Recycle Crafts

Upcycled Halloween Lanterns

As much as I love Halloween, I’m not crazy about it being such a one-and-done holiday, you know? So much time and money spent on things that are gone in no time…

Costumes – worn once.  Trick-or-Treat candy – gone by November.  Pumpkins – half-rotten before the big night is over.

Wouldn’t it be nifty if you could add to the festiveness without spending much money, using items on hand, and save your results for years to come? Wouldn’t it be neat to use a little upcycling to make a big impact?

Yep. Thought so…

You will not believe how cute these lanterns are in person! I’m going to line them up in my window all month then bring them out to the front porch to keep me company while handing out candy on the 31st. They are easy, mostly-kid-friendly, and I didn’t even have to go out and buy special materials. There is one special ingredient here: a gourd shaped bottle, and this one from Califia Farms could not be more ideal!

Materials

–Califia Farms beverage bottles. The label here says orange juice but it is already looking like a pumpkin, no? They also make some delicious flavors you may have never heard of before like mango chili lime, pineapple ginger, and strawberry basil.
-Twinkle lights. LED lights are great because they do not generate heat, but you can use whatever leftover holiday lights you have on hand (see instructions).  -Paint. Basic acrylic craft paint, although, you could layer up something interesting with watercolor if you like.
– Paint brush.
– Black construction paper.
– Pen knife or box cutter.
– Scissors

Instructions
1. After washing the empty bottle, peel off the outer label and paint your favorite colors. I kept the colors basic greens and orange, but if you are working with munchkins, this would be a great opportunity to let them take the lead. Who says a witch has to be green? I hear pink and brown witches are very on trend!

2. While the bottles are drying, cut out Halloween face shapes and adhere to one side with regular white glue (click here if you would like to use my template for a jack-o-Lantern, scary witch, and Frankenstein monster).

3. Use a pen knife to cut a 2” slot in the back of the bottle. If you are not using LED lights, cut the whole a little larger to make sure any heat can safely escape.

4. Insert 10”-20” of the twinkle lights inside the bottle. You can light up multiple bottles on a single string, or designate a short strand for each creature.

If you are feeling extra creative you can add a simple witch hat…

But I also like the way the color caps look. Orange and green feel festive even with the lights off!

Happy Halloween!

This post is sponsored by Califia Farms but all opinions expressed within are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that make this site possible!

Upcycled Kid Art Garland

by aunt peaches 10 Comments

My parental friends tell me that one of their ongoing sources of guilt is throwing away their children’s artwork. Not that they don’t want to keep it, but, you know… quantity + storage room + 835 drawings of Dora the Explorer = a secret garbage bag that only leaves the house after bedtime. A lot of these secret garbage bags are born at the end of the school year, so I thought it might be fun to come up with a way to use those art projects for a new and exciting purpose. Also, who doesn’t love garland?

To be honest here, I decided a couple months ago that I am going to steer away from doing craft projects geared toward kids (there are enough people doing a great job with that on the internet), however, sometimes, an idea will come and I need to starch the itch! When Cindy from Skip to My Lou asked me to guest post, I thought this would be a great project for her site which is kid and adult friendly. I think I started reading Skip to My Lou since before I even had a blog, which seems like it was when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, but really, it was just when Everyone Loves Raymond was still on the air. I know – it’s easy to confuse the two.

Anyway. Right. Garland. Want to make one on your own? Check it out for yourself!

How to Upcycle an Old Tray Into a Photo Display

by aunt peaches 1 Comment

The nice folks over at Etsy asked me to think of a homemade gift idea that kids-of-all ages could make for their moms for Mother’s Day. And, as much as I love a good glue-and-glitter coffee mug, I wanted to come up with something that the mom population would want and use. Something practical. Something nice. Something she could leave out on the coffee table to hold remote controls or a stray glass of iced tea. Something Mom could show off to her friends and say LOOK. YOU DON’T HAVE ONE. AND I DO!

Yo. Moms are way competitive.

