FINNISHED! / upcycling ideas

I got an inspiration from my mom's old leather patch bag to make her for her 60th birthday this leather covered patch jar and I think it's kind of cute. I'm not sure what is it for really but I guess you could keep there for example your sushi sticks, pencils, make up brushes, knitting needles or what ever. :)

...And by the way, if you're now thinking it was however maybe not enough for "round numbers", I should let you know that I also made her a memory necklace out of a lace band that she made as a ten year old school girl but I just didn't have time to take a picture of that. (Well, and also that came with a family trip to Barcelona.)

I warmly think of Munich and the local beer that is just excellent. And now I carry the memories of the good times with me as I made buttons out of Bavarian beer bottles. I have Augustiner, Chiemseer, Löwenbräu, Hofbräu, Franziskaner and Tegernseer. Paulaner is missing but not forgotten. So greetings to you all in Munich and Prost!

And by the way the jacket is from the Colours second hand shop in Berlin.
Check out my Berlin second hand shop reviews.

Beer bottle caps make an interesting impact on my second hand jacket.
Prost München!

I'm planning to renew our living room after the ongoing front renovation is over - in September. But I already started the work from small scale chores. This lamp shade is made out of a pair of white leather pants. I'm actually quite happy with the result and qoing to make another piece (maybe black leather or blue jeans) for sale as well. But here the instructions for you too.

For this lamp you'll need upcycled leather, linen, splitrings,
glue, a thick needle, scissors, cardboard and a gel pen.

UPCYCLED LEATHER LAMP

1. Take your leather and glue another fabric behind it to make the back side constant/sleek and also make the leather a bit more stiff. Here, I used white linen from an old curtain.
2. Cut a square from an old card, draw squares to the leather (I used gel pen because you can wipe it off with a wet cloth after cutting) and cut as many squares as you need.
3. Make tiny little holes in the middle of the each side of the square. I used a darning needle. Remember to make holes ONLY to the 3 sides of the squares in the lowest row!
4. Connect each square with splitrings to each other. You'll need three rings per side.
5. Connect the last and first column and attach the highest row to your upcycled lamp frame.
6. Your lamp is ready!

A while ago I visited my brother and his better half in Tampere. They have such a cute home and several handmade upcycling details make it even more charming. So here I send to you not only greetings but also inspiration from Tampere. Take a look!

Take a better look in Maija's blog: Poppastelua.

Like said, I'm a 90's teenie and I just still love the hoodie vests or vest hoodies or whatever they are. I found two old hoodies from the flea market pile and decided to take them back to use. The other one I just cut here and there and the other one I sprinkled with white fabric paint. 

You can sprinkle paint with "a tool" made from basic string knotted together.

I found a piece of an old studded belt and went a bit crazy with it. It's amazing how many new looks I got from this short piece of belt. Nothing surprising really but a bit more time for one of my old favorite shirt that is aging and looser look for a flea market sweater and a hat that I got from my friend. 

This sweater is my Sunday favorite. It's big, gray and loose and
I also cut the neck to give a bit of a slobby touch.

A new life for an old friend. And thank's Inkeri for the hat!

Starching is a good way to reuse old pretty handmade lace table cloths or similar. All you need is water and sugar. With this simple recipe I for example made a wall decor for a birthday present to my almost mother-in-law, an earring holder for my goddaughter, hooks for my friend and a pair of earrings for the RokRokInc. shop.

Hooks for clothes, wall decor and a earring holder: all made of recycled table cloths.

So, by starching you can also create small or bigger things, for example earrings from small recycled or self made lace pieces. Here some easy instructions for you too. 

For those who loooove spring, 70's and want to be seen:
RokRokInc. big orange earrings.

HOW TO MAKE LACE STARCHING

1. Take you piece of lace and wash it properly.
2. Measure about the same amount of water and sugar. Maybe just a bit more sugar than water. The amount depends always on how big your cloth is. For a small piece one desiliter/cup is enough.
3. Warm up the water and pour the sugar in.
4. Let the water simmer and wait until the sugar has melted and desappeared completely.
5. Soak the cloth in the hot water until it's thoroughly wet.
6. Take the cloth from the water with some heat protecting gloves and squese the excess water out. NOTICE: You can not wait until the water cools down because in that cade you end up with sugary lumpy outcome.
7. Place the cloth on a gladwrap (to protect) and then on an even ground, like on a table.
8. Tap the cloth gently with your hands even and flat.
9. Let dry. This may take a couple of days depending ot the size.
10. If you want, you can modify the end product with spray paint or different kind of accessories.

My friend has her birthday today and I decided to give her, in addition to a present, some summer memories. ...Two and a half years ago we did a small road trip in southern Europe. At Garda Lake in Italy we enjoyed the warm summer nights, ate great Italian ice cream and drank some bubbly Prosecco. It was a great trip.

There, at the beach, I also collected pretty little stones that in the end travelled all the way up to Helsinki. So, with glue I combined the stones and a picture with a frame found from a flea market in Munich and got a present full with memories. Happy Birthday Meri!

With some hot glue I combined stones from Lake Garda with a recycled frame
and a picture taken at Garda to make a present full with summer memories.

In bittersweet feelings we Finns look back at the Finnish Marks. Some of us still want the good old "grannies marks" back. ...And no, I'm not one of them but I do think that some of the last coins that we had pretty prints. I haven't found all of them yet but here you can see at least the ten and five pennies coins and a mark. The ten pennies were my brother-in-laws savings that he never got to use. :D

Ten pennies coin earrings I still have but the other ones are already gone.

Ten pennies coin had on one side it has the Finnish national flower lily-of-the-valley
with the name of the country and the other side states the value of the coin.

One Mark had a Finnish lion print. ...The Finnish lion is basically absurd:
of course lions couldn't survive in Finnish conditions and it also has on
it's head a crown which we also never had (I mean of our own).