Thursday, October 14, 2010

Cashmere Pumpkins!

When you can pick up great fall sweaters at the thrift store for $1, but live in arizona and can't wear them, what's a girl to do?
Some make lemons out of lemonade! I made pumpkins out of sweaters...
Aren't they adorable? Let's take a closer look...
Closer...
This little cream one is made from a mens 100% cashmere sweater! The little key was picked up at a yard sale (part of a scrapbook kit) for .25.
The large orange one is made from the body of the sweater.
The little green one is half of a sleeve. Now, I didn't come up with this on my own. Deb Kennedy over at Hummadeedledee designed these. She gives a great tutorial here. I opted to use jute, rather than twine for a more rustic look. Also, I discovered you can use the body of the sweater if you want jumbo pumpkins. Give Deb a visit and let her know how creative she is. Now, what are the pumpkins sitting on? A tablecloth made from pages of an antique book (librarians- please cover your eyes) Laura and I took a little time out for a pedicure and inspiration shopping- we headed straight to Anthropologie. Do they provide inspiration? Absolutely. Not only were we able to see what's really current in fashion right now (ruffles and tweed oh my!) but their decorating ideas are one of a kind. They had covered a table in their kitchen area with glued together Guest checks. The one's that look like these...It was quite stunning, but the wrong colors for my house. So I thought, why can't I make one with antique book pages? I'd like to still apply a few coats of mod podge and sewn a zig zag stitch around the edge, but I was anxious to get my pumpkins displayed. Here's how I made the table runner...

I measured my table to decide how big I needed to make the cover. Then I ripped out the pages one at a time (I warned the librarians) from an antique readers digest set- This story is the Count of Monte Carlo. I wanted the frayed edge from the ripping to be on the outside, so make sure you line them up correctly. I then figured out how to arrive at 21" long. 8 pages overlaping each other by 1 1/4 inch. I used a tape measure to make sure each page overlapped the same. After making the two long sides, I followed the same procedure for making the top and bottom then glued them all together using a glue stick. (NOTE: You'll have to make the ripped edge yourself on the tops of the pages for some of the corners) For the middle I wanted it to be all mismatched. I also liked when I accidentally glued two pages together- when I pulled them apart one ripped a little and some of the words transferred from one page to another. To replicate this "mistake" I just randomly glued pages together like this...
Let them dry for a few minutes and then pulled them apart. Here's the finished glued together cover...
I inked the edges, but the yellow is the actual patina of these pages- I love that! The possibilities are endless! You could do recipe cards for a ladies lunch, postcards, maps, movie theater tickets, carnival tickets, etc. You're going to see a lot more of these in my house! I think this makes the perfect setting for my little pumpkins...
What do you think? Love, Kelly.

P.S. Don't forget to link up to our first ever party. We want to see all your trashy finds and designs! The link is just below this post.

Linking up to:
Get Your Craft On Thursday @ Life As Lori
Transformation Thursday @ The Shabby Chic Cottage
Strut Your Stuff @ Somewhat Simple
Show Off Your Stuff @ Fireflies And Jellybeans
Thrifty Thursday @ Tales Of Bloggeritaville
Hooking Up W/HoH @ House Of Hepworths
I Made It @ Everything Etsy
Vintage Thingie Thursday @ The Colorado Lady


24 comments:

  1. I never saw this before. That is amazing what you did with those sweaters. I like these pumpkins better than the real ones.

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  2. Great pumpkins! I'm curious, though. Would the men's 100% cashmere sweater not have been a great thing to sell on ebay?

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  3. Kelly:

    I LOVE THESE! What a fantastic idea by Deb and you gorgeously translated it for your beautiful home. Love it!!!!!

    Edie

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  4. Kelly, you are a class act sweetie!
    Thank you so much for not only giving me credit as the original sweater pumpkin designer, but sending me an email to let me know about your post here. You'd be surprised how RARE that is. I appreciate it so much!<3

    And your pumpkins are darling - LOVE love love the orange cable-knit ones. I'll add your link to the bottom of my tutorial post so people can see yours, too!

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    1. PS: as of fall 2012, my Sweet Sweater Pumpkin Tutorial has MOVED to my DIY seasonal decor blog, HOMEWARDfound! http://homewardfounddecor.blogspot.com/p/tutorial-sweet-sweater-pumpkins.html

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  5. Love, love, LOVE these!! They are absolutely adorable in every way!

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  6. What great craft projects! I think a trip to the thrift store is in order tomorrow! :)

    Happy VTT,
    Sally

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  7. love the pumpkins and love Anthropologie!
    great ideas.
    gail
    adventuresininnkeeping.blogspot.com

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  8. Love the pumpkins! What a great idea!

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  9. I SIMPLY LOVE THIS!!!!! What a great idea, you are so very talented!!! I may have to keep this in mind if I run across any sweaters that would work for this project...LOVE!!! Happy VTT!

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  10. Just love your little display. The pumpkins are awesome... What a great way to use old sweaters. I've made a Christmas stocking out of an old sweater before and I really loved how it turned out.

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  11. love those pumpkins and the tablecloth ... very very cool!

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  12. I love those pumpkins! Your blog is so inspiring, I read it every day. Best of luck to you and I can't wait to see what you do next!

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  13. These Pumpkins are great! soooo cute! Oooh I also want you to know that I given you and award!

    http://www.kreativeknack.com/2010/10/starting-is-hardest-part.html

    Have a Great Day!
    Nikki

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  14. Love the pumpkins, especially the one with the cabling! That's a great idea for sweaters.

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  15. Those are such cool pumpkins! What an awesome idea. :D

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  16. Great ideas! thanks for sharing.

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  17. LOVE both of your ideas! I am going to bookmark them!

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  18. The sweaters make great puppkins. Good job.
    Kathy

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  19. Very cool pumpkins and table runner. TFS!

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  20. I can't even tell you how much I love these pumpkins (not to mention that gorgeous coffee table they're sitting on!)

    Linked up to this project for my Pumpkin Patch Roundup blog post at http://scrimpalicious.blogspot.com/2010/10/roundup-pumpkin-patch.html

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  21. Mad skills! And the wee key is the cherry on top.

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  22. Oh I love your pumpkins! They are wonderful! I simply must make some!

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