Today is Day #1 of my Upcycled Textiles camp at the Oldham County Schools Arts Center. I spent my weekend making samples of what I’ll teach and knew I’d made enough when my husband started showing signs of appreciation fatigue.

I don’t blame him. The reaction to “Look what I made!” is nice, but, for me, the bigger thrill is in the discovery of something new I can do with materials I have. I hope my campers feel the same way. If I do my job right, they’ll leave with more than just clutter for their closets, but the skills needed to work with textiles for the rest of their lives.

If you want to play along at home, here’s what we’ll work on today:

A festive bunting

I used fabric samples and scraps of denim, left over from other projects to make this bunting. I cut the fabric with pinking shears for fancy fray-free edges, then folded the fabric over the twine/cord, notched the bottoms, and hot-glued the two sides together. Then I added strips of denim, tied in single knots, between each piece.

Campers can make something they’ll hang in their bedroom year-round or a theme-related decoration, like a birthday or holiday bunting. The sample I made will hang in our home for holidays like the 4th of July and Memorial Day.

Tiny wallets or coin purses

I used faux leather upholstery samples to make these tiny pouches that can be used for anything, really. I tried different techniques on each – hot-gluing the sides closed on one of them (left) and stitching the sides together on the other one (right). I sewed on a snap to close one (left) and velcro to close the other (right). Both of them have a button glued on the front, just for decoration and to hide any stitching or glue used for the closure.

Check back later this week for pics of what my campers create and more project ideas!