From polluter to air purifier (indoor gardening DIY tutorial)

DIY Tutorial : How to make a cachepot from an old candle

As I was walking by the dumpsters one night, y'know like any common person, I saw this basket of stuff off to the side.  Why didn't I take the basket too??  I was clearly too distractedly excited about finding the two candles inside.  You can see there were two, one blue, one white.

















Here are the two candles in my sink, waiting to be cleaned out.


I'm not a candle person to begin with, and those things smelled STRONG. Like crazy perfume strong, no way was I going to keep them around.  I couldn't wait to get the wax out and start the transformation into pretty glass cachepots.

Using a flat screwdriver I was able to break the wax into a few sections and then just flip it out.  It was a little trickier in the blue glass jar because the lip was narrower than the base.After getting the visible wax out I ran the glass through the dishwasher to try to remove the smell and soften up the glue that was attaching the wick to the base. Getting the wick removed from the bottom took a few minutes because it was hard to get a grip on it with the waxy covering that remained. Patience prevailed in the end.

You can see I accidentally scraped the paint in a few places, but its not obvious if you are looking at it from the outside, only when light is shining through from the outside. 




I had another Haworthia succulent that needed a new home, so I cut down a coffee cup to match the height of the blue glass and poked a few holes in the bottom for drainage.




It was just that simple! Voila, a fancy free cachepot saved from the trash pile.



To recap, here are the DIY tutorial steps to make a cachepot from an old candle:

1. find old candle

2. using a flat screwdriver carefully poke through the wax down to the glass and cut the wax up into pieces.

3. Using the screwdriver as a lever, lift out the wax pieces and discard (unless you can think of a great way to reuse candle wax, maybe to wax a sticky drawer slide?)

4. If the wick is glue to the base of the candle try to pry it up with the screwdriver, it may take a few minutes of prying and gently pulling on the wick with your fingers. Keep a paper towel around to wipe off the wax as needed.

5. After you have removed all the wax, wash the glass jar

6. Insert new plant, either directly into glass or via a smaller planter set inside.

Happy freestyling and indoor gardening!

Maybe Haworthia *is* a utensil

Almost anything can become a planter, especially if it is ceramic.  I like the shape, and more importantly the price, of this small stoneware crock at a discount store. 




Since planters and cachepots can be more expensive than the plants themselves I've started to keep my eyes open for low priced ceramics wherever they may be.  This one was in the kitchen wares section and only $5.99. I'll take it.

My Haworthia succulents keep producing offsets (plant babies) and I have to keep finding new homes for them or repotting the mother plant into a large container.  This one was pretty simple.   I often use coffee cups for succulent planters, because they are free and its easy to poke holes in the bottom for drainage.  The utensil crock was taller than the coffee cup but that issue was easily solved by adding a little step (made out of part of another coffee cup cut down to size)  for the plant cup to sit on.




Voila!  Another example of kitchenware to cachepot.


Even though I don't usually give my succulents their own chairs I think this ones looks pretty good on the slipper chair, maybe it will just hangout there until it has to move.







 

Happy freestyling!

Cookware cachepot (otherwise titled "How to reuse a broken pot with no handle")

DIY: How to reuse old cookware by turning it into a planter

One of my roommates had used up the life of a metal cooking pot, somehow the rivets that held the handle to the bowl had gotten thoroughly rusted. I suspect that food got trapped in the crevices and provided a suitable environment for bacteria to work their magic.  With some well applied force the other rivet holding the handle popped off and I was gifted the leftovers of a broken saucepot. I was overjoyed, new planter!

Although I do like the look of succulents in silveplate pieces like punchbowls with ornate handles this was just a plain saucepan with no lovely scrollwork or other ornamentation.  Also, the copper bottom contrasting with the sides made it obvious that it had started its life as cookware so after a thorough cleaning I decided to spray paint the whole thing white.

Here is the pot on its very fancy spray painting stand -- made out of a plastic jar that once held nuts and cardboard I found in the recycling.  High tech indeed.



I picked an unseasonable cold day when the outdoor temperature dropped BELOW the level recommended for use on the spray can. Whatever, not going to stop the creative process!  I kept the can indoors between coats so it wouldn't get too chilly.

Here is the pot after one coat, I was pleasantly surprised how well the paint stuck to bare metal even in the cold.



After three, or four, or maybe five coats of spray paint (with plenty of dry time in between) I called it quits. Enough with the painting-- I've got plants to tend to!

