Storing tea, sugar & green tea

You know that feeling you get when you're moving into a new house? And you ideally want everything to be new? Including the furniture and utensils and well, pretty much everything else. =)

I recently moved to England from Dubai and set up the house here with my husband. We got here a couple of months before our MBA classes started. And it was during this time that I got to put on my creative-crafts hat and get to work. =)

This was my way of getting everything around the house a new feeling, at the same time making sure that I wasn't spending on things that I could save up on. I do have thing for recycling and reusing, I won't lie! =)

So, amongst the many things I've made, this set is the most used of the lot.

Most people I know are consumers of some kind of warm beverage - tea, coffee, hot chocolate, green tea, etc. And most kitchens I've been to have some form of storage containers for these tea bags or coffee beans or coco powder. Needless to say, we needed such containers for our house as well. I did go out and look around for some containers that I could use, but I just wasn't convinced.

And then it struck me - why not try making these on my own? =)

The backdrop to this is that I'm a big, massive, absolutely crazy [bordering psychotic] consumer of Nutella.

Due to this, I have far too many empty bottles of Nutella lying around the house. And what better way to help the environment than to recycle and reuse to make these lovely storage containers!

Let's be honest here for a second - making these crafty-containers isn't rocket science. But sometimes a little guidance gives us exactly what we need to get our act together and make things. =) So, here goes!

What you'll need (supplies)

 

• old Nutella [or any other empty bottle / plastic] containers
• white school glue
• acrylic paint [you can use one color or mix and match with different colours]
• paint brushes
• mixing palette
• old newspaper

Procedure / steps

1. Wash thoroughly and dry the Nutella containers.

2. Cover your workstation with old newspaper so as to avoid any damage to it by paint spills.

3. Take a mixing palette, add a dash of your paint of choice, and add a bit of white school glue. The reason for adding white school glue here is that it'll help the paint stick to the container. Else, there is a possibility that every time you touch the container, a bit of the paint will come off. I haven't faced this problem, and again, this might be because of the white school glue. This somewhat acts like Mod Podge, but on a much lower and inexpensive level.

4. Now take the Nutella container and start applying thin, consistent paint coats to it.
Try to keep the paint coats as thin and as free-flowing as possible.
Carefully place the Nutella container upside down and coat the bottom of the container with paint.
Take special care to avoid paint going inside the container - you wouldn't want your sugar or tea bags taking on the color of the paint!

5. Let these sit till the paint is completely dry. The time frame here might vary depending upon the thickness of the paint coat applied, the temperature outside, etc.

6. Once these are completely dry, take on a contrasting color [poster paint or acrylic paint] and paint on the words. You can chose to use a stencil here or you can even take print outs / cut out of words and stick them on with the help of Mod Podge or superglue or something equivalent.

What'd I tell you - not rocket science! And I'm sure you already knew the steps before you even read them! But it's nice to see visuals and steps to potentially refer back to someday. =)

Alright, more crafty stuff that I haven't blogged yet will be coming up real soon. Meanwhile, if you get around to making these, do please drop in a comment and let me know. I'd love to see what you're creating!

Picture frame from recycled magazines

Wow - I'm overwhelmed with the kind of feedback I've received on my previous blog post!

In that post I promised to let you know what I finally did with my set of black, red and white round bits. Well, this, ladies and gentlemen, is what I made:

I absolutely love the way it finally turned out! =)

The inspiration behind this project was, well, from all over the place!

But if you go to my Pinterest page, you'll see projects I've pinned like this, this and this that really inspired me. My biggest problem with these was that I couldn't really find decent frames. So I thought long and hard about what I could substitute for the frame and came up with the idea of using old magazines.


I'd like to add that this frame is completely made of recycled (magazine) paper. Quite proudly so, I won't lie! =)


But at the end of the day, I ended up mixing and matching a number of things I've come across and just jumbled them all together to create this. A bit o' this and a bit o' that and bam - a masterpiece! =)

I must admit, this post deserves a tutorial in itself.

You already know how to make the round bits from this post. What I'm now going to do is give you a quick run down of what you'll need to do to re-create this one.


What you'll need (supplies)

• stack of old magazines (that's right, some more!)
• old newspapers
• glue stick / white school glue / home made glue / any other form of glue you prefer
• knitting needle / long pencil / long stick or rod
• poster paints and paint brushes
• old rope (if you have any spare old rope around) or thick thread or yarn

Procedure / steps

Follow steps 1-6 from this tutorial - pay special attention to step 6. =)

Once you have your stacks of rolled up magazine paper ready, get ready to get the ball rolling! =)

7. Take two of these cylindrical paper rolls and put one inside the other. There's no better way to explain this than to actually show you. So, do this:

Place one paper cylinder on top of the other and then, well, put one inside the other.

Voila! They stay!

Don't stick them all the way inside each other, but make sure they're firmly placed so they don't fall out. Don't worry about gluing them. The next few steps will take care of that bit for you. =)

8. You'll have rolls like these. The tiny ones are there just for comparison.

For the frame that I made, I used three cylindrical paper rolls one-on-top-of-the-other for the length. And two of 'em stacked up for the breadth.

9. Then I glued three of these cylindrical stacks together in a row and waited for them to set. And I created another such stack. At the end, I had two stacks of three cylindrical stacks together. That is 2 x giant cylindrical stacks composed of 3 individual paper cylinders.

I placed these 2 identical stacks on top of each other and glued them together. And then I let this duo set.

If none of that made sense, take a look at this picture - it might help you figure out my gibberish! =D

I hope that  makes it clear!

10. Once I had all my four sides created and set, I got out my painting gear and let the Picasso in me out.

Basically, I coloured the length of the frame black and the breadth red. And then I let these dry off.

11. The next step was tricky. This is where I struggled the most!

I had a tough time trying to figure out how I was ever going to glue these four sides together. Doesn't matter what glue you use, it's rolled up paper and will just tear apart the minute there's any sort of pressure applied to it.

And there would be pressure on this little baby, given what I had in mind.

So after a lot of thinking and pondering, it finally hit me - tie the damn ends together with some good old string! Sturdy string, but string!

12. Once the sides are secure, you're going to need a mesh of sorts to clip your pictures or other stuff onto. I realised that I wouldn't be able to stick a mesh like this or this onto a paper frame. So I thought it's best to go ahead and recreate a mesh with my newfound secret weapon: string!

With the ends attached and mesh created, this is what my frame looked like:

13. Bland. That's what the string looked like to me. 

*shrugs* Sorry, but I put in a lot of effort and I just didn't like it looking plain smack in the centre of all the gorgeousness! So what'd I do? I got some golden dust (acrylic) paint thingamajig and went straight to work. I painted the strings tying the ends of the frame together as well the strings creating the mesh.

Brush on some tap water onto the string before you paint over it.
The string won't 'drink up' any of the actual paint when you start painting.
Also, it'll make the painting go smoother.

There you go - works like a charm!
Nice glittering gold paint!
And it goes really well with black, red and white!

14. Once this is all done, it's time to add the little round bits from this tutorial onto your frame! Figure out what placement looks best and glue 'em on nice and strong. Pretty straightforward, really. =)

The result? This:

You can touch up the little round bits, if you want. I like mine like this - giving a hint of what's underneath. 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that, ladies and gentlemen, is my first completed crafts project in the UK. =)

Needless to say, if you recreate this, do drop in a link or a picture to share with me. I'd love to see what you guys got up to. =)

And of course, if you have any comments on this blog, drop in a comment below. 

=)