Recycled Crafts
From LoveToKnow Crafts
Embracing recycled crafts is a good way to start going green. Many of the items you throw away can have a new and useful life as part of a craft project. This is a great way to cut down on your crafting costs and introduce children to the concept of reducing your carbon footprint.
Recycled Crafts from Glass
Glass jars can make great craft projects, and the beauty of it is that you probably buy products every week that come in glass containers. After a spin in your dishwasher, those jars are ready to begin a new life.
Candle Jars
Use your old jelly jars to make container candles. With a few candle making supplies, you can reuse thick jars and make them part of your décor.
Display Containers
Glass jars can also be used to store and display your herbs or any other decorative item you choose, like dried cranberry beans or peas. Just cut a circle of fabric a couple of inches larger than the lid with a pair of pinking shears, affix it with a rubber band to rim of the lid, and cover the rubber band with a length of ribbon.
Gift Containers
Glass jars make good gift containers too. Have a friend who enjoys spiced cider, cocoa, or your favorite single serving cake recipe? Add the ingredients to a glass jar and you have the perfect gift. Just remember to include a tag with the instructions. Don’t buy plastic, recycle your glass for those one-of-a-kind gift creations, like special herb blends, homemade bath salts or yours special scented lavender water.
Recycled Cardboard Tube Crafts
From shipping tubes to the little tubes in your rolls of bathroom tissue, cardboard tubes are useful craft objects.
Napkin Ring
Cut your bath tissue liners into 1 1/4” lengths and decorate them with your favorite themed items, like shells, beads, or stones. You can also match or contrast your placemats by using the cardboard circles as cores and wrap them with colored paper, ribbon, or fabric.
Party Favors
Fill bathroom tissue tubes with small treats, and then wrap them with brightly colored paper, and give them away as party favors or as Halloween treat wraps.
Wind Chime
Cut a four-inch length of a sturdy shipping tube and punch holes around the bottom at one inch intervals. Thread 14-inch lengths of string through the holes and secure them with a knot that’s bigger than the hole. Tie shells, silverware or beads to the other end of the string. Punch four holes on the opposite end of the tube and tie four lengths of six-inch string in place. Create a loop.
Newspaper Crafts
Your newsprint can be useful in your recycled crafts and for decoration.
Newspaper Plant Pots
Try making plant pots out of newspaper. The folded newspaper pots will make a small homes for a seedlings, and when you pots are in the garden, they will biodegrade, adding nutrients to the soil.
Newspaper Mulch
Shredded newspaper makes good mulch in the garden and helps to heat the earth around your tomatoes to make them grow faster in spring.
Papier-mache
Newspaper is the main ingredient in many papier-mache recipes, and you can use papier-mache for sculpting projects of all kinds.
Newspaper Gift Wrap
If you want to cut back on all that wrapping paper in landfill, try using the funny pages to wrap birthday and Christmas packages instead.
These are examples of three common household objects that can easily become supplies in fun and interesting craft projects. You can also use items like aluminum foil, old Christmas or birthday cards, outdated calendars, milk cartons, egg cartons, tin or coffee cans, and many other things. The next time you head out to the trash, first take a look at what you’re throwing away. The more things you can find to reuse in your projects, the less will end up in landfill.
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