Head wrap chain

Today I was inspired to make one of those chain head wrap things that are all over lookbook and stuff. I thought about buying one on etsy, but it just looked so easy to make, and I didn't want to pay $25 for a pretty one.

What you'll need:

• old necklace or bracelet chains, just get some from around the house
• any charms, stones, or decos you'd like to add
• pliers
• tweezers
• wire cutters
• metal chain links/jewelry links (Joanne's and Michael's carry them)

First you'll want to gather all your supplies and decide on a design for the head piece. I took some inspiration from etsy and mixed it with some ideas of my own. Decide how many chains you'll use and plan out the overall construction. At minimum you'll need at least three chains: one to go over the crown of your head, and one to drape down either side of your head (they will all be connected in the back by a jewelry circle link)

Then start putting it together!

 

I ended up using 5 chains total. One for the crown piece and the i double draped chain on either side of my head. I used a turquoise stone as a connector for all the chains, meeting in the center of my forehead. The whole things took me about 20 minutes, enjoy!

Question, comments, concerns? Please comment or email at repurposedremade@gmail.com

Dream catchers

Alrighty, just a quick one today! Super easy too.

What you'll need:

• bendy twig or something
• dental floss or embroidering floss
• ribbon, feathers, any decos you want!

All you'll need to do it use the floss of your choice to make the twig into the circle that will serve as the outer support of your dream catcher. Then you'll want to weave and loop your floss around and around the twig, first looping around the wood itself and then continuing around by looping back through your previous layer of floss, creating a spiderwebbing type mesh.

Once you're satisfied with you're web, decorate and voila!! Keep away those nightmares.

Sweet dreams DIYers...

Beer blog

I apologize for being MIA for the past week, I've been working like crazy. But today I finally got started on my new beer blog so I hope you all decide to check it out, maybe start following it, and hopefully enjoy reading it! Brew Blog!

Happy Saturday

American workwear

Since I have been working like a dog and can't post any DIY until the weekend, I've been inspired to make a post about old American workwear. Who doesn't love a little bit of Americana? The early american workforce is a fascinating bunch. Train conductors, fisherman(real fisherman, like the deadliest catch before technology), mechanics, professions involving overalls...old traditions that are hard to come by today. Just the bare essentials in a piece of clothing that's well made, functional, and will last you forever. 

Being the shopaholics we are, my coworker Sean and I spent about 90% of our shift today browsing the sale section on Opening Ceremony. There we stumbled upon a company that I haven't heard of before called Confezioni Crosby, a New York based brand that is actually made in the USA and in collaboration with an old manufacturer of professional uniforms and workwear! You can read more about their story here since I've pretty much skimmed through what they're all about. Anyhow I just wanted to post a link and some photos of some awesome classy stuff that OC has to offer, at a reasonable price. I'd wear all of it every day, so lovely! Check it out.

Dried roses

I think that this post is appropriate for today because it is unbearable hot and I feel like drying up and dying like these flowers ha! Anyways, let's get into it.

What you'll need:

• roses of your choice
• ribbon, twine or rubber band
• nail to hang roses on upside down in your house ( somewhere safe where someone won't bump into them and make them disintegrate)

Basically you'll just want to wrap your flower bunch up and hang it upside down until they're dried and ready!

After about a week you'll have lovely flowers that won't die that you can use to decorate with

From here it's pretty easy to make your own potpourri sachets. just take all the petals off of your flowers and lightly douse them with a tiny amount of your favorite essential oil (kind of expensive and hard to find so any oil concentrate or parfume oil will suffice). Toss the petals and the oil like a salad and then put a bit into a pouch of sorts that you can sew shut!


*** side not to everyone: I have a beer blog in the works which I'm kind of excited about, so I'll keep you all updated about that! As usual, feel free to email or anonymously comment with any ideas or recommendations for my beer blog or this!

Coming soon

Alright hey folks, just a little update! Sometime this week I'll be posting a DIY for traditional henna tattoos, because I think they're pretty. If you wanna get a head start and get some supplies while I wait for mine to come in the mail you can head to visionsofindia.com they're California based, privately owned, and sell other neat stuff too! I bought some of their simple bindis so I'll be wearing one while I do my henna haha. My order only came out to six dollars or so (and that's including shipping!) and I got a ton of unnecessary stuff. I also purchased a book of traditional mendhi designs from amazon, which is actually shipping from India, but amazon super saver shipping says it will be here in 5 days? So see ya then

eBay nothing interesting

So nothing terribly exciting today, waiting for the weekend and some time off work while the sun is actually out. Then I'll hopefully have at least a few interesting crafts for you. Until then, I once again have some of my knick knacks on sale on eBay! Including one of my many vintage Dooney & Bourke handbags. So check it out if you wanna, here are some rad vintage Dingo boots that are up on there too..

my store!!!!

So I know I've posted about manmadediy.com before, but they just have such neat stuff. So here's their most recently featured list: 10 Easy-to-Remember Classic Cocktail Recipes that Every Man Should Know . They give you their top ten accompanied by links to their corresponding DIY recipes!

