Tag: Creating

Packaging into Bookmarks: A Quick Repurposing Project

I love Present and Correct’s packaging and I didn’t want to throw it away, so I repurposed it as bookmarks using some washi tape and scissors.

This was originally glued to a paper bag.

The have these cool vintage lending slips glued to their paper bags so I cut it off the bag, and used washi tape on the back to tidy things up a bit. I’m currently using this in the book that I’m reading (Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead), and I love it.

The next bookmark is messy but I don’t care. I took a slightly crumpled brown envelope that contained pencils, cut out the interesting part and taped it shut with washi tape. I didn’t bother using a ruler so it’s a bit wonky but I don’t care. The result is still useful and I like its imperfections.

It took a few minutes to create these, and they make me smile. I enjoy giving new life to old packaging, and I hope this and my paper bag sketches inspire you to give it a try yourself.

Knitting

My late grandmother was a talented knitter, but I never had the sense to ask her to teach me to knit while she was still alive. I asked my parents’ neighbour, a lovely lady in her late 80s, to teach me to knit and crochet. She tried several times but there’s a difference between knowing how to knit and teaching someone else how to knit. In the end she always asked me what I wanted to knit, grabbed the wool and knitted it herself for me. I love the things she knitted me as the result of these sessions, but that’s beside the point.

I tried to teach myself to knit using books and youtube videos. Each time I’d create a crooked mess and give up. Yesterday I sat down yet again, this time with a new book (the funny and lovely “Stitch n’ Bitch” by Debbie Stoller), and when four rows into my first swatch I blew it again, I stopped, searched for “common knitting mistakes” on YouTube and figured out where I had gone wrong. It took several videos but once I figured it out, I started over and managed to create my very first garter stitch swatch (20 stitches by 30 rows). I’m proud of myself for sticking with it, even though it really sucked at first. I only wish that my grandmother could have seen and critiqued it.