I have not yet tried to fuse plastic bags, but I intend to. Despite the fact that I have switched to cloth bags, my pantry is overflowing with plastic bags. Here is a tutorial on fusing your plastic bags, so you can make them into something useful.
~Gerwerken
When my husband and I first got married we had very few Christmas decorations, despite my inclination to decorate the house to the nines. We also had little money to put into comercial decoriations, or hand made ones for that matter. Our first Christmas our decorations consisted of a 1 foot tall tree, covered in small glass bulbs, and large bows I made from bargin basement ribbon. I was appalled at the prices of the ribbon at the time, and decided I wouldn't waste any.
This year the garland grew to about 20 feet of recycled ribbon, each link 8 inches in circumfrence.
I know, it does seem a bit crazy, or cruel to bring up the idea of Christmas right after encouraging a buying ban, but I assure you, there is a method to my madness.
I have a large number of family and friends that is getting bigger every year due to marriages and pregnancies. That means that every year I have more and more people to get Christmas presents for. I currently have about 30 individuals or families I would like to give personal gifts to. Even if I spent only $10 on each of these people/families (which we can probably all agree is a fairly small amount for a nice personal gift), I would spend $300 on gifts. In reality I usually spend much more than $10 on many of the people on my list.
The Christmas season (one wish should end with happy memories of family togetherness) often ends with reminders of debt accumulated during the season. We are also left with a mountain of discarded wrapping, but that is another story.
As green crafters we have the ability to make wonderful gifts, for little or no money, but it does require some time and planning. For crafters, especially knitters, July is the perfect time to begin thinking about holiday gift giving. Check out some of my Reuse posts for ideas on material scrounging. I will be adding more ideas in during the month.
After my first child was born I was in need of some new clothes, as mine didn't fit. I wasn't willing, or able to go out and buy a new wardrobe full of clothes that I was hoping I would only wear for a limited time. My solution was making some new clothes that could be easily taken in as my waist line diminished.
One of my first and favorite post pregnancy creations was a pleated, green linen skirt in New Look Pattern 6566 (I don't think it is in print any more). The skirt was worn extensively, taken in several times, and worn some more. The skirt was finally retired when one of it's small holes turned into one giant rip, that was beyond repair.
This skirt was recently reincarnated as a pillow cover. It is sized for a standard 14" x 14" pillow form with a side Velcro closure (a closure type I am not planning on using in the future). The leafs were simply painted on with fabric paint. I would have liked to make another with the same fabric; however, the fabric was in such bad shape that while there was enough fabric for a second pillow, it could be used. My kids enjoyed playing with the extra fabric though.
You can see in the second picture that the area directly under the leaves is slightly lighter than the surrounding fabric. That is because I originally tried to bleach the pattern into the fabric, rather than painting it on. Needless to say the bleach didn't work. That is probably what I deserve for using a harmful chemical I probably shouldn't have had in my house in the first place. My only excuse is that it is a left over from my nesting, have to sanitize everything, phase from my last pregnancy, and I didn't want to waste it.
The good news is that I am finally posting about all of the projects I've done in the recent weeks. The bad news is that I hurt my wrist (probably due to the marathon knitting done at the hospital the other night), and that most of my crafting endeavors are out of the question until my wrist is feeling better. Since I have several blog back logged projects, I am considering it a blessing in disguise.
On with the show.
While it is still not technically summer, here in Florida we have already had one full week of temperatures bordering 100 degrees F. I am behind on clothes shopping for the kids, especially for my oldest, because she is not wearing hand me downs. On a particularly hot day when there were no shorts to be found, my DH took scissors to my DD jeans and made long shorts. Not wanting to throw away perfectly good material, I decided to make the remnants much needed coasters. The following is the result.
Process:
I simply cut the jean material into 4" x 4" squares. I did the same to some wool felt (the felt adds an element of waterproofness to the absorbency of the jean material). I layered the jean and felt, then did some simple, geometric machine quilting to attach the pieces. Voila!
I generally take issue with the word "upcycle", preferring to use the word "reuse."
The word upcycle was origionally proposed in the book, From the Cradle to the Grave: Remaking the Way We Make Things, by McDonough and Braungart. It was coined to give a name to the use of waste materials to make useful products. It is also obviously playing off the word recycle, that is now in the common vernacular, and is common practice. Recycling is the reprocessing of old materials into new products. The problem with recycling is that many of the most commonly recycled goods, i.e. paper and plastic, are turned into a lower quality good. For instance, recycled plastics are a lower grade than the plastics they were made of.
I believe that the word "upcycle" implies the opposite of "recycle," or the making of higher quality material from waste goods; however, in upcycling the nature of the good does not change, it is simply used in a new way. "Reuse" seems to me a far more appropriate term for the process.
However, I believe that I may have finally produced a product worthy of the name "upcycle."
A few years ago my grandmother gave me a beautiful ornate picture frame, with a gorgeous picture in it, that just didn't match my style.
