Old Shirt

{August 9, 2010}

by Eileen Hull

My husband and I went on a spur-of-the-moment closet cleaning frenzy the other day. Believe me, this does not happen often! He had a big pile of shirts that he claims had mysteriously "shrunk" while hanging in the closet, sitting by the door and ready to donate. I made off with a few shirts thinking I could recycle them somehow.

There was a question in my email yesterday about the Checkbook Cover Die and whether it really worked to hold a checkbook and register. It sure does! About checkbooks ... it's funny, I used to carry mine with me all the time but now I almost always use my debit card and rarely write checks, except for paying bills. So this checkbook now sits on my desk. And if it's sitting on my desk, I want it to look pretty. Here's what I did with my husband's shirt!

I cut the shirt up into 6" strips and adhered it to the back of a piece of mat board with spray adhesive. I then used the Checkbook Cover Die and cut out two sides and the flap. The binding strip was cut from plain white mat board. I assembled the checkbook with brads and added daisy trim to the bottom of the project. In the center of each daisy, I added a little dot of blue Stickles. I added my checkbook to the top flap of the folder with a few lines of double-sided tape. To hold in the register, I opened it to the middle and tied a piece of ribbon around the folder and register. The flap is attached on the back using an eyelet. I added Velcro dots on the flap and checkbook cover as a closure. Sometimes that Velcro is very sticky, so I reinforced it on the mat board with Tim Holtz's Tiny Attacher – love that little gadget!

The shirt has new life! I hope you keep your eyes out for all of the possibilities around you to reuse items for other purposes.

From my studio to yours,

Eileen