Here is the final product, now a proud cachepot holding a lovely peacock plant on top of another freestyle piece of furniture that I haven't even written about yet.
















Happy gardening, and don't give up on that old cookware.  Give worn out pots or pans a new purpose in life with the magic of spray paint.

Happy freestyling!

DIY Slipper Chair Slip Cover Tutorial

DIY Slipper Chair Cover Tutorial

This is a long post, get ready!. The whole cutting and sewing process only took about 2 hours, but prep work included buying the curtain then washing it in hot water and drying it in the dryer to make sure it wouldn't shrink down in future. I used a single curtain panel that was marked down to $9.99, and I had a $5 coupon to knock a few more bucks off the price.  Ihis hot pink/purple color was not hanging up along with the others on display, but there were lots of packages sitting on the shelf behind the curtains -- it always pays to dig around a little.



Enough with the preliminaries -- let's talk slipper chair slipcover!

Here is the blue slipper chair I found on the loading dock.  I took it because I like slipper chairs and this one looked wide and comfortable.  When I found it there were only 3 working legs so I replaced the legs (described in another post).  Laying over the back of the chair is my curtain panel, washed and ready for action.

I don't really like the look of those legs with the chair, so I planned for my cover to hang down almost to the ground. If your slipper chair cover doesn't need to cover the legs you can probably get away with using far less fabric.

Step 1. Measure pieces and draw lines on fabric for cutting and 'fake' seams.

















Since the chalk lines are a little hard to see in the above photo I've added another photo with lines showing where my cuts (white lines) and fake seams (blue lines) were. I also tried to lay out my pieces to take advantage of the existing seams on the bottom and sides of the curtain. Oh, you've already done the hemming for me? Thank you!
 

 Ok, what the heck is a fake seam? I realized that I didn't need to cut fabric only to re-attach it.
Instead I could just fold it and sew a line so that it would be symmetrical with the seam on the other side.
Since the fabric is one continuous piece I'm referring to it as a fake seam.  There might be an official sewing term for this practice, if so, feel free to tell me in the comments.

Step 2. Cut (measure twice and don't forget about your seam allowance, cut once)
 Here is what my large center piece looked like after the others were cut away.

Step 3. Sew the fake seam between the seat bottom and the seat back.
Afterwards it will look like this.




















 


Step 4. Wrap around the uncut side bottom and pin to the seam bottom.  The blue lines and arrows show placement of the fake seams - one horizontal between seat bottom and back, and one vertical at the front corner of the chair.







Step 5. Pin and sew the other side bottom.  This will be an upside-down L-shaped seam, running along the front corner and then horizontal to the point where the seat bottom and back meet. I don't have a photo of this step, but here is a picture of what it should look like after the front and bottom side pieces are sewn together.


 Side view.


Step 6. After your front seams are satisfactory you can pin on the 'tall sides' and sew them.  On this chair moving from the bottom to the top the seam was first vertical, then slanted towards the back, and then gently curved across the top. Your slipper chair will likely be different.




I didn't get it sewn right on the first try, so don't worry if you have to rip out the seam and start again. That's why we have seam rippers.  In my case some of the fabric got oddly bunched up near the curved top part of the seam.....sew beware!

Step 7. Add the back fabric.  In my case I knew the chair back would be facing a wall, so it didn't matter what I used. Also I wanted to experiment with this beige microfiber fabric that I salvaged from a couch that was being discarded.  The beige microsuede is heavier than the hot pink cotton curtain fabric but it seemed to work out fine. I overlapped the two pieces on the back so that the entire chair would be covered.  I also considered adding some decorative ribbon for tying the back together but it wasn't necessary.  The picture below shows the entire cover turned right-side-out and on the chair...in some really unflattering kitchen lighting.



Step 8. Move finished chair and cover out of ugly kitchen lighting and into the living room!  Here are some snaps of the chair in its place of glory.  I might still make a pillow with some of the leftover fabric, can you figure out a good way to incorporate curtain grommets into a pillow?

 Styled with a wool pillow and a super-soft blanket....


















Or with just a simple square pillow to play on its rather square-ish shape.

 

Living room seating area featuring two free chairs, a free chest of drawers, and some free framed artwork peeping down from the top.

That's the end of the DIY Slipper Chair Slipcover Tutorial, made using one curtain panel and some extra fabric I had laying around.

Happy Freestyling!