Finishing details…

Remember this? I made it ages ago from one of my grandad’s old shirts. I took it in, reset the sleeves and made a new collar.

I reused as much as I could, these bits were the cuffs. Faffy, but cute.

But I didn’t have enough to make any facings. I decided to leave it because I’m lazy, but mum really liked it so I gave it to her. That was ages ago and she hasn’t really worn it because the snipped edges flap up sometimes and look messy.

Cue 6 months later and 10 minutes with some bias binding…

…and it looks so neat now. The miracle of bothering to finish things in a tidy way never ceases to amaze me!
Beccy

Rescued with a dyebath…

I had this dress which I had worn (and washed) to death. It’s hard to tell in the photos but it was starting to look tired and a bit bleached around the edges.

I also had this top which had gone a bit grey, and then I somehow managed to wash it with a red tee-shirt which left faint pinky blotches all over it.

Cue Dylon Mexican red…

Just make sure your rubber gloves don’t have holes in them…

I realised at the last minute that I had loads of dye salt but no dye fix. A quick look on the interweb told me I could use washing soda (nope haven’t got any of that) or sodium carbonate, AKA soda ash (nope, haven’t got any of… wait a minute!) Soda ash is commonly used in glazes, and what do I have a workshop full of? That’s right, glaze ingredients. Woo! I found some and fixed my dye. It worked perfectly, and was probably cheaper than the Dylon stuff.
After the dye bath - it’s a bit hard to tell in this photo (why is red so hard to photograph?) but it’s very vibrant and no longer looks washed out.

I didn’t bother reading the label on the top because it was either this or turning it into dishcloths but it turned out to be polycotton. Well, what do you expect from topshop?

I don’t mind though because the colour is lovely. It’s a little bit salmon and a little bit hot pink. I’ll get more use out of it now though, it looks like new!
Beccy

Painting handles with pizza boxes?

Just a quick tip. I needed to spray paint a load of nasty discoloured plastic drawer handles and realised that the easiest way would be to attach them to something stiff and do them all at once. I raided our recycling and found two pizza boxes that were perfect for the job!

After giving them a good clean I attached them using the screws they came with.

Then blasted them with a couple of coats of my favourite sky coloured plasti-kote.

Et voila. Lovely, shiny, bright handles. The round ones were an 80’s red with cream accents. Yummy.

And the result? Well it was always going to be a melamine chest of drawers, there’s no changing that, but it looks a hundred times better than it did and a can of spray paint is a damn sight cheaper than buying something new!

And anyway, it’s for a boy’s who thinks elegance is a lazboy and some pepsi.

Beccy