Upcycled Plastic Pom-Pom Wreath

To say that I was kept busy this holiday season would have been an understatement! haha, Pretty constant orders from Thanksgiving and on, plus the gifts that I wanted to make gave me little spare time for blogging.

Upcycled Plastic Bag Pom-Pom Wreath

I just barely finished my upcycled shopping bag wreath in time for the holidays, though I didn't get to put it up where I'd originally intended. Oh well, the beauty of what it's made of is that it should last for quite awhile! For this, I used:
* A wire wreath frame I bought from Joann as the base
*Some cotton twine I got from someone on Freecycle (score!)
*Scissors
*A rotary cutter
*A self-healing mat
*Plastic shopping bags (plus some other plastic bags)

First, I needed to make "plarn" (plastic yarn). In order to be both frugal and at least sort of eco-friendly, I used only plastic bags that I had around (or that I could get from friends or relatives that had them lying around) and didn't "cheat" by asking for extra bags or snagging some from a store OR buying them. You'll notice a few non-shopping bag pom poms in my wreath... I had to make over 60 pom-poms to fill this rather sizable wreath and just don't get that many when I shop! There's a "bag" from when I ordered boxes from USPS in there and a few bread bags. Many of the bags I used were from craft stores (Joann & Michael's especially), as well as Target and Walmart.

If you're not familiar with making things like bags and t-shirts into long, continuous "strings", here's a short tutorial (with bags and a rotary trimmer, though I'm sure you can figure out the shirt way and/or the scissors way as well):
1: Lay the bag flat (if there is a logo on the bag, you want that side up or side down).
2: Cut off the bottom and top/handles of the bag so you're left with a rectangular tube.
3: Slice bag from side to side, leaving about 1" on one side uncut (makes it look a bit like a fork or comb)
4: Open the now-sliced bag and work with the 2" connected part, cutting diagonally from one previous cut to the next.
5: You have plarn! (or tarn, if it's a t-shirt)

From there, make pom-poms with the pom-pom maker (seriously, these things are a godsend!! I didn't realize what I was missing until I broke down and bought one!). I used the Clover one, size Large. One regular-sized shopping bag made about one pom-pom, while the large bags (popular around the holidays) made about three pom-poms. Be sure you leave a long tail when you are tying the pom-pom.

Tie pom-poms randomly to your wreath frame.

You COULD do this with a styrofoam wreath, but I preferred the freedom and precision that the wire one allowed me (plus, it was cheaper! $3 at Joann... or $1.50ish with a coupon). Another plus? I could put Christmas lights through the back for a bit of extra pizzazz.

I imagine this could also work for other seasons (for fall, the brown bags you find in a lot of grocery stores could work well!). It could also be decorated with silk flowers, ribbons, bows...

First, loving the buttons... I haven't even opened half of them yet (20lbs is a LOT of buttons!), and my cup already runneth over with awesome buttons.

However, this post is not another one about buttons. This post is about the recent evilness of Paypal.

The in case you don't know, Paypal recently tried to screw over 200 children and their families who have fallen on hard times and were, very generously, going to be given a bit of happiness from strangers this Christmas from the founder of Regretsy, April, and the forum members of Regretsy.com. You can read about the entire thing here. Something many of you likely don't know is that this isn't the first time Paypal has tried to f*ck with people trying to help others... After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the forum members of SomethingAwful.com got together and accumulated over $30,000 to donate to the Red Cross. Paypal pulled a similar stunt of freezing the account and then gave the owner of the SA account no choice but to refund all of the money (though, fortunately, Paypal did not keep their fees that time). You can read a detailed story about THAT situation here.

Truth be told, I've been pretty irritated with Paypal myself for quite awhile now. I've considered it an unfortunately necessary evil largely due to the incestuous relationship between Paypal and their head honcho, eBay, as well as their very obvious 'deal' with Etsy (funny that Etsy doesn't offer the option to have a Google Checkout [now Google Wallet] payment or Amazon Payments or any of the other dozens of Paypal competitors).

Many, many people closed their Paypal accounts over the last couple of days because they had had enough of the evilness that is Paypal. Unfortunately, I can't be one of them if I want to continue to do business on the internet. Because people are weary of using checkout options they aren't familiar with, or because it takes more effort to pay other ways, or because they don't want to have to re-establish themselves with another online payment processor, I have to use Paypal.

And here we come to the more important part of my post: I hate how much power Paypal has and I want to do something, however small, to try to take some of that power away from them. There is a damn good reason anti-monopoly laws exist and Paypal is a good example of that reason.

So I am setting out to introduce more people to the other options they have available to them. I'm going to start offering various promotions over the next few months for those who use Google Wallet to make their Etsy payment. I encourage other Etsy sellers to do the same.

Buttons, Buttons, Buttons...

I shouldn't be blogging right now, but I need a bit of a break!

So, today, I bring you a post about something I started pseudo-obsessing over a couple of years ago: BUTTONS! It all started when I needed some buttons for these awesome and easy Mary-Jane-esque crochet slippers. I made several pairs as gifts Christmas 2009 and didn't have any buttons. Which was when I realized how crazy expensive buttons are. Which was when I checked eBay and found the 10+-lb auctions...

Buttons by the pound are a hot commodity, apparently. I did figure out though that I shouldn't be paying more than $3 per pound when I was buying more than 3 pounds at once. If you're patient, it's more than possible to get several pounds for that price (and we ARE talking about a random assortment of buttons here where there is no guarantee you'll get any duplicates or certain sizes or colors and you'll need to rifle through them yourself... It doesn't matter if they tell you that, if you considered the buttons MSRP it would cost 10x what they want - MSRP was decided with people getting to choose cards of specific buttons!).

I got lucky and a woman nearby on craigslist had 12 pounds of buttons (some of them sorted by size and material!) for sale. Since then, I've still been on the hunt for more buttons. eBay has been a disappointment though... There is NO reason that 2 lbs of buttons should cost $15 to ship, FFS. Those would very likely fit in a USPS Small Flat Rate box which costs $5 to ship (and USPS provides flat rate boxes for free, so I call BS when someone charges more! Bump up your price, not your shipping costs, if you want more $.)

Getting to the point (can you tell I'm procrastinating? :P ): I found an awesome deal on buttons in bulk online! There's a local small chain of art supply stores called Dick Blick's (www.dickblick.com) here in the L.A. area. I'd forgotten about it for years until I found their chalkboard paint. My grandpa was a very talented artist and LOVED Dick Blick's for his oil pastels, charcoal, canvas, exacto knives, balsa wood, etc. (he was a retired very-very-very highly desired machinist and was amazing with his hands!).

Well, Dick Blick's happens to sell buttons by the pound at $2.99/lb. It's their "always on sale" price. And shipping for 20 lbs (yes, I'm a nutter :P) cost only $8! They're on their way to me now from IL via FedEx Home. All of the photos I've posted in this blog post are customer photos of buttons they received. Lots of variety in size, color and even shape!

If I ever feel the need to buy more bulk buttons (and with nearing 40 lbs, I don't think I will anytime soon, haha), I won't bother looking anywhere else.