DIY Projects

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Ladder makeover

September 29, 2009 in DIY Projects by wendren | 11 comments

I spent the weekend bent over this sad-looking ladder. I sanded it until I turned into a sawdust pile. Then Jeremy and his dad helped fix the broken leg and kindly built me three ‘drawers’. I stained and varnished it and the end result was everything I hoped for – perfect for the CY Market that is on from Wednesday to Sunday this week.

This is the perfect display for my Coffee Clutches. The drawers ‘hold’ each design and the new labeling indicates the design and colour inside.

On the sides are hooks to hang some Organic Coffee Bags (if I need to).

On the top I placed a small easel for displaying the fourth coffee clutch design (Soaring Seagulls).

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Murex

September 17, 2009 in DIY Projects, Interesting Finds by wendren | 4 comments

Various shades of purple and turquoise come from a family of molluscs called Murex. The pigment (note, not dye) is secreted by the little sea snail when physically attacked so, in a way, this prized colour shares the same kind of sad love story as the oyster and pearl. However, the sea snail gets to live after their ordeal because killing them is believed to bring bad luck.

Daniela sent me the turquoise pigment from the murex family. One packet contains a purple-blue and the other a turquoise that comes from the sea snail “murex trunculus”.

The “murex brandaris” is the most desired molluscs becuase they produce what is known as ‘royal purple’. This colour has been described by many as not being purple at all but rather as ox blood or by those who are more kind, deep fushia or dark mauve. I think this little unknown bottle of mine contains it but I am not sure.

Purple

It is interesting that my favourite colour, Indigo, and the Murex pigments are very similar: they both react to the intensity, or lack of, sunlight. They also both rely on the reaction of oxygen to produce their colour and both need a mordant or oxygen to be removed from the dyeing vat so that the colour will fix to the fabric and not run. The purple-blue that Daniela sent me is from another sea snail and when produced in the shade produces a purple-blue colour and when produced in the sunlight a sky-blue indigo colour (as you can see by Pye’s nose who smelt the dye and then lay in the sun).

My favourite secret about purple is not about it’s colour but rather smell. They say that Cleopatra wore purple, her palace was draped with it and when she sailed or went anywhere, that too was purple. I find myself day dreaming of clear green waters and perfect blue skies with a soft wind blowing this powerful Queen gently along in a purple haze. It is a lovely image.

What killed it for me was that along with the colour, the sea snail secretes a garlic ‘flavour’ with the pigment that for years could not be separated from the colour. Still today on Cleopatra’s cloth you can smell the garlic undertones even though they have lost all their colour. Where ever Cleopatra went a garlic scent lingered. Not everything royal is wonderful I would say.

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Fabric Lovebirds – Cutout

August 12, 2009 in DIY Projects by wendren | 7 comments

I got two mahogany trophy display cabinets a while back which I thought would make the perfect fabric storage unit and the other perfect for my books and journals. They arrived dusty, covered with spider webs, terribly painted on the inside and very unloved. Slowly their make-over is taking place: First I had to clean them up and get the glass doors. Now I am attempting the beautification process, step-by-step, starting with some vinyl cutouts for the glass fronts.

The inspiration for the birds on the wobbly wire came from a wrapping paper that I got for my birthday. I loved their fun style and started drawing my own. These did not look as great and so the above family is a mix breed of my birds and those from the wrapping paper. I especially love the two that are falling in love, the bird who discovered he could fly (and those left on the wobbly wire looking up in utter amazement) and the bird passing a flower on to another.

To see photographs of the cabinet in it’s original state and the make-over in process see my flickr set.

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What to do with cardboard packaging

July 29, 2009 in DIY Projects by wendren | 1 comment

So you go out and spend (as consumerism requires) and you get home to unpack, what in my case was a washing machine, through layers of cardboard, polysterene and plastic. The washing machine is a dream but now what do I do with the packaging?

Here are some options:

1. Recycle it. *If you do not know where to take it you can always drop it off at your nearest school or give it to a homeless person who will more than likely know where to take it becuase they get paid a small amount for it.
2. Make a solar box cooker.
3. Reuse it as a box to ship Wren bags (but obviously the box will need to be made smaller).
4. Make a cardboard chair and watch this amazing video (below) to see how far you can take the idea of a cardboard chair.

