Repurposing Crafts

I did a little crafting this weekend, as opposed to decorating, which I just don't seem to have a handle on. In fact, I used a garland that I had up as an attempt to decorate, and re-purposed it.

Here it is hanging sadly on a boring window:


When I cleaned out the hall closet a couple of weeks ago, I found this simple straw bag I got in Mexico a couple of years ago. Cute, but pretty blah:


I put the two together and viola!


I got the idea from a picture of the Nester I found on Rhoda's blog; she had what looked like a ragamuffin purse. I started thinking about how I could make one of them and realized I had a ragamuffin garland just hanging around waiting to be put to better use.

I cut it down to a length that would wrap around the straw bag once (I thought about wrapping the entire bag, but it didn't look right).


Then I hot glued it straight on to the straw. Since the fabric pieces were already tied together on a ribbon, I didn't have to worry about individual pieces falling off.

Simple and free; my kind of craft!