Making a Mosaic Table Top

Pier I Imports has some attractive outdoor tables with mosaic tops. Depending on size, the prices range from $99 to $399. After some discussion about a possible purchase of one of these pricey tables, DH suggested we "recycle" two of our table tops. He encouraged me to make a mosaic pattern atop each table and to do it myself. That way, the pocketbook would barely be impacted, and the back patio would have a new look without purchasing a ready made item.

After some internet research, including this site on E-How and here at Homemade Simple, I decided to take the bait and try to make at least one mosaic table top. (Am aiming for a bigger piece, but learning on a small wooden circle...)

This is where I began the project:

1) Finding a design: often, coloring book pages for children have simple lines relating to a particular motif. The simpler the design, the easier it is to fill in the design with tiles. My first thought was to use a sunflower, so I sketched one using this design:

But, it was too complicated with too many lines in the design of the petals.

I redrew a sunflower using the design that a new blogger friend, Michele at Extremely Crafty in the UK, has on her blog. Check her out. She was so kind as to send her tutorial for this bag. You can receive it, too, if you email her with your request.

So Michele's flower looked easier to draw for a table top flower design (picture is courtesy of Michele, and her blog website is extremelycrafty.)

Step 2: Drawing the design on your work area. Here is a picture of a similar flower design on a wooden table topper that I drew yesterday:

3) Purchasing necessary materials

Home Depot provided three colors of ceramic tiles (reasonably priced at 39 cents apiece). And a sheet of 1 inch blue squares in glass was also purchased. Yellow, blue, and autumn brown tiles were broken by hitting with a hammer, and each piece was then loosely fit onto the table as shown in the picture below:

4) The next step is to adhere each broken piece of ceramic tile to the wood, then grout and cure. But that is a post for next week when I return from Dallas!

Tee Shirt Purse - Easy!

Previously, I blogged about making tee shirt purses and got lots of inquiries on "How to Sew a Tee Shirt Purse" from Google.

So, it must have meant people were looking for easy ways to make purses from retired cotton jersey shirts.

The references from the September 2008 posting about how to make the satchels were this website and the Craftbits website and the Curbly website.

Then I received a comment from a reader (Fenna), who said an even easier way to accomplish making a bag from a t-shirt was to:

1. Cut off the arms (she says to feel free to make a big arch for a more dramatic look)
2. Cut a large scoop out of the neck (this will vary depending on design of the t-shirt)
3. Turn it inside out and sew the bottom of the shirt together.

Fenna was right on!

Here was an old tee shirt from Hawaii that just begged to be used for a craft project, along with some scrap ribbon that was forlornly lurking in the knickknack bin in my crafts closet:

Following Fenna's directions, the sleeves were cut out and the neck was scooped down with scissors. The only sewing involved was turning the shirt inside-out and seaming the bottom closed. It was gussied up with ribbon around the raw edges overlaid with a buttonhole stitch, but that step was not really necessary.

The Maui t-shirt bag is now holding my hand made sock stretchers purchased from the Etsy Squire Country Craft Store, along with some yarn for the next sock project. These sock blockers are a very nice product for knitters, entirely made by Montana crafters.

Here is a picture of all the craft filled bags in my catch-all closet. They each hold a UFO (unfinished object) that I'll get around to finishing sometime (maybe).

Note that the black mice with their tails wrapped around the hangers stayed over from Halloween. Maybe they were sniffing around for an overlooked scrap of yarn or material to take back to their own sewing burrows.

Using an outgrown baby sized t-shirt with a whimsical motif on its front would make up into a darling little baby bag (bottle warmer?). You can think of many applications from this easy method of recycling t-shirts.

The Daffodil Principle

No matter how many times you might have seen this, it is worth another look:



One person CAN make a difference.