5. Bake sweet potatoes with it, instead of using an oven. See how.
6. Make a cat litter. This could not be easier and works like a charm for Pye when she was still a tiny kitten. I put wax wrap on the bottom, filled it with kitty litter and every day I would replace it.
7. Hungry? Make cardboard food.
8. Make drawer dividers. See DIY. (This is something I have always done with shoe boxes by cutting the lid off).
9. Use cardboard to keep away weeds. How? Lay cardboard pieces under your mulch near where you plant your flowers and it will keep the weeds to a minimum.
10. Have a bit of fun and make pom-pom’s.

Whatever you do, do not throw your cardboard away. Why? Because on average, 9% of urban garbage dumps consist of cardboard boxes and a ton of cardboard boxes is the equivalent of 17 trees. For more facts read here.

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Makeshift Photo Studio

July 9, 2009 in DIY Projects, Wren by wendren | 4 comments

Part of what makes Wren on etsy so time consuming is that each bag needs to be photographed (becuase each one is different in some way or another). When I was at Fish Hoek the wall outside my door was white and was perfect for photographing but now, here at my new home, all the outside walls are a pinky-cream colour and are not suitable.

Makeshift plan 1: Jeremy held up a white sheet and I used the camera remote to take the photographs. This plan, for obvious reasons, was not a success and Jeremy has never offered to help again.

Makeshift plan 2: I borrowed Jeremy’s folks white projector screen, hammered a hook into the wall and hung it.

I have to work a bit more on the lighting (ie. work out what time of the day I need to take the pictures becuase I cannot afford a sun-reflecting screen yet). However, the screen idea works well I think. I even like the frame that it creates around the bag (perhaps I wont cut that out of the picture). I will have to nail a few different heights in becuase I tried to build a step up (see pic) with the bricks that were lying around so that I can get lower hanging bags into the frame but it was not all that successful (a bit wobbly and unsafe).

See the bags I took photographs of by visiting my etsy shop.

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Bag organising tip

May 26, 2009 in DIY Projects by wendren | No comments

bag-organising-trick

There are two things in my bag that I am forever digging for – keys and purse. (My cell phone is the third but I have no excuse becuase it is easy to find if I put it back in it’s pouch after I have used it). My solution was to stitch two rings onto the inside of my coffee bags’ shoulder straps (just below the top of the bag). I then added clips to my key bunches so that I could easily clip them on and off and I tied my bird purse using Petersham ribbon (from Ebony & Ivory) to the other ring so that I would not accidentally forget it on a counter top. This method has stood the test of time and is still working wonderfully for me.

P.S. I do not add them to the Organic Coffee Shoulder and Sling Bags becuase the metal rings are not organic. However, if you would like them added, please request them in your order and I will happily stitch them on for you. They make my life easier and I am sure they would yours.

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Screen Printing

May 8, 2009 in DIY Projects by wendren | 6 comments

My screen was not that big so I could use the carosoule. The carosoule is usually used for printing t-shirts becuase you can lay them out on the 4 paddles (which are flat rotating disks) and simply pull the screen down and print. It is simple, quick and set-up friendly.

I used one screen for all the designs to save on materials which meant that I needed to block out the areas that I would not be printing. You do this with clear packaging tape and acetate.

To print you add a blob of your ready-mix dye and push/pull the dye through with a squeegee. Depending on the detail of your design the angle that you pull the squeegee and the number of pulls varies.

I pulled through three of four times at a very upright angle in order to achieve the fine detail needed especially for the ‘Little Treasures, Every Day’ design.

One at a time the coffee clutch designs emerged.

The dye is set either by putting it into that huge tumble dryer you can see behind me or by fiercely ironing. Now all I had to do was to iron the coffee jute sack backing into the printed fabric and sew.

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Preparing for printing

May 7, 2009 in DIY Projects by wendren | 3 comments

Screen printing is a fairly simple if you have the correct equipment and know how. It is also a lot of fun.

To begin you start creating what is referred to as the design postive or acetate. You can get them digitally printed but I prefer to do them by hand using an ink pink on acetate. The image must be perfect, neat and exact. What is black will be the print.

You always have to be careful not to smudge the image. If you make a mistake you can ‘erase’ it with nail polish remover. You also have to avoid touching the acetate as much as possible becuase the oil from your fingers prevents the ink from settling on the acetate properly. Nail polish remover also removes this oil.

