Repurposed Grill Planters
These repurposed grill planter projects started out with one of our grills that had outlived its use as a grill. The grills featured in this article were previous Retrobellish projects found here (links provided below). We have also added some new updated pictures of the grill planters in use today.
Reclaimed Grill Top Planter Published August 31, 2013 By Diana Romaxx
Recycled Gas Grill Planter Published October 17, 2011 By Diana Romaxx
Reclycled Spoon Plant Holder
This small plant holder started out as an old perforated serving spoon that was rusted. We bent the bottom of the spoon out to make a flat surface to hold a small ceramic pot that we had lying around our project box. We spray-painted the spoon yellow and blue for a contrasting yet whimsical look. For the plant we needed a small flowering plant that could fit into the small ceramic pot. There is a wild clover plant that grows around our back fence and we decided to use one of the smallest ones for our project.
This would also be a fun project to continue if you should have other spoons to recycle.
Embellished Tee-Shirt
I love the beautiful crocheted and lacey trims I’ve seen on a lot of blouses and dresses. I have a comfortable but very plain white tee shirt that I’ve wanted to embellish for quite a while, and after seeing so many beautiful crocheted designs, I finally decided to try making my own crocheted embellishment to sew onto my tee shirt.
I chose a very pretty pink crochet yarn for this project (Size 3 Crochet yarn, 100% Mercerized cotton). For years, I’ve always loved a crocheted design on the center of an old scarf of mine, so I tried crocheting something similar using different sized crochet needles, but nothing I tried looked lacey enough. I then tried crocheting simple single stitches with my larger needles and that’s when I began to create an open lacey design that looked very nice.
After trial and error, I found that a very large Size Q crochet needle created a loose pretty stitch I really loved. I decided to make a square shape so that when turned on its side it became a diamond shape. I single crocheted one row of 12 chains and then crocheted 12 rows of single stitches. The large open stitches of the crocheted square looked very nice when laid flat, but were very loose when I picked up the square shape. For stability I decided to sew the crocheted square in place on white tuling. I cut a square of white tuling (about an inch longer (on all sides) than the size of the crocheted square). Once I centered the crocheted piece onto the tuling, I trimmed away a little of the tuling all the way around. Using a sewing needle and a single strand of matching pink embroidery floss, I sewed the crocheted piece (on the white tuling) onto the tee shirt.
I wanted to further embellish the diamond shape at each corner and possibly in the center, so I made rosettes to adorn each corner of the crocheted diamond shape and another rosette in the center. I crocheted the rosettes using a Size N crochet needle, crocheting six single chains (using the same pink crochet yarn) and made 12 double-crochet stitches for each rosette. I repeated this four more times. Using pink embroidery floss and sewing needle, I sewed the rosettes onto the crocheted piece (making sure I sewed through the tuling and tee shirt as well). Using a sewing needle and pink polyester sewing thread, I sewed a large iridescent pink barrel bead through the center of each rosette.
Like so many of the other projects I’ve made here, this is only one example of how to embellish a tee shirt with a simple crocheted design. So just have fun creating a design of your own to embellish your tee shirt by just crocheting it and sewing it on.
Embellished Teal Blue Knit Blouse
This project started out from one of my thrift store finds. I had come across this teal blue blouse that I really liked, but the only thing wrong was that the stripes around the collar and sleeves were faded, which made the blouse look worn out. Looking at the blouse more closely, I knew that I could create a decorative piping to cover the faded black stripes. To achieve this, I used a size I crochet needle and size 3 black fashion crochet yarn (100% Mercerized Cotton).
I made the crocheted piping (using single stitches) to cover the black faded stripe around the collar and more piping to cover the faded stripes around each of the sleeves. The blouse actually looked better than I thought and I had plenty of black crochet yarn, so I decided to also pipe around the V neckline of the blouse. It gave the blouse an all new look and the best part of it was that it was so fast and easy to do.
So just pick any item you may want to embellish and just by adding a little bit of piping you can embellish an old shirt back to life. So just have fun and create your own.
Repurposed Book Page Flower Art
I recently posted paper mache plaster dresses and wondered what flowers might look like using the same paper mache plaster technique. I used the same recycled paper to create flower shapes and centered them on a 5″ x 7″ cardboard background, but when I applied the plaster over the paper flower petals, the mixture was too heavy and flattened the flower petals too much. I usually photograph each stage of my projects and when I reviewed the flower photos, I realized how beautiful the plain paper flowers looked before I had applied the plaster mixture over them.
I decided to try again, but this time leave the paper flowers in their natural state and make them a little smaller in size. I shaped the recycled paper into little flowers and found out that the ones closely resembling little roses looked the prettiest. I applied a dab of white craft glue to the back of each of the little rose shaped flowers and adhered them directly onto the cardboard background, creating two rows of flowers.
I made flower stems for only the bottom row of flowers. I rolled strips of the same recycled paper into elongated little tubes and glued them directly onto the cardboard background. I used the same recycled paper to make leaves by folding them to closely resemble large leaf shapes. Again, I used craft glue to adhere the leaf shapes to the cardboard background, to each side of the stems.
I made the flowers in the next little frame in much the same way, but used a paper towel core to make the little three dimensional flower pot. To make the little flower pot, I used scissors to cut across a small section of a paper towel core and then cut that small section into a half rounded shape. I then painted the cut cardboard with gesso. After the gesso dried, I took a small paintbrush to brush a little plaster across the surface to give the little flower pot a heavier looking texture. After the cardboard flower pot piece dried, I used glue on each end to adhere it onto the cardboard background making sure I positioned it to cover the bottom of the stems to make it appear like flowers are growing out of a little flower pot.
Although in this project I chose to leave the recycled paper in its natural state, you can give the flowers a more colorful look by applying a craft paint or a transparent color wash to each of the paper shapes before or after you create your flower shapes. Even though I used flowers as my subject, you can make any paper shapes you desire for your own personal creation.
