Free make for April

I felt like it was time for a change from the mini bunting tea light holders I put together when I had my crafternoon at the beginning of March.  I wanted something more spring like and hit on using a left over paper napkin I had put on my Easter mood board.

up-cycled jam jars

I haven't tried sticking paper napkins to glass with a glue stick before but it seems to have worked!  The smallest of the three took the longest to do as I thought it would look sweet if I cut out some of  the flowers.

pink roses

For the largest -an old mayo  jar, I roughly traced bird shapes from the Sania Pell book ""The homemade home", I thoroughly recommend  this as an excellent source of inspiration and great detail on how the projects can be achieved.

Spring birds

I found this a little more challenging than the roses as the layers of paper separated so I decided to go with that and flipped them over to make a "facing" image.  Each of the bird shapes are a little different as I didn't want them to be too uniform.

And the last one was the most simple, I just cut a length of the napkin and wrapped it around the final jar and tied it off with a bit of paper ribbon I had salvaged from Christmas day.  I put a couple of loops of this around the necks of the other two jars to finish them off.

Wrapped jar for Spring

I have arranged them on the mantle ready to use this evening although I must remember to add batteries to my shopping list as some of the twinkle lights are not very bright.

Spring mantle

When I set up the twinkle lights I try and maximise their output by using the glass jars and the mirror, I have used one set of lights between two jars draping it over the top of the battery operated candles.  It may look  little odd in the day light but it works really well in the evening with the big light turned off.

On the whole I am very pleased with the result, I did have to remove any excess glue from around the shapes but it rubbed away very easily and left a nice clean finish.  I made the mistake of trying to do this straight away but it tore the paper so my advice would be to wait until it has dried.

Total cost was zero, the napkin had sat in the corner of the dining room since Easter and was in danger of ending up in the recycling, the paper ribbon was salvaged so just the cost of the glue which was probably less than a penny.




A quick update on the Navy skirt, I have changed patterns, when I went to cut it out I realised that because of the pockets it would be too confusing for me to work out how to taper between the waist and the hip as well as adding the pocket so I have gone for a much simpler design.  As usual with my sewing I am spend a fare amount of time thinking about it and faffing around instead of getting on with it, somethings never change.  I am hoping to get it done this week,  so long as I don't get distracted!


Have you had any free makes lately? or are your energies being directed towards your sewing ?