Challenge 28 – Reuse

Reuse, renew, recycle. One man’s junk is another man’s craft. We made something out of materials that we would otherwise throw away. It was time to start rummaging through the garbage and recycling! [See all the submissions from Iron Craft]

Melinda Hileman’s Submission: Ring Storage

Melinda turned a box that used to hold checks into a ring storage box with a folding lid. The original box just had a lid that lifted off. It was also pretty ugly.

Melinda reinforced the box with leftover cardboard and used some pretty shelf liner she had laying around. She also made it into a flip-top box instead of having the lid lift off. Melinda then sealed the whole thing with Mod Podge. (It does get a little sticky when it’s in the warm weather, but that’s the nature of shelf liner and Mod Podge!)

Melinda folded fleece with colors that matched the shelf liner into an accordion and glued it into the bottom. Now she can just stick rings in each fold!

See her inspiration

Challenge 29: Button Up

Lots of us have collections of buttons that we’ve accumulated through the years. This week’s challenge was to create something with them. [See all the submissions from Iron Craft]

Melinda Hileman’s Submission: Button and Ribbon Necklace

Melinda made this using an old button she found at her grandma’s, a $1 necklace in the craft supply section of WalMart (she braided part and added gold and silver thread to the braid), some chain she had, and a pearl bead and gold teardrop left over from broken jewelry.

Challenge 30: Hot, Hot, Hot!

The last three days many of us have had heat indexes in the triple digits with record breaking humidity. It seems to be all anyone is thinking and talking about these days, so this week’s challenge theme is Hot. [See all the submissions from Iron Craft]

Melinda Hileman’s Submission: This Is Why I’m Hot

\Melinda decided to use some of Amy Pavelka’s magic gloss to create a pendant with the Mario fire flower and “this is why I’m hot” on it, but attempt #2 was worse than the first. She was hoping this would work better than the Mod Podge Dimensional Magic with her inkjet printer. As it started to harden, hundreds of bubbles came up, and there was no stopping them. Trying to fix them afterwards just made it worse.

Melinda definitely needs help if she is going to continue to make pendants!

Challenge 31: Sculptural

Time for some fun. This challenge was ‘materials’ in nature. It was time to work with the sculpture clays. Fimo, Sculpy, or even play dough. [See all the submissions from Iron Craft]

Melinda Hileman’s Submission: Memorial Bracelets

Melinda decided to make memorial bracelets in honor of her grandma. She made the beads using either just transparent Sculpey or a mix of transparent and pearl. The beads contain pieces of dried roses that were at my grandmother’s funeral.

The top bracelet has a large tile that has a cool texture from grandma’s living room light switch plate, and the bottom bracelet has beads with her initials (TW) and a heart between them.