Bag Ladies and Gentlemen.... Yes, you conscientiously refuse plastic shopping bags and use enviro bags as often as you can, but still the plastic bags manage to breed like roaches. How many plastic bags do you have stuffed in (naturally!) a large plastic bag somewhere in your home? And do you despair of ever using them up? Fear not! If you have more bags than home furnishings and décor items, you could make a chair, a few throw rugs, cushions, a chandelier, or a Christmas wreath. If you’d like a stylish yet waterproof wardrobe, you could make a cape, a raincoat, or a bra. It would be less utilitarian but equally cool to make your own menagerie: chickens, a zebra, more chickens, sea creatures, and still more chickens. [more inside]
posted on Jun 11, 2007 - View this thread

Your real name and all ten of your aliases are on the AOL mailing list. Or you’re an extreme computer geek and your mother is getting quite irate about the hundreds of used CDs cluttering up her basement. (And your non-payment of rent. And the smell…) Or your alternative-punk-Celtic-rap band’s release was tragically unappreciated by the public. Whatever, you have piles of CDs sitting around. You’ve followed this advice on how to minimize CD use and know that recycling CDs is not as easy as it should be, and maybe isn’t even possible in your country. What options do you have? Well, these people are collecting a million AOL CDs and intend to dump them off at AOL’s corporate headquarters. These people make clocks from them, and you could too. Or you could use them to make an ambient floor or table lamp, a throne, a photo frame, a really huge mobile, a disco ball, shingles for your tree house, or quite a few other things, ranging from postcards to bowls to spinning tops. Or you could play a quick game of disk hockey with a friend (that is, if you have time before your mum gets home).
posted on Nov 18, 2006 - View this thread

What to do once your beer is all gone All right, so you’ve finished your beverage. You’ve discreetly released the gas from your digestive tract via your mouth. And now you want to dispose of the empty can. You consider your options. Public-spirited as you are, you are too savvy to believe that you can redeem the pull tab for a wheelchair or a dialysis machine, or that an aluminum beanie will protect your brain from alien forces, and you are far too civilized to smash the can against your forehead. As a responsible, ecologically minded person you could recycle, but you’re also creative, and recycling would leave that artistic urge unsatisfied. So, perhaps you whip up a morning glory wreath for the front door. Or an airplane. Or a honeybee. Or the Starship Enterprise, a shark, a knight in shining aluminum armour, a piano, a hot rod, a Christmas tree, roses for your beloved, or Easter lilies for your mother. Or whatever else strikes your fancy. Then you have twin epiphanies: that you’ve entered the wonderful world of aluminum crafting, and that after emptying all those cans you urgently need to pee.
posted on Nov 6, 2006 - View this thread

Ultimate Recycling Rug hooking must be one of the simplest and cost-effective of crafts (basically, cut old clothes into strips, use burlap, insert hook, pull up loop of fabric), and so it’s all the more amazing that it can be used to achieve such cool, painterly and stunning results. If you click on just one link in this FPP, make it this one, made by a Japanese woman out of her grandmother’s old silk kimonos. I’ve selected just one excellent, comprehensive rug hooking web site, but there’s a lot of resources and information available on the web for this craft if you’re interested.
posted on Jan 17, 2005 - View this thread