Up-cycled T's

It's always nice to find something to do with the old clothes that your children no longer want but will use if you get creative with them.

Every year before school gets ready to start, I ask my kids to go through their clothes and bag the clothes they have grown out of to make room for new school clothes.  We usually donate the old clothes, but this year since my daughter is getting ready to leave for college I knew that she was going to "bag" some clothes that she felt she was too "old" to wear.  Before sending everything off to the donation bin I went through the clothes and picked out her favorite t-shirts she wore in high school and made some small "comfort" pillows. 

When she saw what I was making, she just fell in love with them! I ran out stuffing as she was choosing more t-shirts she wanted me to make into pillows!  She's even having me make some for her friends too!

The worn cotton t-shirts and the fluffy stuffing are so soft that it makes them not only comfortable but huggable as well!  We're planning on adding pom-pom's to all the pillows!

  

Seahorse & Kitty cat bowls

It's amazing that the summer months are flying by so fast.  There so much left to do and so little time to do it in.
When I started my dichro pendants this year, (seahorses & starfishes) I thought I wanted to keep them simple and go the traditional route of putting plain bails on them or wire wrap them.  Neither of those ideas worked out for me, so I am back to placing little charms on the back of my pendants. I guess that's just me.

So today I'm shipping out my first seahorse with a little dolphin charm attached to it and a couple of the cat bowls to some feline family members on the east coast.

Diamond in the rough shines bright today!!!

Back in May I mentioned that I bought a $5.00 solid wood coffee table from a garage sale. It was neglected, scratched up, chewed in some places and it looked like it was ready for the trash!! Well I could see past all the damage and took it home. Over the past few weekends I spent time sanding, fixing and finally stained it.


Now it's MY new beautiful solid wood coffee table! 


I am thinking of adding some glass art to the sides of the table.  When I come up with a design that I think will compliment it, I will be adding it! 

He's enjoying them!

My follow up of the up-cycled TopoChico bottles turned to drinking glasses seems to be a success!

Here are the pictures that were sent to me.

I think I'll be up-cycling a little more!

TopoChico

I finally bought my tile water saw, put it together yesterday and used it today!

This is my first up-cycle project and was pretty pleased with the way it came out.  I love drinking TopoChico spring water and so does a friend of mine who, even when not drinking the water, wanted glasses made from TopoChico bottles so he could use them for beer. I was happy to help him out!

I used the water saw to cut the bottles then hand beveled the glasses for a smooth edge.

 I hope he enjoys them!!!!

Kitty Cat food bowls

Who deserves some creative glass art? My Kitty Cats of course!!! I worked on three small food bowls, for my three cats, Tiger, Jake and Little Kitty (she's really not that little but she is little compared to the other two!)

 The yellow and orange bowl remind me of kibbles and the green bowl has a wavy edge perfect for the prissy little kitty.

                                              Jake's bowl with a dark kitty paw print corner.

                                            Tiger's bowl with a light paw print in the corner.

Little Kitty's bowl with a yellow paw print on the edge.

Jake

Tiger

Little Kitty (she's a messy eater :))

I think all three of them like there bowls!  

On a more serious note, I recently found out from a friend of mine that cat's can be allergic to plastic and break out with kitty acne around there mouth/face.  I have been a cat lover & owner all of my life and never heard of this. A few weeks ago I had purchased a cute small plastic bowl from the grocery store and started feeding Little Kitty from it and the top of her nose completely broke out and I thought some kind of bug had gotten to her.  I was wrong, she was allergic to the plastic bowl.  As soon as I threw it away she started to clear up almost immediately. From now on I'll make them their bowls from glass!

Working on it!

A couple of weekends ago I was in Austin and had the opportunity to stop by Helios Glass Studio and take a look around.  They had a great selection of glass and supplies and the atmosphere was very laid back and nice. I wouldn't mind going back up to Austin for there open studio! Since I didn't really need any fusing supplies, I went right next door to Artisan Stained Glass and they had the most beautiful colors of glass!  After much debate I picked out a couple of sheets of glass for the birds in my stained glass window and the gentleman that was there cut the glass to the size I needed.  I was very pleased with my selection and couldn't wait to see what my birds were going to look like with the combination of colors I selected.  I think that's the funnest part, picking out colors of glass!  

I finally got around and did some work on the stained glass window. I finished all the clear background over the past few weekends and today I finished cutting three of the six birds. I still need to define the feathers, and put eyes on them.  At least I'm working on it!