Habitare

Went to the Habitare show yesterday, a furniture, interior decorating and design fair, 

and I found some inspiration for future projects and just fun ideas in general: 

there are some very creative people out there!

A lamp made out of light bulbs. 

Which doesn't sound ground breaking, and it's not the first lightbulb light I've seen, but still fun:

 I've got a (growing..) selection of pretty old books myself, here's a fun way of utilizing them 

(the button wall is a cute idea as well):

I could live in this bed. So comfy looking. 

And I love the braided pillows on the wall, 

the big is is cool too, but kind of looks like a... well, a braided turd. 

But an awesome braided turd at that:

(they also look like giant, fat tentacles waiting to choke me when I fall asleep.. well, at least they'd be soft..!)

Boxes on walls is always cool:

A different kind of wooden floor:

Love love love this idea: rakes as hangers! Want.

This room was super cute.

 Love the white tree, love the pillow made out of a rug (on the floor) and the closet in the corner has a cool idea behind it (and foxes are the best!):

Hardware text:

There was also an interesting exhibition in the show area:

 time traveling from the 50's to the 00's in Finland:

 Designer wallpaper from the 50's, I thought the birds had really funny expressions...

Finnish design: chairs from the 50's!

A living room from the 50's, me likey:

...and one from the 60's. Love the vinyl holder!

 Pretty glassware and others things:

I'm hoping to bump into this print sometime at the Kierrätyskeskus:

 Cassiope tetragona, Vaccinium vitis-ideae and Trientalis europaea, awesome!

 Prints! Colours! Seventies!

A hip and happening 70's room, check out that white chair thing! 

Cool idea with the clips and lp covers on the wall as well. 

80's. Wow. What a decade.

....

What a Fatboy is doing in a 90's Finnish design room is a mystery to me..

at least there's a brick of Nokia on the table!

And the final room, a room from the 00's. Meh.

Cool show and cool ideas. For dessert, (real) birch wallpaper from the 00's

Vintage, man.

Macrame and hanging things with it aka crockery bondage

Was blog-surfing and found this cute little project from a blog called Transient Expression.

So I rummaged about in my craft cupboard, 

but all my fimo bits are so small that I wouldn't be able to make a vase even this small from any one colour, 

buuut luckily I found some ooooold old clay and a few minutes later my vase was sitting outside drying.

It didn't turn out as pretty as the original, but I like the concretey look of it so I'll let it be.

Then I took some pink yarn from my yarn bowl and got about macrameing. Initially just for the clay clump I'd just made, but I was impatient for it to dry so I thought I'd try out the idea with other small plant pots.
The smallest ones I have in use are teacups. So:

They're hanging by the window for now, I might move them a bit to the side,
but that requires drilling in more hanging, umm, bits to the window frame,
and I'm not in the mood for that.

Then I got carried away and did a whole lot of macrame for some cute cups 

I've had lying around and an old tea pot.

This display of crockery bondage is now hanging in my kitchen. 

The tea pot will be filled with some plant that hangs nicely. 

Like thyme or something. Something edible anyway.

I also made a fox out of the left over clay:

I will be painting him once he's dry. Perhaps in a very very faint orange, with a golden nose...

Earrings from a shampoo bottle!

Step 1: Buy awesomely coloured shampoo and conditioner bottles

Step 2: Use them up (on your hair, usually), rinse them (the bottles, well, your hair too) and stick them in your craft cupboard cos 'you might find a use for them some day'...

Step 3: Years later, epiphonize (yes I know that's not a word) about making earrings out of them, rinse the dust off and cut out the more flat areas of the bottles (better suited for earring making at least)

 Step 4: Recycle the bits you don't need!

 Step 5: Admire pretty colours and think about what the heck you're going to do with them and wonder if you should just recycle these bits as well because honestly who's ever gonna want earrings made from shampoo bottles and this probably won't work out anyway...

 Step 6: Decide to try anyway. Doodle some ideas (I doodled some easy-to-cut designs)

 Step 7: Decide what to do

 Step 8: Get to cutting!

 Step 9: Ah, yes, exactly as planned! Except it looks like a transformer.

 Step 10: Drill/cut out holes to attach the pieces (I just use a screw that I hammer the holes with, it does the trick since the plastic I use is quite soft)

Step 11: Make some connectors out of wire or use store bought ones and attach pieces together

Step 12: Realize that initial plan will not work out, so leave bits to sit until come up with better plan or decide to settle for this version (picture below)

Step 13: Make some more, cos it's fun.

Here's some blurry pictures of another pair I made a few years back:

And I guess there's at least 2 people in the world who would wear shampoo bottle earrings since I've worn my pink ones on several occasions and the neon lime green ones I made (same design) we're adopted by a friend of mine, who has also worn them on several occasions. They can be made quite big without them being heavy at all.

So, hurrah for shampoo bottles!

Necklace anatomy

Picked up this necklace from a fleamarket for 1.50e and took it apart.

I think all those components were well worth the money, I've already used some of the bead caps for earrings, now all I have to do is decide what to make with the rest...!

Shrinkles krimpies aka. Shrinky dinks

Made some earrings from shrinkable plastic today, didn't really have a plan as to what I wanted to do, so just picked a few favourite colours and got to drawing.

Before the oven:

 After the oven:

 So tiny!

They look like they're covered in tiny crystals of colourful sugar...

*lick lick*

Then I put a coat of lacquer on them 

(I admit, I used clear nail polish, since the spray is in my bedroom cupboard and I'm fluish and lazy with allergies to boot), 

added some beads and other things and made them into earrings.

A blurry photo of the new couple together:

 The chain bits and head pins are recycled from an old bracelet of mine, 

the hooks and beads are from Hobbypoint and Sinelli.

I can't decide if they're cool, or just plain ugly.

But at least they're colourful, which was my main goal. 

Success!