The picture in question.After about a year of looking at this picture frame everyday, I was in need of a message board, but I really didn't want a giant ugly white board on my wall. Finally, I had a use for the frame. I decided to paint the back of the glass in the frame leaving the front of the glass a perfect surface for dry erase markers. This system worked perfectly for about two years, but I was never very happy about the look of the paint on the glass.
The painted white board.
Then I found out about looking glass paint.
Looking Glass is a spray paint by Krylon that creates a mirror finish on plain glass. So I scraped all the paint off the back of the glass, and painted the back of the glass with Looking Glass twice. The finish I got is very similar to an antique mirror. I do not know if this is the finish that the paint should produce because despite the admonition on the bottle that the paint should not be used in high humidity, Florida did not provide me with humidity under 70%. The finish is however, exactly what I was hoping for, and I think it turned out beautifully. Unfortunately the picture really doesn't do it justice.
The new mirror message board.
until you've gotten every possible use out of it.
According to the Bureau of International Recycling, paper can only be recycled 4 to 6 times. That really isn't very many. So instead of dropping it in the recycling bin as soon as you are finished with a piece, reuse it.
Ways to make paper more useful, or less used:
There are so many more uses for used paper it would be impossible to list them all. I would love to see some of your ideas as well.
Note: Protect sensitive information! Papers with personal information can be used against you. It is best to shred all sensitive information.
Lest you think I have forsaken fiber, I have some fibery goodness to come.
A spare flat sheet is one of the most versatile implements in the home decorating arsenal. Why you ask?
Below is a picture of my sheet, turned one time bed skirt, and now bed curtain.
Do you try to recycle? Do you drink wine? Do you save all the corks from all the bottles of wine you drink, because you don't have a way to recycle them, and feel bad about throwing them away? Well I do. I must have a hundred or more corks in my house from years of collecting, and I never had any idea what to do with them. Until now....
How to make a trivet out of corks
Materials: One pipe clamp (I used a 5" to 7" pipe clamp. It was about $2.50 at home depot.), and lots of corks of approximately the same height (the number of corks you will need will vary based on the size trivet you make, but 50 is a safe number to start with).
Procedure: 1) Gather corks, standing on their ends, inside the pipe clamp; 2) Organize corks as desired; 3) Move clamp so that it is centered in the middle of the corks - see pic below; 4) Tighten pipe clamp - At this point you may need to adjust the number of corks so that there is a tight fit; 5) Trim loose end of clamp if desired
That is it. A brand new trivet for the cost of a pipe clamp. It even looks cool.
I also found a book that is all about reusing objects in fun new ways, and I thought I would pass it on. The book is "Ready Made: How to Make (Almost) Anything."
Enjoy!
Ok, not the actual cereal, the box. My kids eat a lot of cheerios, so I buy the giant boxes that never fit on the shelf correctly. Rather than struggling with the giant box several times a day (cereal is not a breakfast only food if you are 1 and a half), I decant, leaving me with a cereal box in pristine condition. Typically this box would immediately be broken down and sent to recycling, but in the throws of organizing, this box looked suspiciously like a magazine file box.
Mark a 45 degree angle on a large cereal box. The high side of the angle should end in one of the top corners of the box before the flaps begin (if the high side is at the top right on the front, it will be on the top left in the back).
Cut along the mark you made. Be careful cut the box cleanly.
This is what the box should look like after it has been cut.
Wrap the box in heavy weight paper. I used craft paper, which requires strong tape.
Then shove some magazines in it. Ta Da! The box really can't stand up to the weight of the magazines on it's own, but it does a great job when propped against something heavy, like other magazine boxes.
Enjoy!
This is the start of something new! I really hate to waste things, but our disposable culture makes it not only necessary at times, but cool, to simply throw something in a land fill when we no longer have a use for it (think the swiffer sweeper pad - use and toss, or the latest digital gadget that costs more to fix than to buy anew). Well, I have decided that about once a week I will show you one of the ways in which I have made something into something new; however, this week, until next Friday, I will try to show a way in which I have reused every single day.
Without further ado, reuse of the dreaded bride's maids dress.
A little more than a year ago my sister in law got married, and asked me to be one of the bride's maids. The dresses she picked really were tasteful, but like nearly all bride's maids dresses really wasn't appropriate to wear ever again. That, and the fact that the wedding was only 1 month after I gave birth to my second child, meant that this dress was doomed to spend the rest of it's days in the back of my closet.
A few months ago was my sister in law's birthday. I find her difficult to shop for, as we are not terribly close, and our aesthetic differs considerably. I had recently made some pillows for my sister's new apartment, and thought that my SIL might like pillows for her new house, but which fabric to use? Then I realized, I already had fabric she liked. In fact I had yards and yards of fabric she had picked out. I had a bride's maids dress.
I ripped the seams on the dress (rather than cutting) to get the maximum amount of usable fabric out of the dress. The bodice area was not wide enough to provide usable fabric so I cut it off. I cut 4 15 inch squares from the remaining fabric, giving me materials for 2 14" square pillows with .5" seam allowance. Then I simply sewed up the sides, stuffed the pillow, and shut the opening. They turned out well if I do say so myself.
I will try to update with a picture of the dress if I can find one.
Crafting a Life.
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