Waste not: Kitchen towels

We are sew lazy.  Long, long ago, we picked up the IKEA Trolig (a simple tension rod) and placed it in our kitchen window like this...

  

For many weeks, it sat awaiting the completion of House Project #852: hand-sewn custom curtains to frame the sun-streaked kitchen window.  The bare window just taunted me, daring me to cover it up.

One day, when I could no longer stand my own procrastination, I began rummaging through kitchen drawers like this...

                             

Eureka! An idea was born: reuse some old kitchen towels.  Within a few seconds, I had arranged the window like this:

and then like this...

Ahh. Another successful reuse, upcycle, or whatever you want to call it. I call it completion of House Project #852.

 

DIY:salvage to art

1st time making a metal sculpture...ok, 1st time making ANY sculpture. In the process, I gained aching hands and mucho respect for anyone who works with metal. It all started when M. decided to finally remove a mud-covered rope that was tied onto our seawall (yup, it's been there all this time). At the other end of that rope, we found a flat crushed derelict crabtrap that had been abandoned for who-knows-how-many years. M. hosed off the excess muck and left it to dry in the yard. I don't know how I convinced him to let me use it for a "project", but after a couple hours, we had our 1st DIY salvage art piece. If I can make a manatee wall hanging out of a derelict crabtrap, anyone can. Here's how:
1. CLEAN: Using pliers, I removed the excess debris and heavily damaged parts from the crabtrap.

2. PLAN: I stared at the crabtrap for a LONG time until inspiration hit me (ow!). Using sharpie marker on newspaper, I sketched out a simple manatee silhouette. I put the template under the crabtrap to trace the outline onto the metal.

3. SCULPT: Using pliers, I cut out a rough shape, following the manatee outline as best I could. Then, using jute rope (found at Michael's craft store), I traced the manatee outline more carefully. I tied rope knots along the way to keep the rope in place [while singing connect-the-dots-la-la-la].

4.FINISH: I used a round nose plier to bend down the pointy metal ends safely and coated the whole manatee with leftover silver spraypaint. My sis encouraged me to add an eyeball, so I sewed on an old button. Finally, I reused the line rope that once tethered it to our seawallL: I snipped it and knotted it to become a hanger so it is ready to be hung up. Voila: salvage art.

This week, my awesome sis took our manatee over to the Hillsborough County Fair where it will be displayed Nov 4th - Nov 8th, as part of the 2009 Recycled Yard Art contest. We got our fingers crossed, but are just as happy to be participating.

P.S. Safety 1st: Despite using non-slip gloves and a foam-handled pliers set, my hand were aching. I took breaks often to let my hands rest.