Beginning a new year ...

This year I plan to do a lot of junk crafting, starting tomorrow, the first day of 2009. (That's just 51 minutes from now, by the way. What a dedicated blogger I am. Staying home on New Year's Eve in the Entertainment Capitol of the World just to keep my faithful readerup to date--yeah, I know at least one person reads this.)

Here are a few of the projects I have planned.

A mosaic birdbath for my neighbor who talks to my dog, tends my flowers and gives me grief because I can't seem to keep any of my plants alive.

A plastic bag dog leash. I'm not sure of this one but I think if I cut those grocery bags into long strips, I should be able to weave or crochet them into a pretty sturdy leash. It's not like I'm trying to keep a Great Dane in tow, just a terrier but man or boy, he just wants to go, go, go. I want to give him his head for a while because he eventually stops, sniffs, wets, and runs again so an extra long leash should be a big help to me and my slower pace.

More toy soldiers for next Christmas. I have a a wide latice-work fence on the east side of my abode and I'd like to have a dozen of these guys standing guard there.

Some kind of lightweight but sturdy carry-all for too many electronic devices. There's the I-pod, the cell phone, the digital camera, the ear buds, the USB connections, a mini tape recorder and sometimes this great Toshiba laptop. I don't usually tote the computer with me but the rest of the stuff is close at hand at all times. I know. It's overkill. My car is like an oversized purse but the rest of my life is fairly sparse.

A secret project involving soda cans. (I don't want to give out too much information because if the project flops, nobody can make fun of my effort ...(she says with lower lip hanging out.)

Egg carton Christmas ornaments. I remember doing this a bunch of years ago. They were pretty nifty. If I start now, I might get a few finished by the end of 2009. First things first, though. Gotta tell my friends to save those paper cartons for me.)

A miniature garden bench. Mike, who works with me (when we're actually working, that is) found some hardware where he usually puts his trash for pick up and he brought it to the dungeon (aka office). That will be a fun project, I think. (As soon as I figure out how, I'll share his blog here.)

Lots of angels of all kinds. I'll hide them in the trees, under lawn chairs, behind doors. I'll hang them from fences. I like angels.

A secret project involving bamboo and paper flowers. I saw this really cool Asian-style beauty at Bellagio on Christmas Eve. At $179 (plus tax) it was about $175 more than I was willing to spend. I'm not cheap, just practical. I know I can do something similar. When I'm working on it, I'll post a photo of the original and a photo of my masterpiece.

This list is just for starters. I have a few more wrestling around in the recesses of my brain just waiting to get out but it's getting close to fireworks time and ringing in the New Year. I hear my neighbors calling for me to come out and toast goodbye to the old.

Thanks for reading in 2008 and come on back in 2009. I'll be providing instructions for some of my projects and yes, there might be a test.

Happy, happy, happy.

The Newest ...

It's been six years since I made that toy soldier from an old pallet. Since then I've tried all sorts of recycling. A few months ago I found picked up a couple of scraps of quilting fabric at my local Goodwill store. No, I had no intention of making a quilt. I'm not the "cottage decor" type and I have seen too many super quilts to even attempt any project of that magnitude.

My plan was to use the material to recover the seat cushions in a couple of wicker chairs and a love seat; however, without a pattern and ... oh heck, let me be honest here ... my heart wasn't in the whole thing.

Now, I have a very good friend who collects cats and I recalled seeing a free cat doll pattern on a website when I'd been searching for something. (No, I don't recall what the search involved.) It took a couple of days to "refind" the pattern. (It's at http://dollmakersjourney.com/carnabycat.html if you want to compare -- and note I said compare and not judge.) It certainly looked like a simple enough project. I should be able to do this sucker in a couple of hours.

Wrong!

Remember, I had enough green fabric to cover four pillows. By the time I mastered this crazy cat, I had to go looking for some kind of related fabric. (You might notice that the legs of my cat are a different color from the body.)