Once your positives are ready you can expose your screen but first your screen must be coated with emulsion and left for a few hours. Once ready, you place your positives mirror image down. You then turn espose the screen by turning on the ultra bright and luminious light for about 1min 20. Different meshes have different exposure times.

You then proceed to blasting out the unexposed areas of the screen with a high pressured hose. The pressue is very important beucase if you go to hard, you blast your image right out. Elize heped me.

In a few minutes you start to see the images appear.

You then pat the screen dry. If you wipe it you might smudge any of the emulsion that has not yet set.

Once dry you cover up the areas around the sides where there is no emulsion with either buff tape or see-through packaging tape. You also touch up the pin-holes with a tiny bit of emulsion. If the screen has been coated well in the beginning there are fewer touch-ups.

Now your screen is now ready for printing which is the best part (I think).

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Little Red Wren Buttons

April 15, 2009 in DIY Projects, Wren by wendren | 3 comments

With every day I am one step closer to showing you the finished product of my latest design.

red-bird-buttons

Each button is hand ‘clicked’. My fingers are forever wounded from the metal teeth where you ‘hook’ the fabric around the button front, but again, I think it’s worth the self-sacrifice.

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Coffee Bag Carpet

December 9, 2008 in DIY Projects by wendren | 5 comments

For my stall at the Biscuit Mill I needed a carpet …. so I made one using a jute coffee sack that although was gorgeous, was too rough to make a bag with. Here is the end result:

P.S. This photograph was taken after Saturday’s market and after any feet marched over it.

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HOW IT WAS MADE:

The coffee sack is portrait/lengthwise so I had to cut it in half and then stitch the two halves back together. After this I glued the jute coffee sack (using Jenkin Contact Glue) to some under-sheet plastic I had bought for the purpose.

This was left to dry for a day.

The carpet was then trimmed and Jeremy and I blanket stitched the edges. Mischief kept trying to catch the string I was threading.

Jeremy also stitched and had mischief chasing his jute thread. He also had an audience of Katie and Balue (lying snuggly in their pet suitcase).

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I loved this close-up shot of the jute carpet -below.

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Clipboard decorating

November 19, 2008 in DIY Projects by wendren | 2 comments

I saw this display yesterday on ‘milk tooth’s rain‘ and thought it was such a clever idea.

So, I took my old and plain brown clipboard and decided to ‘make it pretty’ too. I have a bit of a wrapping paper fetish (if I see one I like, I buy it. I have a collection but sadly they always get damaged before I can use them. My idea is to get architecture draws (but they are like hen’s teeth to find) and my papers can all be stored safely in them). Anyway, I took one of my favourite wrapping papers, cut the outline of the clipboard, coated the clipboard surface with a thin layer of wood glue, carefully stuck the cut out wrapping paper down and then coated the surface with a clear varnish.

It was as simple as that and now I have a beautiful and fun clipboard.

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Design your own Organic Coffee Sling Bag

November 12, 2008 in DIY Projects, Wren by wendren | 3 comments

The Organic Coffee Sling Bags have been selling really well (faster than I can stock my shop). So for those of you who are wanting a Coffee Bag and are waiting for me to post some new ones up, why not select your own coffee sack and lining colour and I will make it up for you.

Below are photographs of some of the coffee sacks that I have. Each one is special. Of some I have more than one and of others, only one. To ensure that you get the one you want, send me an email asap with your order.

For the lining colour you can choose from (picture below, from top right): Stone, Off-white, Navy Blue, Black, Rust, Cream and as of next week there will also be a Military Green option.

You also need to let me know what length strap you would like: an extra long (over the head and across the chest) strap or a normal length (over the shoulder) strap.

Have fun!

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Some new fabrics to choose.

October 29, 2008 in DIY Projects, Wren by wendren | 3 comments

With Christmas just around the corner I thought it would be a good idea to let you know what other fabric options there are to put together the perfect bag for your friend, family member or even yourself.

