Category: Recycling

Floating Paper

unikatissima Floating Paper

Links of entry

Once I found the instruction on how to preserve leaves with beeswax. This way you can make the leaves for float on water.
I really liked the idea, but it is winter now and I thought that you can do the same with paper, similar to the beeswax collage.
Then I thought further and found out, that paper floats without wax also (goes muuuuch swifter! ;-))).

On the first photo you see a glass bowl with a simple tea light, the paper snippets are from some advertising junk mail.

 

unikatissima Floating Paper For this photo I thought even further (which wasn’t easy ;-)) and spread on some confetti from the hole puncher.
I like it!

 

The only problem was the disposal when I wanted to throw away the confetti. I couldn’t fish them out without problems. Therefore I put a piece of tissue paper onto the gutter of my kitchen sink so that no confetti could pass through, and poured slowly the bowl on the tissue paper (if you pour too fast the tissue paper can slip). The water went through and the confetti assembled onto the tissue paper, so that I simply had to throw away the tissue paper with the confetti.


Links:
Preserving Leaves with Beeswax for Floating on Water

Here at unikatissima: Beeswax Collage

Self-made Cookie Cutters

unikatissima Self-made Cookie Cutters

Links of entry

Fancy some camel cookies? ;-)
I found the instruction great, especially because you can make all sorts of shapes.
For me, a simple flower is enough – hoping that spring will come swifter ;-)
But I haven’t begun yet…
By the way, I assume that you can use the cookie cutters for needle felting, too.


Links:
Make your own cookie cutter from clip-art and a foil pan
via Inhabitat » GREEN GIFT GUIDE: Make Your Own DIY Gifts
via Junk Mail Gems – DIY Christmas Gifts from Inhabitat

Here at unikatissima: Needle felting with cookie cutters

Candle Lit Photo Stands

unikatissima Candle Lit Photo Stand

Links of entry

When there comes the time again where you can sit on your patio and dine with friends (ok, ok, it will still take some time, but a woman can dream ;-)), the candle lit photo stands can make a romantic atmosphere.
In the instruction they print their own photos on vellum and glue them on, I preferred my favourite gift wrap.
Besides you should also be able to use the topmost layer of the used paper napkins (possibly glued on vellum), then everything matches even better.


Links:
Photo Centerpiece

Tray from Picture Frame

unikatissima Tray from Picture Frame

Links of entry

I found an instruction on how to turn an old picture frame into a tray (German).
They painted everything, but I thought: Why not ‘using up’ my crochet stars lying around and make something really kitschy for once? ;-)
I didn’t hammer together anything yet, but I may.
That is to say I’m not sure how much kitsch I really can bear ;-))

They use a new orange glass panel from the glazier and some paint on the frame. Additionally they hammered a wooden board to the backside to give it some hold.


Links:
Tray from Picture Frame (Alte Sachen – neuer Look) (German)

Ugandan Weaving

unikatissima Ugandan Weaving

Links of entry

A long time ago I found a tutorial on how to make bookmarks with Ugandan Weaving, but the site doesn’t exist any more and I couldn’t find it in internet.
Therefore I wrote something myself.

 

That’s what you do:
unikatissima Ugandan Weaving First of all you must cut the paper stripes.
Take two coloured DIN A4 sheets and cut them in stripes of 1 cm.
Slit them in the middle, but let at one side a little piece (0,5 cm) unslit so that the stripes don’t fall apart.
You can see this best on diagram 1 (click to enlarge).

 

unikatissima Ugandan Weaving Then lay the stripes side by side and weave them as seen in diagram 2 (click to enlarge).
I sketched it as if there were 4 colours, that looks also nice.

 

unikatissima Ugandan Weaving When all stripes are woven fold the outer stripes back and weave on (see diagram 3, click to enlarge).

 

Continue until you’re satisfied.
You can see on the photo on top that I haven’t read the instruction thoroughly: I didn’t take stripes of 1 cm but much broader ones, although I slit them every 0,5 cm, too.
The disadvantage is, that the stripes are pushed apart and therefore the beginning (left of picture) doesn’t look very nice (although I took the photo so that it’s not to be seen ;-)).
When you take the 1 cm stripes which are slit once this effect doesn’t occur.
I taped the ends together with clear tape.
And I made the coloured papers by glueing two Christmas gift wrap papers together :)

 

unikatissima Woven Straw Hat unikatissima Woven Straw Hat Detail

While writing this entry I noticed that my straw hat (that I only use as decoration now) is made in a quite similar way. They wove a long strip in a kind of Ugandan weaving and sewed this strip together in spairals.
Very easy ;-)
 


Links:
Original site where I found the tutorial for Ugandan Weaving. When I tried it, it didn’t exist any more.
The site has been saved by webarchive.org, but without the (important!) diagrams: site without diagrams (note: very long loading time).

Crayon Encaustic

unikatissima Crayon Encaustic.jpg

Links of entry

A long time ago I found an instruction for encaustic for poor.
On the photo you see one of the tries I made – I like it ;-))

I think that I will have to do it once more.


Links:
Encaustic für Arme (German)

English: Read the section ‘Ironing Crayon’. On this site you find more ideas for melted crayons.