When Erica doesn't want to exercise...she upcycles yoga mats...

I wouldn't say I'm athletic or necessarily in shape but I enjoy exercising. I walk my dogs regularly; I run at the little company gym at my work and I've dabbled in some group classes.
     I did pole fitness at #teazedance for a little over a year. That was a lot of fun and I got pretty good. Sadly, all of my muscles have since regressed : (
     I bought one groupon to #moxieride and that class almost killed me...spin is not for me!
     My latest adventure was with #barre3okc. They held outdoor yoga classes at Whole Foods (well, the lawn behind the Whole Foods) and at the Myriad Gardens. I've done yoga before but I stopped before I found out about these classes. Luckily, I had a friend with a spare yoga mat so I was good to go. Back to what this craft night is about... "upcycling" yoga mats. I decided I wasn't going to do yoga anymore so I made these.

I just measured, cut and painted little mats for Kensington and Sadie's bowls. That didn't take up an entire yoga mat, obviously, so I also made laptop sleeves.

Upcycled yoga mat/Laptop sleeve tutorial:
     You will need: yoga mat, ribbon, glue (I used hot glue but I think craft glue would have worked better), scissors, ruler, fun embellishments!!

1. Measure your laptop. I have a HP Pavilion g4 Notebook and its about 13inches wide and 9inches tall.  I made my sleeve where it fits my laptop standing up (vertically) - but I'm sure a horizontal one would work, too. My measurements are flip flopped when actually making the sleeve because the width of my laptop turns into height and height turns into width.

                 (my laptop is 13inches across the keyboard and 9 inches from the top to bottom of screen. When its inside the sleeve, the 13inches is from the top to bottom of the white frame and 9 inches is from the left to right of the white frame)

2. You need to measure a piece of material twice the height of your laptop.  So, my material would be measured to 18inches wide (2x the height of my laptop) and 13 inches tall (the width of my laptop stays the same).  You want double that amount of the width of your laptop because you'll be folding the material in half. My entire piece of material is 26 x 18 inches. Cut out a piece of yoga mat as big as your laptop's measurements.

3. I folded the part of my cut out yoga mat that was 26inches hamburger style to get a 13inch tall laptop sleeve. I decided to let a bit of my laptop stick out (shown in step 4) so it wasn't exactly folded in half. I made one side of the hamburger about an inch longer than the other. Glue along the two side edges. Let glue completely dry.

4. Slide your laptop in the middle of your sleeve. Gather remaining material to tie the sleeve together.

Poke holes where you want your ribbon to go through. I wanted mine to be in a corset type style. The one I made for my boyfriend was just two ribbons... one on the top and the other on the bottom. Whatever floats your boat. Slide your ribbon through the holes and tie sleeve tightly around laptop case.

 

5. Remove laptop and ... Embellish!! My boyfriend's favorite comic book character is Spider-Man so I painted a "city scene" on his and then stuck a bunch of Spider-Man temporary tattoos on it. The one I made for myself went for a Victorian style with the white frame and added ribbon. The round flower embellishment in the middle is an earring. I lost its mate but couldn't bear to part with it.

(My laptop is bigger than my boyfriend's sleeve so its not fully in there but I don't know where his laptop is so mine is a stand-in model)

 

Ta-da! And now you're done : ) This would have been easier with step-by-step "show as you go" instructions but, like I mentioned in my previous post, I didn't realize I would be doing this so I didn't take pictures as I went on these projects. Sorry!!

 

Comment, show me pictures of your laptop sleeves, or any other upcycled yoga mat projects!



 

Erica joins the 21st century...my first blog...

I have the cutest dogs.  Kensington is the fluffy tan one and Sadie is the white one.