Autumnal vases a quick make

26th September 

Today I felt the urge to use the ever growing pile of leaves from the garden.  Those who have followed me for a while will know that I love flowers and that I use all sorts of vessels as vases.  Again today, I use an old favourite.  A cardboard pot!  Come and see...


A quick autumn vase make over

You will need a container, mine is a cardboard vessel,
PVA glue and brush, old drinking glass and autumnal leaves.

The leaves were still a little damp from being outside so I put them in the oven after I had baked a cake, switched the oven off and left the door open.  Just enough to dry them a little without discolouring them.



Leaves drying before use

Smother the vessel of choice in PVA glue, don't be shy, use lots. 
Smear it in evenly before adding leaves.

Add PVA glue, remember it dries clear

Start attaching the leaves, making sure to cover the whole container and in my case not to show any of the blue colour.  I needed to add more glue where the leaves over lapped.  I also decided to leave some of the leaves poking over the top edge, but confess to trimming any that were over the bottom edge.

Leave to dry, in my case this took less than an hour, but will depend on the amount of glue used and the temperature in your home.

I picked some autumnal flowers from the garden ~ dahlias.  Found an old drinking glass that was in actual fact an old nutella jar!  Then added water to the glass, carefully put the glass in the now dried leaf vase and added the dahlias.

One very seasonal vase, bringing the outdoor autumn colours into my home...

An even quicker autumnal vase                   

You may not have access to autumn leaves or perhaps not the inclination to become all gluey, but there is another way to bring the seasons colours into your house.  I mixed red and yellow paint as I did not have any orange and with another cardboard container painted it autumn orange.  I had hoped to get away with just one layer of paint, but whatever the shiny bit is on the outside of the cardboard resisted the paint and so I ended up with three layers of paint.  However each layer dried incredibly quickly and it was all painted, done dusted and dried in just over an hour.   Ready for flowers...

An orange painted vase for autumn

Autumnal vase in situ in my home

You may also be interested in my other vase makeovers

 

Crochet vase

Scrap busting vase

♥  Happy autumn days to you all  ♥

Crocheted granny vase

30th April    



My mood recently is not where I would like it to be.   And in actual fact I realised how 'black' a mood I was in only really yesterday when I began a new quick busting project.  Like so many who use yarn for their hobby, I have many small balls of yarn and scraps left over from projects and every once in a while it's good to scrap bust.  Which colours did I choose yesterday... black, dark grey, light grey and white.  Yep, I'm feeling grey and ashen myself.  The latest illness in our house hold has been the most violent and nasty tummy bug I have ever experienced, to begin with I thought I had salmonella poisoning but it soon became apparent as each member of the family came down with it that this was a very nasty bug.  I'm now thinking with all our illness and hospital visits so far in 2015 to perhaps paint a cross on the front  door...      But onto much nicer things, crochet!  I decided that with all the gorgeous flowers in the garden at the moment, that I do not actually have enough vases, but where to store them.  I remembered a previous blog post from last year and in actual fact use that vase almost daily see here ~  Colourful vase tutorial and decided to make something similar.

 

 

I decided that perhaps I may not keep this vessel as long as I have the previous one, but that this would not matter as to store the crochet cover takes up no space at all and I can find another cylindrical container in my store cupboards whenever needed.  Apart from jam jars and the odd yoghurt pot, most of these containers that hold consumables in are often not waterproof, so how to get around that with my cardboard vessel?  I hid a drinking glass inside!  Genius I thought, have a look...

 

 

I chained enough to go around my vessel but made sure there were slightly less as it is very easy with granny stitches for it to become looser, just bare this in mind. When the chain was long enough I joined it with a slip stich, making sure not to twist the chain.

 

 

Then it was just a simple case of double crocheting.  I put three double crochet into a stitch, missed a chain and put three double crochet into the next chain until the end of the row.  Each row I switched colour and then put my three double crochets into the space on the previous row.  This type of crochet grows incredibly quickly and is the type that you can do without thinking about it.

All you need is some scrap yarn, a vessel to cover, in my case a cardboard cylindrical one that used to house gravy granules, glass to insert inside the vessel  and the flowers and water, et voila!

Crochet vase looks good outside...



....and the crochet vase looks good inside

That's me done for today and now I really need to get back to the household chores of finishing washing all those bed clothes...yuck.  My husband's birthday was even put on hold yesterday too.  If you pass by and see a cross on my door, you know we've fallen ill to something else...

♥  Here's to May being a healthier month  ♥

Crocheted scrap busting and recycling!

10th June 


My new "free" vase

Crocheting has not been high on my list in the last few weeks, as often happens, other things have got rudely in the way and crochet is the first to be put on hold, let's not even talk about the mood blanket.  But quick makes are always at the forefront of my mind and I am often thinking how better to recycle and not make so much waste.  Our bins seem to over flow some weeks, it is embarrassing.  Plus it would be good not to spend any more money on wool, despite the urge to, so this latest idea solved many of my dilemmas in my mind. 1) it cost me nothing, but using up spare wool 2) I was able to recycle and not throw away 3) I was able to complete a very quick project and have something colourful to show for it.  So what did I make... a yogurt pot vase!


We munch our way through a lot of natural yogurt in our house, I like it mixed with crunchy muesli and fresh berries and the children enjoy it whizzed up with fruit to have a morning smoothie, with a sprinkling of flax seeds and a teaspoon of honey.  So I reckon we get through 1 or 2 large tubs a week.  That is an awful lot of plastic to throw away.  Friends of mine, watch out, this could be your next birthday present, I may just become a one woman band of creating a production line of these vases!

 So I needed said yogurt pot to measure the length needed, this time I was more accurate than last week when making my glasses case cum pencil case, see post here I chained 40 and realised when placing it around the pot, that I was way out and chained a further 30,
I used Stylecraft wool as often used by Lucy of Attic 24 and a 4mm hook. 
But this is stash busting, so you can use whatever you have.

 

I chose a quick stitch and used a granny stitch, whereby I chained an extra 3 at the end of my chain which counted as the first double crochet and into the fourth chain from the hook dc  and again dc into the same chain, thus meaning i had the chain 3 and 2 dc into the same chain stitch.  Next,  I chained one.  I continued along the chain making 3 dc into every fourth stitch and chaining one before moving onto the next 3 dc cluster.  On the next row I changed colour and made my 3 dc clusters in each of the chain spaces from the row before.  I continued in this manner, changing colour on every row until the crochet was the desired height of the yogurt pot. 

This works up super quick,  needs very little thinking about

and is a perfect project to complete in front of the TV!

 

 

 

I stitched the sides together as best as I could weaving in and out, it is easy to make this look  with a darning needle, great big eye for threading wool and it looked OK.  But on putting it on the yogurt pot I did not like the fact you could see the writing and pot design through the gaps of the crochet.  What do you think?

 

 

So out came my favourite paint, Autentico and a quick direct slap onto the pot, it was dry within 30 mins in this glorious weather and I was

able to have what I think is a great new vase! 
(I bought this paint from http://www.sarahughes.co.uk/ )

 

 

Now the identity of the pot is covered up by paint and crochet!

 



 

I enjoyed the flowers outside for the afternoon but in reality, this vase will sit in my utility room in my wool and painted furniture haven.  A colourful corner in our home.

 

I just love quick colourful makes, don't you!