Archive for the ‘Junky to Funky’ Category

Green Shopping can be fun and  eBay is a great source of Eco-Friendly products. Whether you are looking for a gift for your environmentally conscious friend or just something for around the house.

By using Vintage or Used products you are giving those products a new lease on life and at the same time reducing the use of new raw materials and the energy needed to produce them.

Look for items made from recycled, organic or sustainable materials like hemp, soy or bamboo. If you are feeling adventurous look for items that artists have given a second life to, like bags made from candy wrappers or soda can pop tops.

Don’t forget to look for items that can help us reduce our use of resources like solar powered phone chargers, or hybrid energy efficient computers.

Don’t overlook refurbished electronics, if you are not a slave to the “latest” fashion in electronics, you can often find great deals in refurbished electronic and at the same time keeping those materials out of the landfill.

bibi

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I love it when I find ideas about taking things that would otherwise end up in the garbage and turning them into something useful.

I came across this site that does just that: it’s called FaveCrafts: Discover the Crafter in you. In it you’ll find a section called Green Crafting that has several articles that cover reusing materials from used wine bottles to old jeans, tin cans and trash that can be used as crafting materials. If crafting is your thing they also have a blog you can follow at www.FaveCraftsBlog.com.

Especially in these tough economic times, some of these ideas can come in handy when folks are looking for ways to keep the cost of gifting down. Some of these articles can be used to teach our children the importance of taking care of the environment and reusing as many materials as possible. The younger we teach them the more ingrained it will become.

Here is a list of some of their articles:

10 Ways to Reuse and Recycle Trash for Crafting

15 Homemade Christmas Ornaments: Recycled Paper Ornaments

Green Crafting Tip: Dress Up Wire Hangers

Homemade Cork Board

Recycled Market Tote Bag

Recycled Tin Can Luminaries

Turn Old Jeans into Pot Holders

Vinyl Record Bowl

Enjoy!!!

bibi

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If you happen to be in Atlanta the next week, The American Craft Council  will be holding it’s annual American Craft Council Show for the second year in a row. It will feature artists who use the concept of “Going Green” as a method of artistic expression.

The show will be held in Atlanta March 13-15th at the Cobb Galeria Center. (directions here) Friday and Saturday, March 13-14: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; and Sunday, March 15: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Regular admission is $12 for one day, $18 for a two-day pass and all three days’ admission for $20. Children 12 and under are admitted free. American Craft Council members and those who join the non-profit organization at the show ($25 annual membership fee) are admitted free all weekend.

A preview Party on Thursday, March 12 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Cobb Galleria Centre. Tickets for the Preview Party are $75 each and can be purchased at www.craftcouncil.org/atlanta. Proceeds from the Preview Party jointly benefit the Boys and Girls Club of Metro Atlanta/Youth Art Connection and the American Craft Council.

The craft show will include over 200 artists, one quarter of which meet the Green Craft Standard by creating collectible treasures from cast-offs and reducing pollution and landfill use. The collection will include fine art pottery to metal works to distinctive wearable items to mixed media pieces. Some of the recycled materials used include exotic hardwoods and metals, stained glass, metal, fabric, buttons, stainless steel and granite.

The artist list includes the likes of Jewelry Artists Mayra Orama Muñiz and Erica Millner from MIO Studios, Paul Pearman, with his mosaic belt buckles, Clay Artist Kirsten Stingle, and Sculptor Dave Caudill.

To preview the show and to purchase tickets online, please visit: www.craftcouncil.org/atlanta.

bibi

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• A fun way to spend an afternoon with kids or friends is to put together a mosaic. Never throw away chipped plates or glasses, save them up and when you have enough make a mosaic out of them, make it a party.
• Need a use for old cinder blocks? Make a garden bench out of them, stack them up 2 high and wide enough for 2 people to sit in, line them up against a wall and top with a foam cushion and pillows lined with scrap pieces of fabric.

