Sarah: Tyvek

You know what's better than a cheap craft project? A free craft project!

I made a wallet out of an Express Mail tyvek envelope:

Tyvek is the material they make those envelopes out of that feel like a cross between paper and fabric. It's water resistant and supposedly very durable. Plus, you can get the envelopes for free from the US postal service! I've seen project tutorials where the material was sewn, but I just used packaging tape (and I did it while I was at work... Ssshhhhhh).

So. Anyway. I thought I took pictures of the steps to make the wallet. But apparently I didn't. So here are some shots of the final project:

It ended up being a tri-fold wallet:

With six credit card slots:

And a place for bills:

But it was a little sproingy when I first completed it, so I had to try to squash it down:

So there you go. I crafted and fought the man, all at the same time.

Oh, and I left the postal stuff on the outside because, well, that's just so punk rock.

Sarah: Dollar Store Project

I completed my first dollar store project Saturday morning. Here's the whole process:

I purchased my supplies:

A hand mirror, metal picture frame with glass, and bag of tealights. Cost: $3 plus tax.

I cheated a little on this project and used some aluminum flashing I already owned.

How could I resist? It's so shiny...

So first I cut a piece of flashing that was roughly twice as tall as the face of the picture frame. I bent it at about 90 degree angle and slid it into the area where a picture would go. Here I am, holding the frame sideways (with the frame's support sticking down... get it?):

And then I destroyed the mirror:

...which would have been fun, if breaking a mirror didn't leave tiny glass shards on your bedroom floor and embedded in the sleeves of your sweatshirt. I obviously didn't think this step through. Oh, plus the whole seven-years-bad-luck thing.

I then glued the pieces of mirror to the "back" and let it dry overnight. I ended up using the following materials, outside of my dollar store purchases:

The flashing I've told you about, Craft Glue attached mirror to the back, I cut the flashing with the tin snips (after scoring it with the knife), and the ruler helped me bend the flashing.

So the idea of this project was to end up with a wall-mounted tea light holder. I have a lot of silver accessories in my room, and I wanted the broken mirror to sort of make the candle light sparkle. It didn't come out exactly as I hoped, but I think it's not bad for $3. Ta-DA:

Sarah: Dolla Dolla Bill, Y'all

I believe that it's fairly obvious at this point that I enjoy crafting. I also really like the idea of being able to sell the items I make. I've decided that my downfall at this point is my lack of original ideas. I sometimes come up with wacky schemes, but end up either not executing them, or executing them poorly. The only ideas I trust enough to follow through on are ideas that someone has already come up with and created successfully. As a result, I can't sell anything, because everything I've made has been done before. The point of all this is that, starting this week, I'm going to start a new ongoing feature: Dollar Store crafting. Other crafters have flexed their brains by gathering bizarre materials from the dollar store, and turning them into something new. So this is my mission. I hope to make this a regular practice, although because I am in school, it's uncertain how quickly projects will be completed. Still, I hope to have something to show you within the next week. That's all for now!