upcycling

I have made cot sheets out of old bed sheets,I also made my first son a cosy for the pushchair out of an old blanket that was 30 years ago or more.My husband is always making bird tables and things out of old wood or furniture we have finshed with.There is not much that goes to the tip in my house.Old tea towels go for dusters ,then floor cloths.It is nice to know that up cycling is taking place again.We used to recycle glass,by returning them to the milk man,all the bottle tops went to the guide dogs for the blind,old postage stamps went to the scouts or brownies,we had a rag and bone man call for old material,then we had a toot man that collected old metal and furniture,most of the furniture lasted years and then got passed on to the new family in the street,in those days we had nothing and everything was recycled.The news papers used to go back to the mill or used to clean the windows or wrap our chips in.we also used to send old newspaper to the school for model making and all our old jam jars for the art class.Something went wrong about 20 years ago and everyone started throwing things away,we are paying for it now in more ways then we realise.

Upcycling is what people, from the dawn of time up until 20 years ago called, "Recycling" and "Making Do". Recycling simply means to use again. However, most people now thing Recycling means to take cleaned, sorted trash to a spot whereas they falsely believe their efforts will not go to waste. I am super happy to see that "Upcycling" is coming back into fashion more-so. Seems the 1990s was very bad for ignoring this aspect of life.

Hi Cher, Those are some great tips. I have also upcycled old crayons with partially used candles. I melt the wax and many times have added old crayons to help add better color to the wax. You an also leave the crayons chipped or shredded in the wax for different design. I have also tied and braided those plastic bags from the grocery store and have created my own much larger bags to take along and reuse. The CDs broken into pieces also added to cement to make garden stepping stones add color to your yard or garden too. Old shirts and be cut into strips and sewn together to make pillows, quilts, woven to make a purse...lots of possibilities. I have done this with my niece and had a blast, we made a memory quilt with her children's baby/kid clothes. Her son loves Spiderman, when he out grew some of his shirts, we cut out spiderman and quilted it onto a quilt we made out of old clothes. Crafting is a very fun and easy way to "upcycle" just about anything you have around the house.

Sounds pretty crafty. I would upcycle CDs but all my music is digital. We use crayons until they are gone, some stuff I'm not talented enough to upcycle, I may just have to recycle until I get the hang of it.