• Take an old door that is not being used, spiff it up with some sanding and fresh paint and hang it horizontally behind a bed as a headboard.
• Have some old PVC pipe hanging around, get some elbows and T’s (they’re cheap at the hardware store), play with the design and come up with some functional items for the garden. Make a coffee table, a gardening stool, if you have a lot and are adventurous maybe a chair.
• Take old cast iron garden furniture that you don’t like out there anymore, and bring it in the house. Cut it into pieces that can lay flat and hang it as wall art, or hang it from the ceiling.
• Old book cases or any scrap wood can always be turned into something else. One idea is to cut the wood into strips and turn it into frames, place some inexpensive molding on it and save yourself a whole lot of money.
• Old switch plates can be painted and reused as frames also. Cut a piece of sturdy cardboard with the same dimensions as the switch plate. Attach your picture centered on the piece of cardboard and then hot glue the cardboard to the switch plate.
• Empty wine or beer or any kind of bottle can be used as a flower vase. Just gather some favorite magazine pictures or you favorite wall paper and decoupage it onto the bottle making it now a decorative piece that can be enjoyed.

You get the message, use your imagination before throwing anything out. See what other uses you can find for those objects. Keep looking back for more ideas and please add you ideas in the comments.

bibi

Comments (2)

I was watching today a show on the DIY channel called From Junky to Funky. What they do on the show is find what some would consider junk and repurpose those items into something useful. Like in the picture above from MyGreenGarden.ca What a great idea to recycle old items and wouldn’t it be great if we all did that, it would sure keep a lot out of the landfill. So this is the first of the Junky To Funky Series and we will start in the garden.

When you think about redesigning your Garden, start with the 3R’s of the environment. Reduce/Reuse/Recycle. Go around the house, the garden and all the sheds you have and look at everything with a fresh eye. Look at all the “stuff” you have and ponder what you could use it for that maybe it was not designed for.

• An old pile of bricks, could be turned into a new patio/dining area or maybe a path.
• An extra piece of wood fencing could be turned into a table top.
• Old chipped flower pots that are no longer pleasing to the eye, could still be used as planters, but bury them in the ground instead for easy planting and removal of annuals.
• Old pressure treated fence posts could be used to mark the perimeter of planting beds, or used as steps in an incline.
• Old Patio furniture can be revamped with new Garden Furniture Cushions and a little paint.
• Old wrought iron fencing can be used as a trellis to train vines or as decoration on an outside wall.
• Old tires can be reused as planters.
• Turn an old hose into a soaker hose, simply use a whole punch to punch wholes in it at different intervals, lay it in a planting bed around the flowers, then turn the water on, on a timer.
• Broken up concrete can be used as stepping stones.
• If you hand your clothes out to dry, use an old bleach bottle with a handle and cut a big opening opposite the handle. Place your clips in there and before you put up your line, thread the line through the handle of the bottle , and now you have the clips handy as you are hanging the laundry.
• Another use for used plastic water bottles, is to cut the bottoms off, leave the cap off and bury upside down next to water thirsty plants, that way the water goes straight to their roots and you wont need to water so often.
• Spare wood can be turned into bird houses.
• Hang an old mirror on the side of a shed, it will give the garden a new perspective.
• Old paint cans can be decorated,, filled with sand and used for keeping your small gardening tools in so that they don’t get rusty.
• Create a Compost bin out of some old wood, anything organic can be thrown into the compost pile.
• Save old sheets for those freezing winter nights to protect you more delicate plants.
• An old wooden ladder can be used to decorate the side of a raised planting bed or hung up on a wall for architectural interest.
• Large pieces of broken colored glass can be used as a rain chain. Just wrap thin wire around the glass at different intervals then hang from a corner of the house of shed. Don’t forget to put something under it to collect the rain.
• Use old wine barrels to collect rain.

Put your noodle to work and you will find uses for all those old things, and make your garden more interesting to look at while helping out the environment at the same time.

If you have any other ideas please share them with us, in the comments…

http://www.customcushions.net/chair.aspx

environment garden recycle recycled art reduce reuse the 3rs

bibi

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