Reloved - I made it into print!

Today is an exciting day for me. Some weeks back, when I discovered the first issue of Reloved magazine, I decided to send them my story of how I recycle and reuse to make some of my fabric designs. I was very surprised when they said they would like to use my story and of course you never quite believe your story is interesting enough to go in but somehow I managed it.

Issue 2 is out today and I am at the back in the Upcycled Life feature,  now I'm only showing you a sneak preview as I tried to hide & disguise myself a bit with the photo by pushing my hair into a hat but I've been accused by my better half as looking a bit fierce, I'm sure I don't always look so fierce but I'm generally not a smiley person for photos as I hate having my picture taken. (I think I have every right to look fierce as changing the subject slightly, it's a week since I reported the hole in the roof and nothing has happened, typical!).

Back to the mag, here is a glimpse

Reloved is a lovely magazine with lots of nice ideas to make, probably more household type things than some of the other magazines but there's plenty to go at.

I really like these tin can lanterns

And this section on making natural dyes is right up my street.

There are some great magazines these days, I just don't seem to have time to read them all but I do cherry pick and return to things as a good source of inspiration.

Looks like nice weather for the weekend, yippeee!

Make a wallet from recycled Has Bean Coffee bags

The new red & white Has Bean coffee bag/envelopes which the weekly subscription of beans arrive in are so much more practical. It actually fits in my small post box which the jiffy bag never did and I always had to be in on a Saturday morning to take delivery. They're less packaging and less waste and they look very smart too. Here they are displayed by Bob the Bunny.

As some of my readers will know, I like to recycle and I like to stitch and create things. 
This got me thinking, as I was about to discard the last few weeks bags, could I make something useful out of them.
I know, a tiny wallet to hold the loyalty cards of some of my favourite cafes.
I chopped up the bits of bag with the HB logo on which would make the outer surface of the wallet.

I then stitched some of these bits together, overlapping and using a zigzag stitch.

I was working to create a rectangular size of about 21cm x 9cm and here it is, I also zigzagged around the edge for neatness.

Next you need another rectangle the same size for the inside, I found this coffee themed oil-skin fabric.

With wrong sides together, stitch with a zigzag all around the edge to join the 2 pieces, exposing the right sides. You can see below that inside I have stitched a little red pocket to hold my loyalty cards.

The design of the wallet will be to fold over the right hand side with a small flap and then the left hand side will fold over that and close with a snap fastener, as you can see on the picture below.

Here is the finished wallet with a little embellishment on the front.

The inside, to store those precious cards!

And finally the back view.

Plastic bags & packaging with nice designs on are very versatile to chop up and stitch to recycle into something new.

This might turn into an occasional series of "More Than One Use for a Has Bean Coffee Bag", you have been warned!