Suede Parka Recycling

In my part of the world it is time to put away the coats and parkas in favor of short sleeves and swim suits. Unfortunately, my winter coat gave out on me before the winter season had ended - actually, the parka in question gave out before the winter season even began - but I couldn't bring myself to throw the suede garment away. I decided to recycle it.

The first several pieces were used by my Ohio History students to make reproduction maps. I wish I'd taken pictures of their efforts, but alas I did not so my poor representation will need to suffice.

We were studying French fur traders and the Native Americans at the time, so their maps showed waterways and trading posts and/or villages. That's Lake Erie shown at the top and a portion of the Ohio River at the bottom right. There are no land divisions shown other than the towns because this map represented the time prior to statehood. Since the students weren't little guys I allowed them to use permanent markers to draw physical features.

The students' maps used glued shell and wooden beads to mark settlements instead of the colored markers shown here. Then they each used a portion of the faux fur from my parka's hood, combined with bits of the coat's original belt, to tie their maps up into a roll. At the end of the year several of them mentioned that this was one of their favorite projects.

Map of Ohio Territory

I still had plenty of scrap suede even after the map activity so I set my hand to making a bolo jacket for the girls' Barbies from some of the smaller pieces.  Here is the doll that I borrowed (and which they never realized was absent from their stash).  She has since been returned, but I haven't given them the jacket yet.  It isn't gift quality, but I haven't found the right moment.

Barbie modeling her suede bolo jacket

And now it is summer and I'm still finding pieces of suede in my scrap stash. I decided to use part of it to decorate the strap of an inexpensive pair of flip-flops. 

I bought all of the craft items at Hobby Lobby today.  Being the frugal gal that I am, I am pleased to say that many of the notions were on sale.  There's a 40% off coupon at http://www.hobbylobby.com/ this week for the Vintaj charms shown.  The flip flops were also on sale.  The leather cord and beads were full price, but there is so much of each left over that I intend to make some jewelry, too.

Here's the finished product.  Well, okay.  Technically it's only half of the finished product since I have two feet, but once I got the first shoe finished I had to quit and get caught up on some housework.  Specifically, I needed to do our laundry.


I did mention that we had VBS last week, right?  Well, I had the foolish mistaken notion that I could keep up with my chores last week in spite of the additional time constraints. It wasn't to be.  (Just goes to show I must be an optimist in disguise!)  If I didn't stop and do some laundry today the residents of this house would be running around  - uh - unclothed.

Well, I supposes there might still be enough of the suede left to make primitive loin cloths for the guys and scant coverings for me.  Now there's a craft the pre-adolescents in my Ohio History class would really have rated highly!