Weekly Top 10 for June 20, 2007

This week’s subject is: the best recycled materials for craft projects.

What I’ve found looking around, what I’ve wondered about using myself, what catches my fancy or makes me laugh, what I’m thinking of using myself. This stuff is the fun stuff.

10. Wine Corks! I have a large collection myself that I have yet to do something with, and I have lately found that you can purchase more online should you have the urge to make a bulletin board or coasters or a chair.

9. This was new. I hadn’t thought about making things out of brass keys before. I have no ideas about what to do with them, though.

8. If you can still find them, old record jackets are great for decorating things. The art is big, they have all sorts of topics on ‘em, and oh the possibilities for evocative memories.

7. Cheap, used glassware is easily accessible and fun! - first breaking it apart and then putting it back together again as part of a collage or something else. I once had a friend who really loved the breaking apart process. I understand some of it can also be remelted, but that’s way beyond me!

6. Can’t forget the industrial - there must be a million uses for scrap metal. Not that all of us know how to work with it, but if you can, consider scrap metal instruments or this book looks promising.

5. Terra cotta shards. A long time ago I learned from my mom that there must always be broken terra cotta pots around. So surely they can be used for something other than lining the bottoms of new plants? A mosaic, or perhaps a larger painted shard as a candle holder? Hmmm…

4. Im a big fan of making soap from scratch - lye, oils, etc. But in fact you can take that little scrap of lavendar soap you have left from the gourmet bar and turn it into something else, as illustrated in this lovely article the subject.

3. Jeans. Jeans are one of my favorite material because the fabric is tough and the color is blue. Rugs, bags, more clothing, more sewing, more crocheting - it’s very versatile. This bag is one of my favorites, but that’s tame. Check out In a minute ago’s 65 Things You Can Do With Denim.

2. The most classic example of a recycled material used for crafts is empty food cans, jars and bottles. The throwaways of the kitchen are staples of doing recycled crafting with kids. I still have examples from my childhood. But in adulthood they make great, creative storage containers in addition to many other things. I just saw an episode of Design Remix on HGTV that made a chandelier out of cans. A guest punched out the word peace in Arabic to shine out through the can.

1. The absolute best is this Dukes of Hazzard vintage bedsheet. So cheesy! So retro! Maybe it’s me, but for a girl raised in the South in the 80s, it just doesn’t get better than this. Unless, of course, you can find me an A-Team bedsheet.