply the ribbon. Allow to dry and hang up.
Now pat yourself on the back and stare at them for maybe 5 hours. Hahaha.
Thanks for stopping by.X

Welcome back! Okay this is the final bottle vase post..phew! This is the glam edition, haha. I loooove glitter, so I just had to use it on something.
For this part, you would need;
- Empty bottles: I had a mason jar( jam jar), empty snapple bottle and a hurricane lamp.
-Mod podge
-Spray paint
-Painter's tape or Masking tape
-Sponge
-Puff Paint
-Glitter

Glittered Mason Jar

After putting on the glitter, shake off the excess and dab on another layer of mod podge. This helps to seal in the glitter. I used matte mod podge to tone down the shine of the glitter.
PS: Mod podge dries clear, so you won't see all those white patches in the end.

Welch's Bottle Up-do

After peeling off the label, use methylated spirit to remove residual glue and paper from the bottle. Tape off the area you do not wish to paint and apply spray paint in a well ventilated area. Use a face mask or something to cover your nose while spraying please. Apply mod podge to the unpainted area after paint has dried and pour on your glitter as shown in the first pictures. Shake off excess and apply a top coat of mod podge.

Hurricane Lamp.
This one was a bit rough around the edges but I still love it anyway. Hurricane lamps don't have a base so they can't act as a vase on their own, so you would need to put a paper cup or some other slim cup in the lamp to hold your stems.

Puff paint is that stuff we used as kids to paint names on our t-shirts. It's the white bottle with the red cap.
Use the puff paint to write what you want on the bottle and allow to dry. I tried to create a stencil using a paper punch and stuck it on d bottle with a smidgen of mod podge. Next, I attacked it with a bottle of spray paint. After the paint was dry, I tried to take out the stencil and noticed the paint had 'bled' underneath. So I
just put a layer of mod podge over it to stick it on permanently then sprayed on another coat of paint.

PS: If you look closely, you would see sections where the paint dripped. This happened because I sprayed on too close. You need to spray at a small distance (I'm bad at metric measurements so I cant give you an exact distance) so that you have a nice even coat.


 And that wraps up this uber long segment! Thanks for stopping by.xx

Hello beautiful people. This is a continuation of the last post. This time I used paint. I had some Martha Stewart acrylic craft paint on hand, so I used that. You can get paint from any art supply store. Remember buying poster color and canvas for fine arts class? Go to those shops.

The instruction on the back of the paint said to wipe glass with alcohol before using. You can use methylated spirit for this step. It helps remove oils from the bottle so the paint sticks better.

I hope the pictures are pretty self explanatory. I chose to pour the paint in the bottle because it's less messy that way. Alternately, you can use a brush to paint it on. Be patient with the paint, it's thick and you might need to keep tipping the bottle in different directions to properly coat the bottle. When fully coated, pour back the excess paint into the paint container.

 Be very patient while waiting for your paint to dry. I've read about baking the bottles in the oven....ehmmm let me know how that goes if you try it.
Thanks for stopping by.xx

Welcome back! Those who know me well know that I hardly throw anything away. I always feel I can make use of whatever might need to be thrown away to make something nice in the future. I still have broken earrings and such from 10 years ago. I don't know if this makes me a hoarder though...I definitely haven't gotten to Clean House level... I pray.
 So you can imagine my excitement when I started seeing the trend of reusing old bottles as vases popping up everywhere, everything imaginable being used to spruce them up. And of course I had to try my hand at making some of them.
 For this set of bottles, I used woolly yarn on one and embroidery thread on the other, attaching them on with UHU glue. I would have loved to use hot glue but at the time PHCN had done their thing and  I needed to get them done immediately.





 Attach the yarn as shown in the picture after spreading a liberal amount of glue at the top of the bottle.
 Keep winding the yarn around the bottle. You would find the motion pattern that works best for you. I was more comfortable spinning the bottle around the yarn.


Isn't that pretty? Who would have known?!Now start saving all those bottles.

Bottle 2:



 Using the same method described above, attach the thread to the bottle.


 Keep winding the thread round the bottle, taking care not to pull on the thread too tight especially at the slope of the bottle, if not you would end up bunching up the thread. Be liberal with glue when you are at the slopes too. If the slope of the bottle you are using is too sharp like this one was, you can flip the bottle and start winding from the bottom. When you get back to the slope, cut the thread and start winding a fresh one. This way, you are less likely to get frustrated when the thread bunches up because it would only be a short distance that would be messed up as opposed to an entire length of the bottle.

 Now sit back and admire your work.