I pretty much agree with their list, but I'd make a few changes

1. The martini (I've never actually had one but I always look at them on the drink menu when I'm out and think about getting one, so I'm gonna keep it on the list)
2. Mint julep (I'm moving this up to number two because I like them)
3. Tom Collins (also a vodka Collins is good)
4. Manhattan (yum)
5. The gimlet (especially if it's a cucumber gimlet)
6. Greyhound / salty dog (moving this up because I love grapefruit juice)
7. Irish coffee (if you can make something that tastes even sort of similar to the Irish coffees at the buena vista in sf you are extremely talented)
8. Old fashioned (agree)
9. Sidecar (agree)
10. I think everyone should have a drink they made up themselves, so I'll leave that as number ten

Flower crown

I left work early today because i have this dumb head cold, and I went home and took a 3 hour nap and then felt like doing some crafts when I got up. So today I made flower crowns! Nasty gal and other places sell really cute ones, but why buy when you can make.

What you'll need:

• silk flower assortment
• floral wire
• floral tape
• patience

It's kind of meticulous, so stick with it and don't get too frustrated ^.^

First thing to do is to choose you flowers and a pattern you want to make on the crown. Once you have a direction, make the base of the crown by overlapping a few rounds of floral wire in a circle that fits your head. 

Next use smaller segments of wire to connect your flower bunches to the headband.

Once you finish adding your flowers, it should look kinda like this....

Next you'll wanna wrap all of the exposed wire, or as much as you can, with floral tape.

That's all folks!

Lovely Rachel and her lovely crown

forest nymph

Questions comments concerns

Thought I'd give a little preview of DIYs to come (some sooner than others).

• flower drying / homemade potpourri sachets 
• sweater sleeved denim jackets
• home brewing! (the first beer we'll be brewing is an American IPA)
• flower crowns

And maybe a few more ideas in the works...but I really want to hear if there's anything you want me to make or post a how to on! Anything from clothes(altered or tailored), drinks, knick knacks, decos,etc. You can send me something specific or just an idea, like how i needed a decoration for a party, and I'll try to find something neat to do.

email: repurposedremade@gmail.com

Garden party

It's so sunny out and all I really want to do is have a garden party in a flowwy sundress and drink a mint julep or something. Hopefully I'll be able to throw something like that together before summer is over, so I've started considering how best to decorate such an occasion (since that's what I do best). I've been wanting to make some lanterns to hang in my window and on the patio so I thought that they would work great to decorate my potential soiree too!I made a few trips to the Sal (Salvation army), target, and the beach during the week and then went to work on a few lanterns yesterday evening.


What you'll need:

• various sized pretty glass containers (they will serve as the case of the lanterns so make sure to get some with a lip at the top or something that will be easy to string twine around , a mason jar for example)
• tea candles
• twine or string 
• pebbles or shells
• craft beer (we chose some Lagunitas :3 )

So here's what you're gonna be using! The first thing to do is choose a glass container and put the tea candle inside, I recommend using some wall putty (like the weird stuff you used to stick glow-in-the-dark stars to your ceiling when you were a kid)to keep the candle stuck in place inside the jar. Then you should fill it with however much of whatever you want until it looks nice. I used little filler pebbles and then some shell fragments that I collected at the beach on Friday.

(photos I'm in: credit to Vinnie Maurillo)

Then use your twine to wrap the top of the jar and create a hanger of sorts so you can hang your lantern! Or, if you choose to use a larger mason jar, or even a vase, try using a taller candle and more pebbles and use it as a table light.

Now light them up and do something nice outside in the candlelight!

How to: dye some dungarees

So I know I totally didn't post this when I said I would, so I'm doing it now since I will be sitting in my room all day watching bad tv on some super dose benedryl from the doc for my spider bites. Thanks to some random allergy my hand is the size of and over mitt. Anyways, here's some tips on how to dye your cut offs!


First of all you'll need all the supplies I mentioned last time.

Then boil a pretty big pot of water (you'll want to be able to submerge the shorts in it)and put it into a bucket. Depending on which type of dye you use, powder of liquid, how much of the dye you add might be a bit different. I usually use about half the bottle of liquid for a pair of denim shorts. I only had black dye handy after using my teal bottle so that's what I used for this pair. 

Submerge the pants in the hot water and stir periodically for as long as you'd like. For softer pastel tones, leave the shorts in for a shorter period of time (and use a lighter wash denim!)and for darker tones let them soak for the recommended about of time or a bit longer. You can always get creative and try a dip dye as well(this also looks neat if you dip the denim in bleach instead of dye)or even a half and half with two different RIT dyes!
After all this you'll want to rinse the shirts in the sink until the water starts to run clear, just like when you dye your hair. This is when I would add any distressing details or holes to the shorts since it will make the distressing look more natural when you dry them.
Then viola! A finished product.