Fabric descriptions in alphabetical order: A) This print is called Wild Orchids and is printed on a black linen. I have made a bag out of the sister fabric (ie the same design but on a moss green base cloth). Click here to see it. B) Stylized leaves on a sandy coloured base cotton cloth. The leaves are coloured grey, white (the silhouettes) and deep red wine. C) Pink palm trees with lime green speckles on a off-white cotton. D) White leaves and flowers on a blue-grey background. E) A gingered coloured cotton with a print of Hibiscus flowers. F) Polka dot Dragon flies on a light peppermint backdrop. I have done a tulip bag in this fabric before. Click here to see it. G) A wonderfully stylized khaki print of leaves on a stone-washed dark cream background. H) An almost Jacobean print in brilliant turquoise with touches of pink and burnt amber. I) White Cherry Blossoms on a red cotton. J) A symmetrical stencil print on a stone-washed red linen.

To see more fabric’s to choose from click here.

To see the technical design drawings of the Big Town Bag, Small Town Bag and Tulip Bag click here. These drawings show you the fabric placement options and list what other decisions (such as lining colour, zip colour etc) you might want to make. Otherwise, let me know what fabric you like and I can help you come up with the complimentary fabrics and colours. It’s a lot of fun!

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Paradigm Shift Project Continued

October 1, 2008 in DIY Projects, Featured by wendren | 3 comments

Remembering that the project (below) is about taking a ‘known’ object, unlearning what it has been learnt to be and creating a new purpose. Here are some more brilliant ‘paradigm shift’ products:

Above: Lize-Marie created this absolutely amazing lamp using a colinder and a shower head (and shower cable). I think this is absolutely fabulous. It is so stylish and simple!

Above: A broken mirror turned into a mug hanger/holder by Natasha Wisterman.

Above: Tarryn Prins made a plant hanger using a broken lamp shade.

Above: This ‘Whisk light’ is made by Amy Burton. She took a traditional kitchen whisk, bend the prongs out and using think wire hang tea lights from it making a minature chandeliar.

Above: Juanne Groenewald ingeniously turned an unwanted telephone into a watering can for in the home. She removed the inside of the telephone, sealed the box and all other joints and added water to the main unit. All you have to do is hold the telephone higher than the reciever and water flows through the pin-prick holes of the reciever.

Above: Megan Aitken took a toilet seat and turned it into a mirror and table. It is meant to be mounted onto the wall, closed with a strong magnet and when opened you have a mini dressing table. Perfect for small bathrooms.

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Make it out of nothing…

September 30, 2008 in DIY Projects, Featured by wendren | 4 comments

The 1st year Surface Design Students at CPUT did a project called the “Paradigm Shift Project”. The aim of the project was to challenge the way of seeing and knowing objects as. They had to take a ‘known’ object and unlearn what it has been learnt to be and recreate its purpose. They had to find one household object to work with, were allowed a maximum of 4 extra objects (including glue etc) to make this ‘new’ object of use and were encouraged to spend very little (if possible, nothing) on their objects.

I was so excited by the results of this project we organized a professional photo session for their products (and them) to be shot. Here they are:

Above: This bottle-top opener and cork-skrew all in one device is made by Micka Chisholm. It was originally a thick metaled fork.

Above: Amanda Wababa made a filing system out of South African cereal boxes. I think I need to make one of these for all my posting envelopes.

Above: Isabelle Manyuchi cut and stuck scoring blocks together to make a seat cushion. She called it “score a seat”. It is colourful, comfortable and an extremely affordable cushion. Love it!

Above: These are placemats made from old diary covers. Lara Stanford took used diaries, removed all the pages and then stuck chopsticks onto them as heat insulators. They are also reversable.

Above: Monique Arnold took her broken bar bridge and turned it into a herb garden for her flat. She fitted it with a full watering and lighting system.

Above: This jewelry organiser is made by Anri Vercuiel by turning a coat hanger upside down, adding an extra metal foot for stability and nails to help organise the jewelry.

I think these objects are brilliant, clever and fun. I wil post the rest of the class tomorrow….

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« Older entries

DIY Projects

Ladder makeover

Murex

Fabric Lovebirds – Cutout

What to do with cardboard packaging

Makeshift Photo Studio

Bag organising tip

Screen Printing

Preparing for printing

Little Red Wren Buttons

Coffee Bag Carpet

Clipboard decorating

Design your own Organic Coffee Sling Bag

Some new fabrics to choose.

Paradigm Shift Project Continued

Make it out of nothing…

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