Eco Friendly Home Projects

Dear readers, this blog will no longer be updated.  All contents will be moved to: upcycleliving.blogspot.com Please update your link, and we hope to see you again soon  😊 I love aprons: the design, the look, wearing it. But let's face it, aprons are not cheap. And to think that it's something that I wear to block off oil stains and dirt from cooking, it just doesn't make sense to spend money on it. Oh I'm such a stingy hag 😈 This was a sundress I had but worn off over time, and I'd ripped a whole somewhere on the back. Can't give it to charity, didn't want to cut it off into cleaning cloth (not yet), so I had to do something about it, and with it. Since my old apron has become so manky, it deserves a retirement. This old spaghetti strap dress came ready handy as it came ready with 2 attached belts for back tie bow, so all I needed to do was to separate the front and the back (keep the spaghetti straps and belt attache...

Dear readers, this blog will no longer be updated.  All contents will be moved to: upcycleliving.blogspot.com Please update your link, and we hope to see you again soon  😊 Body: one leg of old ripped jeans. Straps: unwanted belts that came with two different denim dresses. That's all folks, for I, is off for a walk. 🏃

Dear readers, this blog will no longer be updated.  All contents will be moved to: upcycleliving.blogspot.com Please update your link, and we hope to see you again soon  😊 Due to work, I have to keep quite a few flash drives - each for a different type of job or client - in my bag. Although there are small compartments in my bag, I still find myself having to ransack through other stuff in the same pocket to get to the right flash drive. I've looked everywhere for a flash drive organizer but I just can't find one that I like; and most importantly, I do try not to make unnecessary new purchases. So I went to get some inspiration and help from my sewing box, and made this: I found some fabric scrap big enough for my flash drive organizer pattern, an old zip I saved from some old clothes, and an old and partly used Ikea fleece blanket (which I've used some for the snake stuffed toy ). Here are the few simple steps of the making of the flash drive organi...

Dear readers, this blog will no longer be updated.  All contents will be moved to: upcycleliving.blogspot.com Please update your link, and we hope to see you again soon  😊 I don't wear T-shirts. Just don't like the look of them on me, full stop. They are often too big or loose, or just unflattering. Although I don't buy them myself, I can't stop anyone from giving them to me, especially when it is a Depeche Mode T-shirt. I was given this Depeche Mode T-shirt months ago, but can't bring myself to wearing it as it is still too big although it is an S. Wearing it to bed is completely out of the question because that would have been a blasphemy! I've been wanting to do some alteration so that I can enjoy wearing it and finally found the time to do so last week. And here's what I did: outline the shape of my desired outcome, cut away the unwanted part of the material then hem the sides up (all hand-stitched, no cheating). And this is what ...

Dear readers, this blog will no longer be updated.  All contents will be moved to: upcycleliving.blogspot.com Please update your link, and we hope to see you again soon  😊 I hate parting with old clothes, especially designs that don't come easy. This long dress has been with me since the late 90s, but lately the stretchiness of the material is gone and it is not tight-fitting any more. I can hear it calling out to me: "Please don't throw me away, please, no!" So here comes the scissors and the needle and threads. I cut the dress across the waist and sewed the hem and made it into a top. Then I dug out a pair of Chinese buttons I savaged from another old top which I had to bin (because the material was falling apart), and voila, I got myself a new Chinese Cheong-sum-like top! As for the bottom part of the dress? I've yet to decide what to do with it, but rest assured, it will be something useful :-)

No matter how careful I am, I sometimes buy things that I end up not using much - like this brown velvety halter dress. I bought it for some special occasion but it has not been worn much since. As you grow older, the chance of getting invited to parties and going to gigs reduces tremendously; this dress became too dressy for just going out in the day. After a few drafts on the drawing board, I've decided that I will make a simple knapsack out of it. The halter neck tie around strap is cut off to make into a thin scarf, and the length from above the waist and down is cut into this: The bottom hem is sewn together to make the base The top bit is hemmed up to leave openings for the drawstring Each corner of the bottom is sewn into triangular flap to make a depth on the base Leftover fabric (from the top bit of the dress) made into pockets on the inside of the bag. The rest of the leftover fabric is used to make a pocket on the outside, complete with zipper (a used one from some old...

The problem with the commercialised world that we live in is that we don't actually get to find what we really want. They say that capitalism is consumer-centric but it's untrue. I've spent months looking for some decent looking placemats with simple design for our dinning table but all I could find are either bad quality placemats, often with horrible pictures on, unless I'm willing to pay through my nose for something that I'm gonna have food and wine spilled on all the time. I finally found an old set in a junk store that is really, really cheap, except there are some yellow stains on the corners. But the orangey stripes over white background looks very nice and simple and I thought I could do something about the stains. I had them cleaned, trimmed the yellow bits away by cutting them into smaller rectangles (we have a pretty tiny dining table anyway). I have a Laura Ashley denim dress I bought second hand off Ebay (for £1.50!) which is a little too long for me, ...