Creative Ways to Use Leftover Pieces of Fabric

I recently entered a contest through Tonic Living, in which I made a project using leftover pieces of fabric. You could take the contest literally or come up with a creative use for the fabric scraps. Let’s get this little disclaimer out of the way, right now… I am not a DIY expert by any stretch of the imagination. I have always been in the camp of If I can do it, anyone can!! So I am here to show you my super simple and fun ways to use those leftover pieces of fabric you have.

Fabric Wrapped Pumpkins

For this project, I used an artificial pumpkin. {That’s important, so the decoration can be used year after year.} I just plopped the pumpkin in the middle of the fabric and started gathering up the sides to the stem. I used one of my pony tail holders I had laying around the house to keep the fabric pulled at the top. The fabric ended up being a little short on the sides. Not to worry, since it’s pretty easy to hide that with some tucking and folding. You will most likely get some bulging of the fabric in spots. I just took some sewing needles and pinned down the bulging sections, to get it to lay more flat. At first, it looks very messy. Don’t give up just yet… you can smooth the fabric down and display the side that looks prettier! I cut off some of the leftover fabric on top and used some brown grosgrain ribbon, to hide my pony tail holder. {I know I will be looking for that one morning, when I have a bad hair day!} All in the name of DIY, I guess. 🙂

Onto the next project… fabric wrapped canvas.

Fabric Wrapped Canvas

At first, I had no idea how to tackle this one, since I don’t own a staple gun. I bought some spray fabric adhesive, but didn’t end up using it. I bought an 8×8 canvas board from a local fabric store and then got to work. I followed this tutorial HERE but used small nails instead of the staple gun. I just hammered the nails in the back.

-The key is to make sure the nails are very short, so they don’t poke through the canvas.

-You also must make sure you iron your fabric first, so you don’t have a wrinkly canvas art piece.

-You must also pull the fabric tight as you go along, so it ends up looking as if it was always a part of the canvas.

I thought that I had centered the fabric, but it’s a bit off. I told you I was no DIY expert!! The new canvas piece adds some texture, color and pattern to the back of the shelf.

So there you have it… about an hour of my time for two new accessories!