@Friends' - Sparkly sandal ornaments find a new home

Twinkle twinkle little freestyle stars

One night last week I got a text message from a crafty friend with a photo of her latest upcycle project, a new purse made from pieces of clothing that were no longer serviceable in their original form.  Who doesn't appreciate a freestyle that happens entirely within your apartment?  Almost as good as going shopping in your closet. I couldn't resist asking to feature her freestyle/upcycle project on the blog.

Ready for a day of holding those odds and ends.

 This crafty purse project was carried out using fabric from old jeans and ornaments salvaged from sandals that had seen better days.  You can see the final product in action in the photo below. Note the cool braided strap.

Looking good while out and about

One final sparkly detail

 Happy freestyling, and don't forget to donate clothing rather than discarding it! Even scraps can be shredded and sold by charities, keep those textiles out of the trash..

NQF - The warmth of wool, in fingerless mitten form

Heat is expensive. Many of my friends live in places where winter sees the thermostat turned down low to save money.  55-60 degrees indoors, that's the situation you just have to live with, but fingers can get a little chilled in those circumstance.  Last year for the holidays I gave two friends some super simple fingerless mittens made from old wool sweaters shrunken in hot water.  Why fingerless? This functional style allows for normal household activities, typing, etc, while still keeping those extremities insulated.  Here they are modeling their gifts.

Soft, warm, and freestylish in the winter.

Why is this a Not Quite Free (NQF) post?  I confess to buying the sweaters at the goodwill for approximately $5 each.  The burgundy sweater was merino wool and the purple was cashmere.  After a little experimentation with shrinking sweaters had I learned that these two types of wool sweaters shrink down while retaining their softness.  Best of all, since these handwarmers are pre-shrunk they can be thrown in the washing machine!

Happy freestyling, stay warm this winter.

Not Quite Free - a case of the ooh shineeez!

Succulents + Silver = Sigh.

If you’ve read any of my postings since September 2012, you might have picked up on my expanding love affair with succulent plants. Thinking back I’d have to say it really started with the sad aloe plant that I inherited when I moved into the previous apartment.  Poor poor aloe, it sat neglected in a corner for who knows how long, slowly shrinking back towards the soil in the dim light. Not wanting to witness a plant death in slow motion I took responsibility for it and the little dude perked up after being moved to a sunnier spot and eventually repotted. 

  The apartment garden expanded again with the acquisition of a tiny fuzzy plant from a stand at the Harvard Square farmers market.  It expanded again to include a striped zebra plant I stumbled upon in the humid corner of a greenhouse. 

Zebra plant in summer sun

But the succulent container garden craze really took off in September 2012, after I got some from a friend's wedding centerpiece.  As a result I started looking around the web for tips on how to grow succulents, and that led to creative ways to display them in planters.  Enter the silver.  

I'm not the only one to adore this idea of combining succulents in silver containers, I think I actually cooed when I first saw it. 

via multiple sites on the interwebs

I've seen this same image of succulents in old silver champagne glasses here, here, and here.  Google it, you'll see, it is popular.  So whoever thought of it first, kudos, and thanks for sharing it, and thanks for giving me a reason to prowl the thrift stores looking for cheap silver-plate containers.  Back in September 2012 I went to a yard sale, not very common in Cambridge, but I found some silver cups in dire need of a new direction in life.  This where the not-quite-free part comes in, shhhh, they were $1 each.

I couldn't fit any of my existing succulents into the small mouths of these cups, so I got some other plants from the 'terrarium plants' section of Pemberton Farms.  The teensy plant pots had no labels and the one person working there couldn't tell me what they were. Exciting! Mystery plants.

Even after the move to a new city, the silver cups are still serving as planters, shiny shiny tiny planters.  More on that in another post.

Happy not-quite-freestyling.

A tall drink of freestyle (furniture)

(An old freestyle adventure from the sidewalks of Cambridge that was never posted, until now!)

While heading out to the store one night with a friend, I spotted a tall narrow shelf lying in a pool of streetlight on the far sidewalk.  Full stop! Immediate inspection required!  Groceries had to wait while we brought this shelf into the apartment and laid in on the floor in the living room.  Moving furniture at night always feels a leeeetle bit (scandalous, secretive, surreptitious, sketchy??), but also somehow more victorious.

I was initially excited at the prospect of using this shelf for shoes, going so far as to put it in the closet. I measured the space, but not my feet. Turns out, my shoes were too big to lay flat on the shelves, they fall out! Boo.  So the shelf had to come out of the closet. Then it had to wait around a while, twiddling its thumbs, while I considered how to use it.  A narrow shallow bookshelf? Display space for tchotchkes? I suspect in its former life this shelf displayed CDs, or movies.  

The tall shelf sat around our place, empty, for a while, until one night we were visiting friends and I spied the SAME SHELF but in a different finish.  Quelle coincidence!  It was also a freestyle find, perhaps no one in Cambridge needs to store CDs anymore.  They had arranged their shelf to charming effect with books, mementos, and a plant.

Looking good!

 I asked if they would be interested in a second, free, one to use as they saw fit.  (Thinking to myself, Please, take it off my hands, we don’t actually have the space) After some hemming and hawing, they agreed to accept the shelf when Friend offered to deliver it to their front door.  *Sigh of relief*  Adios to the tall shelf, may you serve a purpose for someone else.
Happy freestyling.