make :: spicy beans canning tutorial

Looking for something to do this weekend? Check out Jackie's spicy beans canning tutorial over on the DIY Vancouver blog at granvilleonline.ca.

tutorial :: Amanda's DIY Flash Cards

Amanda from Owl + Pussycat, posted this fantastic tutorial for making your own kid friendly flash cards. Check out all the details over at Granville Online.

tutorial :: DIY lip balm

I am a lip balm fanatic. So after a little research and an ingredient tracking mission, I started making my own. Two simple steps and you have lip balm to last you for at least a year! Check out the full tutorial over at Granville Online here.

tutorial :: Smeeta’s Easy Peasy Coffee Sleevy

Ever shrink a wool sweater in the wash? What do you do with it after? Give it to a really tiny friend? Well, I guess you could, but let’s be realistic, it would probably be really ill fitting – so let’s save a tiny friend from a fashion faux pas and do something else cool with that sweater. I’m going to show you a really simple way to make a re-usable coffee sleeve from an old sweater that will incite 'oohs' and 'aahs' from your local barista and coffee-drinking cohorts.

When wool is washed in hot water and dried, it becomes “felted”. Felted wool has some really great characteristics- it’s dense, insulating, and my personal favourite, it doesn’t fray when you cut it! So that means crafting with felt is generally non-fussy.

Materials:
• shrunken wool sweater
• paper coffee sleeve
• 1 piece of paper
• Something to decorate your sleeve (buttons, trim, felt)
• Thread
• Needle
• Scissors


First, you’ll need a shrunken wool sweater. If you haven’t already ruined your favourite sweater in the wash, you can take an 80-100% wool sweater, stick it in the wash on hot and machine dry. The sweater I’m using as an example was purchased at a thrift store.


Step 1 – make a pattern for your sleeve. I’ve used a paper sleeve I got with my coffee and traced it onto paper and then cut it out.


Step 2 – pin the cut out pattern to your sweater and cut along the edge. It might not come out very straight but that’s OK – you can trim it afterwards.

Step 3 – if you want to decorate your sleeve, do it now! I’m a big fan of buttons, so that’s an easy way to snazzy it up.


Step 4 – figure out how you want to connect the two ends together. Again, I love buttons! This was so simple, I pinned my sleeve together so that the ends overlapped, then I sewed the buttons on through both layers. Make sure that you’ve made it the proper size- if your felt is a bit stretchy you might want to make the sleeve smaller.

There you have it – an eco-friendly, re-usable sleeve that you can just pop in your purse and protect your hands from your hot cup, but keep them warm in winter.

So what are you going to do with the rest of the sweater? Why not make some coffee sleeves for your friends as a sweet gift? Or save the rest of the material for another great project like a stuffed toy, a bag, or a pair of fingerless gloves – the possibilities are endless!

Note: for those who are in a hurry, you could even just cut the cuff of the sweater sleeve and use that around your coffee cup! And of course, you don’t have to use a sweater to make one of these puppies, go ahead and re-use any type of material you have around the house (a lovely dinner napkin with a stain in the corner for example).

Smeeta, aka Rita Leung is an avid crafter based in Vancouver. She loves to find creative inspiration from around the world and of course from the West Coast. You can find her goods at smeeta.etsy.com.

DIY notebook

If you have not picked up the latest Granville Magazine or checked out their website, what are you waiting for?! Seriously! In a nutshell, the magazine is about sustainable city living through local events, shopping local, eating local and living green. I have been a big fan of Granville Online for a while now, so I was tickled pink when HIlary asked me to be their new DIY guest blogger.

The first tutorial that I had ever written and photographed was featured just before Earth Day where I turned used polyethylene shopping bags into zipper pouches. With a focus on DIY and using sustainable materials, my next tutorial was on making your own notebook out of a paperback novel. ** You can find the tutorial here.

I have signed on for 5 more tutorials that will be featured on a monthly basis. If you have a project that you think I should post about that has a focus on sustainable city living, please let me know!

** this tutorial was inspired by the local craft collective, Maked **