How to Recycle Stuff to Make Crafts

A. Johnson

One person's trash is another person's craft material. All around you there are ways to recycle stuff to make crafts. Before recycling, be certain the material is not contaminated with any toxic or unsafe materials. For example, you won't want to recycle a bottle that contained pesticides or items you found in a landfill. Once you know the material is safe, allow your imagination to take over.

Things You'll Need

• Hot glue gun
• These are just some suggestions:
• Old, discarded items:
• Fabric
• Buttons
• Beads
• Hardcover books
• Ribbons
• Lace
• Newspaper and magazines
• Greeting cards
• Paper bags
• Egg cartons
• Items from nature: feathers, shells, etc.

Instructions

1. 

   Look back in time to see one of the most traditional ways of recycling; quilting. You can use old clothing to make quilt wall hangings, bedding and other items. Denim is a great material for making jean quilts.

2. 

   Gather together odds and ends, such as buttons, old beads, and other interesting stuff that you can use to embellish craft projects. If you don't have an immediate use for the items, store them in a craft box, and sort the items by size or type.

3. 

   Recycle old hardcover books to make altered books. You can use other recycled items in the project, such as pieces of ribbon, lace, buttons, and other bits of scrap and material.

4. 

   Turn ordinary objects into a center of attention. For example, you can paint old horseshoes to create a lucky horseshoe. Look around and see what old item you might be able to showcase as the centerpiece of a craft project.

5. 

   Cut newspaper into strips and use for papier mâché projects. You dip the strips in a solution that is one part flour to two parts water. You can make items such as pinatas, jewelry, and even furniture with papier mâché.

6. 

   Cut up old greeting cards and make new greeting cards. Then make envelopes for your cards with paper sacks. You can also turn paper lunch sacks into hand puppets.

7. 

   Make Christmas ornaments with old egg cartons. Cut out the individual egg holders and make small bell shapes. Glue the shapes together and create ornaments using glitter, glue and other embellishments.

8. 

   Transform old boxes into treasure boxes, file boxes, or storage boxes. You can cover boxes with colored paper and then decorate them.

9. 

   Collect discarded items from nature and recycle them into craft projects. Ideal items include feathers, shells, rocks and antlers.

10. Decorate hats or other articles of clothing with recycled items. Those items include old scarfs, pieces of broken jewelry, silk flowers and other goodies.

11. Embellish hair combs using a hot glue gun and odd pieces of notions, jewelry, or other small interesting pieces.

12. Sew up a patchwork stuffed animal using odd pieces of fabric from old clothing. Sew the pieces together to make one large sheet of fabric, and then draw the outline of an animal onto the fabric and double it over. Sew the pieces together and stuff with fabric filling.

13. Sew small sachets from odd pieces of discarded fabric and lace.

14. Transform jars into pin cushions, or make them into pencil jars, or fill them with wax to make candles.

15. Recycle odd pieces of china into new items. You can turn an old china plateinto a wall mirror by gluing a circular mirror in its center. You can make tea cups into candles, and use broken china pieces for mosaic tile.

16. Transform ordinary stuff into new items, such as this clothespin doll made from an old clothespin. Make clothing from recycled fabric.

17. Cut up old magazine pictures to make a collage. Paint a board with collage glue and add the pictures. Add a coat of paint on the top of the picture.

Resources

• Craft Projects