Creating my way to Success

5 Fabulous ways to Upcycle Denim Jeans Scraps

Do you ever sew with denim from old jeans? Do you have scraps of denim left over?

Here are 5 fabulous things you can make using your denim jeans scraps!

Woven Jeans Seams Coasters

Personalised Rag Tags

Boxy Denim Pencil Cases

Upcycled Denim Triangle Bag

Upcycled Denim Diary Cover

For over 150 free sewing tutorials for making all kinds of things including many things from old denim jeans, take a look at

My Free Sewing Tutorials Page

Eco-friendly shopping bags

Friday for me is grocery shopping day. I always use the handbag above for my shopping day as it has all my shopping tote bags inside so I've always got them with me at the checkout! They are strong, sturdy and pretty. Here they are all full of shopping in the boot of my car.

The handbag above is the final bag I made when developing the pattern for the e-book I published a couple of years ago.

This e-book is a selection of tutorials showing how to make a whole range of eco-friendly shopping bags from upcycled materials, which then fit into the snazzy handbag..

Each book costs just the price of a cup of coffee.

Au $5

To puchase a copy simply email me at jillinamillion@y7mail.com

More details of my e-book can be found here.

I appreciate your support - of both my blog and tutorials.

Happy upcycling and sewing!

6 Sewing tutorials to help you Exercise!

When I'm not sewing or teaching, I do love to exercise, and so does the rest of our family. Over time I've made a few things to help us in our sporting and exercise endeavours. I hope you can find something here to help you too!

Personalised Swimming Bags

Add a zip pocket to your exercise shorts

For even more sewing tutorials for making all kinds of things and all levels of sewing ability, visit

My Free Sewing Tutorials Page

Where you'll find over 150 tutorials!

600+ Clothes Upcycling Projects

Not long after I started this blog a few years ago, I discovered clothes upcycling. I initially started out sewing with old clothes as a way to learn and practise so as to make my mistakes on old fabric. Then gradually as my girls grew up, I gained a collection of their old clothes that had too many memories attached or were just too cute to pass on or throw out, so I started to find ways to upcycle them into things to keep.

Back in 2011, I set myself a challenge to work my way through my stash of clothes to be upcycled and make something every day for a month. Here are some of the things I made:

A new dress for my daughter from an old t-shirt and swimsuit:

A new top from an old dress and tank top:

And on the last day, to use up the last of the clothing scraps - a scrappy monster that my daughter still has today!

The same time I was doing this challenge myself, I opened up a linky where other people could add their own clothes upcycling projects. This linky is ongoing and still remains open. Today it has well over 600 ideas linked up for upcycling those old clothes.

There are some amazing and very creative ideas linked up - from making new clothing items from old, to jewellery, toys, bags and many other things.

To take a look, you can go here.

Over the years I've set myself new challenges to upcycle clothes - larger projects to fundraise for my daughters' school and sporting clubs.

And plenty of upcycles just for my girls and our family.
You can find many of these upcycles in the

600+ Clothes Upcycling linky

Many on my Upcycle Tutorials Page.

And then of course there's a whole set of posts I wrote, grouping together ideas for upcycling specific items of clothing - everything from t-shirts to jeans, and underwear to swimwear!

So please do take a look around at all the ideas to be found here,
Clothes Upcycling Linky

22 Things to Sew in 5 Steps and 15 Minutes

I firmly believe that anyone can sew if they want to.
So I've tried with these particular sewing tutorials to keep things as simple and clear as possible and create a set of things that can be made in just 5 steps and 15 minutes.
Of course this is a guide - some things may take you a little longer, some may even be quicker, depending on what you have on hand and your confidence.
The main point is that they are simple and straightforward and great for beginner sewers just starting out!

I hope you find something you can try. Just click on the pictures below to go to the individual tutorials, and on each post you will find a link for a free downloadable PDF version of the tutorial.

Happy sewing!