Top 10: Recycled Projects I Like

Changed my Top 10 icon. If you know me, you probably think that this icon and my current theme are funny. I’m not a huge fan of pink, but I guess if the spirit moves you … then pink it is.

So – Today’s Top 10. One BIG part of the young DIY/craft movement that’s been bearing down upon this country is the prominence of reused and recycled materials. Everyday I am amazed by the things that people have found to remake and reuse and refashion. Some of it is awesome, some of it is not – I saw a re-imagined muumuu on Etsy the other day that I’m not all that sure was a good idea. But this post is about things I thought were good ideas.

I think that the reuse/recycle goes really well with DIY/craft because both of these ideas tend to push away from consumerism. Although I’m in favor of reusing, recycling, DIY and crafting (obviously), I don’t take it to an extreme. Being a consumer is fine with me and indeed necessary, as I am not a stay-at-home anything, and I don’t really have the time or energy to make as much stuff as I might like. In addition, I learned from my grandmother, who used to make practically everything for her family, that a total lack of consumerism is really wearing on a person, and irritating, when you have no choice about it.

However – I know that I value my stuff more if I have gone to the trouble of making it myself. I also know that having certain kinds of things that I insist on making myself – like home decor – leads me to have less stuff because I have to find the time and make the effort to get it. I also find that when I shop at garage sales, thrift stores, antique stores and the like I happen upon more interesting and unique items, things that have stories and histories. When I make stuff, I always end up with more unique items, of course. And in all cases, I typically spend less money. Plus, I don’t like to be wasteful of money and goods or be ecologically unfriendly – more lessons I learned from my grandmother.

Here we go with the best recycling projects I’ve seen lately:

10. Have an old pot? Make a sculpture. I think these examples are new kitchenware, but I’m pretty sure the beat-up ones that are now lacking their non-stick surface will work just fine.

9. Need some inspiration? Try Ben Hawkins’ gallery of art features creations made from junk! Trash no longer! (the fish, left, is his creation)

8. My husband and I are coaster-users and nerds, which is why we like these coasters made of recycled bits of motherboards.

7. Try a glass-top side table made from dollar store items, including GI Joe figures.

6. It’s been featured elsewhere, such as on Craft and Curbly, but I think this Vintage Belt Floor Mat from Sustainable Design for Living is one of the best re-use projects I’ve seen. I’m not sure about paying 648 clams for it, but if you could figure a way to DIY, how awesome!

5. Starry Starry Night – This won my attention because it was not only made from paper scraps saved from the school year, but the materials will be recycled again later. See more recycled student art at their website.

4. Make travel accessories from scrap material. I love am obsessed with bags, travel items, etc., so I’m going to make myself a set before I go on my next vacation Also, I want to mention a favorite blog of mine that’s all about projects created entirely out of scrap material: the lovely Craft Leftovers.

3. Next up is glass jewelry made from recycled bottles. I echo Treehugger when I say that I like the contrast of ecologically friendly artist with a product of some very big businesses. And I’m happy to see she was approached by those businesses in the first place!

2. More jewelry next – this time made from old typewriter keys. I love the vintage look of these.

1. My quilt. Sorry, it in fact IS my favorite, after the time and effort I put into it! It was my first completely finished quilt. It counts as recycled because (1) much of the fabric was throwaways, odd ends and sale stuff because it was damaged. I salvaged it! and (2) About 2/3 of it was curtains for a while in my house. Those were taken apart and became panels for el quilto.

I should really color correct that picture, shouldn’t I? I promise it ’s quite pretty.

Hope you have enjoyed – Cheers, Miriam

One craft in service to another…

I finished a couple of projects on Sunday. I was SO pleased with myself that I thought I’d just go ahead and make a list of all the other ones I’ve designed, but haven’t finished. About 3/4 down the page I thought, “uh oh, this is starting to look like a lot.” At the end of page two, I quit writing and went back to try to establish timelines for my projects to make sure I’m doing things instead of just planning to do things.Sometime, I should share my glorious portfolio of quilt ideas. I have actually made two of the quilts I designed. However, that’s small potatoes compared to the dozens I’ve designed. A few years back I just kinda went nuts with a vector-based design program. Whee!

Crochet Accessories: Despite my propensity for designing, I did both design finish and finish these. A great example of one craft (sewing) in service to another (crochet)! As with many projects, I kinda designed these on the fly. Consequently they have the usual issues relating to being impatient, but they’re certainly very sturdy and functional and pretty, and that’s what counts! I wanted them because I do tend to drag my crocheting around a bit – coffeeshop here, road trip there, upstairs, downstairs… Keeping track of the little odds and ends that go with this hobby while not annoying my husband with the mess is a challenge for messy me.

So – on the left (above left) is a crochet-hook roll and on the right is a crochet accessories bag. They are made of two lovely fabrics (see right)- a purple and green floral and a lavendar quilted cotton – plus a bit of dark purple bias tape, some gorgeous ribbon and wooden buttons. These have prompted me to decorate my whole crafting space in purple and green.

One project was a place to keep my scissors, crochet needles, measuring tape, row counter (no, I can’t keep track in my head!), markers, and other junk. The thrice-partitioned pouch folds nicely to get tied into a neat bundle. The pouches are not terribly large, which is GREAT. I have a habit of dragging around too much crap with me. (left, project in front)

The other item is a crochet-hook keeper. (right, project in front) This hook case – quite conveniently, I think – has room for at least one of every crochet hook from size B-1/2.25 mm to size S/19 mm. There are a bunch of 1 cm slots, several 1.5 cm and a few 2 cm, enough for one extra of each slot size.

It was NOT an accident I left the chalk lines in there – that’s so you can see that the left line represents 2 cm slots, the middle 1.5 cm and the right all the 1 cm slots.

I plan to make another one for my smaller hooks – the really itty bitty ones with numbered sizes, because not only would they fall out of these hook slots, they’re also about an inch shorter than the ones with letters.

You can see a few more pictures of this at my Flickr page.

Cheers, Miriam

Color inspiration, web 2.0 style

I really love this website. As a crafter, I’m often thinking about new and interesting color combinations I can try for all my different projects. I work in color most of the time, and I’m admittedly a color-o-holic. I’m a strong believer that color in your surroundings and on your person affects your mood and quality of life.

The COLOURlovers website was a wonderful find for me, the latest application I’ve found to help users with designing and finding unique color choices.. You can sign up and create your own color palettes. You can page through thousands upon thousands of color schemes with every inspiration known to human kind – pictures, websites, magazines. I haven’t seen a website before that showed you what the inspirations were for the palettes. It’s also interesting to see what colors people pick out of the inspiration photos. People don’t see the same colors in a picture. The website creators are also interested in tracking the color choices popularly in use today, which I find interesting.

My favorite set of inspirations so far has to be the list of the 7 New Wonders of the World. Website users voted for their top Wonders, and there are color palettes for each one. The list is actually greater than 7 because there are so many possibilities, but it includes such things as the the Great Wall of China, the Mayan city of Chichén Itzá, pyramids of Giza, Petra in Jordan, the Roman Coliseum, the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, the Incan settlement of Machu Picchu, the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty, Stonehenge, and Easter Island. WONDERFUL.

I’ve made a color palette for the picture I use in my header – the blues and pinks but also green. I also created a color palette for another picture that I took near her, as I was inspired to uncover the palette of local central Texas building materials – this one is the colors of granite, limestone and brick.

If you’re interested to know more about color palettes, you can also try Kuler from Adobe, which is an community-oriented online color tool. Something else I’ve tried with good results that’s a pretty inexpensive Macintosh tool is the Color Schemer software.