My seams were too loose; I couldn't turn the ears right side out; I cut one of the legs by accident when I was clipping the sewn edge. Those goofs are just for starters. I mistakenly created the face on the back side of the head; I made two left feet--twice!

As much as I hate to admit it, I'm NOT a seamstress and that blasted Brother sewing machine is going up for sale real soon ... I think.

So here's what my cat looks like.

Pretty pathetic, isn't she?

I tried; I really tried. And nobody, not a single person who saw this when I was working on it (only two people, though), none had the courage to admit the cat was scary or that it didn't look like a cat. In fact, it wasn't until after I presented it to my friend as half a Christmas present (I included a cat pin because in my heart I knew this present STUNK), did my two so-called reviewers let me know what they really thought of my sewing skills.

Oh well. Since the creator of the real doll is the owner of the pattern that I mutilated and since I have some very original stuff I've done on my own, I won't be offering any hints on how to create this baby.

May I Begin Again, Please ...

This is the photo I should have posted with my second post but it was buried deep in the recesses of my desktop and I was on my laptop and, well, I just plain forgot to look for it on my home network. (If it sounds like I know computer speak, you've made me smile.)

Since this is the end of the year, later tonight I'll show one more project given as a Christmas gift. I think you'll find this one a hoot -- or not!

Humble Beginnings... The First Project

One of the best tools I every bought was a jigsaw. It's not a conventional girly apparatus and my then man friend wondered why I hadn't bought a new handbag instead. But he's gone now and the saw isn't.

I had picked up an old pallet by a dumpster because I just knew I would find some use for it. (It was in worse shape than the photo here; this pallet was delivered to me last week by someone who wants me to recreate the wooden soldier my discarded piece of junk became.)

I had a heck of a time separating the wood. I wanted as much length as possible and didn't care if the nail holes showed so I painstakingly (and painfully--you don't want to know how many splinters I removed from my fingers.) pried the nails out and managed to get one solid length of wood.

Next I drew a quick pattern for a toy soldier, being careful to use as many straight lines as possible. (I figured that would make sawing easier.) Then I freehanded the drawing onto the wood with a piece of chalk (which I made last year and will make again this summer.)

The cutting was simple and fast. And yes, I wore safety glasses. (Love that saw.)

A quick smoothing with a piece of sandpaper glued to a block of wood removed the rough spots, then it was a coat of primer (that stuff dries fast) and then the acrylic red, white, yellow and black paint. I added some gold for the epaulets but it doesn't show up well. When the whole thing was dry I covered it with a coat of poly from a half-used can of the stuff I bought from the Habitat for Humanity Restore.

Done.

I wired the finished product to my screen door for Christmas one year and gave it away the next. Afterward I made three more. Here they are. (And I cheated on one of them. The pallet for these had only two good slats and since I wanted to finish these quickly, I bought a piece of castoff, slightly warped pine for a buck ninety.)

And so it begins ...

This wasn't going to happen. I was not going to blog. I have plenty of activity on my plate of life without adding another thing that can possibly go unfinished. But dang, everybody in my small but meaningful circle of friends wants to know why I don't have a forum of some sort--.

I work. I play. I eat. I watch documentaries. I enjoy arts and crafts. I read. I listen. I play poker. I walk my dog. (That's him in the photo, not me. Honest. I am not a dog.) Isn't that enough activity for one person to handle on a day-to-day basis?

But, I cave easily. And so it begins ...

To keep the updates germane, I've decided to write about my long habit of recycling ... turning Old Into New (thus the name of the blog, in case you were wondering). For now I plan to post photos and tales of some of the old stuff from my closet, the thrift shop, the side of the road and some that came from nobody knows ... If a project is under construction you will see a before and after. If it's already finished and on display, well, I guess I don't have to explain that....

Now that I started this venture, I think I'm going to like it ... I hope my buddies do too.