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Showing posts with label Recycled. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Recycled. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Uplcycled Night Light

Upcycled Audio Cassette Night Light - Small

This way cool light will add a bit of retro to any occasion.

Great for table centre piece, as night light, or to give some groovy mood lighting anywhere you want. It castes amazing shadows and patterns.

Eight upcycled, previously loved audio cassette tapes holding 20 battery operated LED lights - white and multi-coloured available. Please specifiy on checkout - white sent by default. Require 2 x AA batteries.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Bird feeder Upcycled

Bird feeder made from recycled materials

Birdfeeder made from recycled materials

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

DIY Screenprint Dodger Tee

DIY Screenprint Dodger Tee

awesome textile diy's 
 A Beautiful Mess' hand stamped dress, a bleach painting tutorial by Lune via A Beautiful Mess. I thought I'd give this screenprint diy, that I saw over at Manzanita, here's my take on this awesome and totally easy project. Here's what you need:
Shirt (thrifted), modge podge, fabric paint (this was my first time using  all-purpose acrylic paint and it's amazing!), design, cardboard piece, embroidery hoop, nylon or panty-hose fabric, paintbrush, and permanent pen.
1. Create a design for your screenprint. I started with something simple since it was my first time using this method. Later, I did a more elaborate design for the front of the shirt, after I did this first heart as practice. Make sure that your that your embroidery hoop is large enough for your design.
2. Stretch the nylon over the hoop so that it is taut.
3. Trace your design using a a permanent pen.
4. Using Mod Podge, paint the "negative space", or, the space that you do not want to be painted.
5. Fill in the whole area, making sure there are no holes or gaps. I was obsessive about this because I didn't want the paint to seep through. Let dry completely. It took about 3 hours for this little one to dry.
6. Lay the hoop flat on the shirt and position where you want the design to be, and place a piece of cardboard beneath the area so that the paint doesn't bleed through the back. Squirt a generous amount of paint over the design.
7. Use the cardboard to spread the paint over evenly.
8. Carefully lift the hoop off the shirt and voila!
9. Let the paint dry completely before wearing.
I also did the front part of the shirt. I made the LA symbol inside a heart. I thought it came out cute and I'm excited to wear it to the game! Go Dodgers!
A few people have commented asking me how I made the design on the front. Here's a picture of the screen I made to create it. I painted Mod Podge on the outside of the heart, and the block letters, basically anywhere I didn't want the paint to go. So you kinda have to think in reverse. Hope this helps!

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Netherlands - Upcycled Wood



http://www.designbuzz.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/newspaper-wood_tqpRV_41416.jpg

Dutch Designer makes wood out of Newspaper

The ordinary:
Wood has always been used to make paper, but, with new techniques and ingenuity, paper now becomes wood and utilized in different form in many products. The news paper is used as a raw material. Hard texture is given to these newspapers by recycling them and the recycled newspaper is used for making various products. Newspaper Wood is the unique way of using waste material and creating much exciting and useful products out of it. This process of up cycling is the new way to bring life to old dumped recyclable waste.

Inspiration:
A Dutch designer Mieke Meijer worked on this project in her workshop at Eindhoven, Netherlands. Her work is appreciated by a design firm Vij5 and they used this Newspaper wood in creating furniture pieces. Vij5 helped Mieke Meijer in implementing the vital processes into production and marketing. Her work was unnoticed for a period of four years. It was in Milan Design Week 2011, however, the furniture items of this wood were showcased. This process is time consuming, but the end result produce wood like material which has wood grains or rings of trees in a series of layers. It is the creativity of the designer that has transformed dumped newspaper piles into beautiful creations by a simple process of upcycling. Thus, saving the life of so many trees that can be cut down to make wooden items.
The extraordinary:
The newspaper wood created is eco friendly as it utilized the waste newspaper and is of great value. Special machines are used for compressing newspaper by rolling it very tightly to produce log of the size of tabloid. These tabloid logs are quiet similar to real wood in appearance.
The making:
Mieke Meijer, a graduate from the Design Academy Eindhoven made this concept of newspaper wood popular. Certainly, it’s her ideas and hard work that made it possible to create wood from recycled newspaper. The designer glued the stack of newspaper one by one and rolled it very tightly. The wood obtained is slightly deformed and can be sandpapered. So, the end product is the wood which can be cut or sanded and can be transformed into any product just like wood.

Source: http://www.designbuzz.com/dutch-designer-upcycles-discarded-newspaper-into-wood/

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Upcycled Stocking Stuffers for the KIDS

Old crayons lying around? Melt them to make new fun crayons for Christmas!

Have lots of crayon stubs that are too small to hold on to? Don't throw them out! You can use them to create big, chunky crayons – and your kids can help.


I used a silicone chocolate mold for the above. My observation on the Muffin tin is the crayons can be too big for little hands. Use what makes sense for you oven safe container. Lots of fun shapes are available for chocolate molds.

 Directions:
  1. Gather up all of your broken crayons, and cut them into small pieces. (An adult will need to complete this step.)
  2. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.
  3. Fill the muffin tin with an inch-thick layer of crayon pieces.
  4. Bake 15-20 minutes, or until the wax is melted.
  5. Allow the tin to cool; then pop out the crayons, and they're ready for use.

Tips:

  1. If you don't have a muffin tin to devote to crayon making, you can line your regular muffin tin with foil cups.
  2. Candy and soap making molds can also be used to create fun, shaped crayons.
  3. Recycled crayons make a great no-cost gift or party favor.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Recycled Daisy Magnets

Recycled Daisy Magnets

Recycled Daisy Magnets
Brightly coloured daisy magnets from South Africa made from recycled drink cans. Each flower is a different combination of colours and patterns depending on the tin that has been used. They are not only gorgeous they display an impressive ability to find value in something we assume is valueless.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Customized Book - Names

  Personalized Folded Book Art

A personalized folded book sculpture - a terrific, individualized gift.

They create wonderful shadows, and appear to change form as you move around them. Perfect for birthday, anniversary, new baby gift, office, housewarming.

Custom-made book sculpture created by folding (no gluing or cutting) the pages of an old hard-covered book. All are single page folds with serif letters (not just block letters).

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Recycled Book Storage Box

Recycled Book Storage Box

Great for disguising CDs, DVDs, gaming controls, toys, or just 'stuff'. Have a shelf full of books and look really smart - but store your magazines, game controls and chocolate inside! Also a great idea for hiding valuables, keys, passcodes to nuclear devices etc.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Airplane - Recycled Tins

Aeroplane Made From Recycled Tins

Aeroplane Made From Recycled Tins 
 
Each plane is a different combination of tins and therefore different colours and patterns. The planes are made in Madagascar and this little industry helps support people whose lives are so very much harder than ours simply because of the place of their birth.

A wonderful hand made and fair-trade gift 

http://www.ethikl.com.au/Aeroplane-Made-From-Recycled-Tins.html