The secret ingredient here (that you might not be able to see in the photos) is resin, a thick sealer you lay on top of the photos and it dries hard (I mean HARD) with a glass finish. You can polish it, wipe, whatever. I wouldn’t put it in the dishwasher but I promise you it will last for years. Want to make one yourself? Good. because it’s going to be AWESOME.

Go check it out for yourself!

Painted Gift Bags

by aunt peaches 22 Comments

Remember that time when you had nothing else to do two weeks before Christmas and spent hours lovingly painting gift wrap for your friends and family?

No?

Hmmm….well, remember that time you freaked out because you were leaving town and instead of doing your work you went into a manic surge of creative energy and stayed up half the night painting gift wrap for friends and family?

WELL I DO.

Truth is, I don’t even have all that many gifts to wrap, I’m stockpiling in general. I keep my paper shopping bags under the sink (in a paper sorter, fyi) and then every time I’m about to rinse off a paint brush, which is more often that you’d think, (occupational hazard), I swipe the leftover paint over a bag or two. Then months later, when inspiration strikes, there is already a base for adding more color and pattern.

Most of the bags started out as paper shopping bags, but a couple are actual gift bags from the dollars store. This is how they start out…

This is how they finish…

The one on the left is called Christmas Leopard. I’m shocked they aren’t selling this pattern by the bolt. Someone, please, let’s get on this! Holiday animal prints could really be a thing. I have it on good authority that Santa loves leopard print. Also, Santa loves glitter. So you know we had to hit that.

Here is the process in action. If you follow me on Instagram you might have seen this one already…

These @crateandbarrel shopping bags never saw it coming.

A video posted by Peaches (@aunt_peaches) on Dec 12, 2014 at 10:14am PST

I also made some boxes, but boxes are bad for traveling, so these will be staying home. ‘Til next year little boxes!

And the bonus is, THEY LOOKS REALZ GOOD UNDER MY FLAMINGO TREE.

Stay tuned. More on the flamingo front later!

Drinking Straw Starbursts

by aunt peaches 16 Comments

Well here is a question you never worried about before; Exactly how much do I hoard drinking straws?
A. I pick up a package here and there, on occasion, when I see nifty patterns at reasonable prices.
B. More than a normal person should. As of now, my collection of drinking straws takes up two toddler-sized plastic bins in my pantry, thus forcing me to store cereal in the basement
C. My drinking straws are not a collection, they are a lifestyle.

Answer: D. Al of the above. And then some.

This is the part where I show you a pretty picture of my drinking straw collection, but sadly, I’m not willing to do that. I don’t want to take them out of their pretty plastic bags. They are all nicely organized and snug in their spots. Sometimes I’ll let the runts of the litter come out and play and I’ll style them up for photos, but that is it. It’s a problem. So much of a problem I have told myself I will not buy anymore until I have used up at least half of what I have now. I have dreams of another big himmeli chandelier, but for now, I’m starting small with starbursts!

These are so easy!

Materials
Plastic drinking straws (25-35 per starburst, plan on more if your straws are thin)
Zip Ties (do not buy from the Dollar Store – the plastic is brittle and tends to break)
Scissors
Optional: pliers

Instructions
If your straws have a bendy arm at the end, trim it off, then trim the rest of your straws to the same length. The closer in length, the more spherical they will come out. Personally, I like them a bit staggered, so I don’t worry about varied lengths.

Bundle together around 25 straws, draw the zip tie around the exact middle, then pull. Pull as hard as you can. Then fold back some of the straws so they touch in the middle. You’d expect the plastic to bend back eventually, but honestly, they don’t. They just hold their shape like good little soldiers. You can crank out 100 of these in an afternoon if you want.

If your fingers aren’t strong, get some pliers to help you out. Personally, I don’t need pliers, but then I invited my friend Noeleen to help make these and she was all “IT’S TOO HARD.” And I was all “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? THESE COULD NOT BE EASIER???” And she was all “I’M GOING TO BE HELPFUL AND VIDEO YOU DOING THIS INSTEAD.” This is how that went:

A video posted by Peaches (@aunt_peaches) on Dec 12, 2014 at 7:19pm PST

Lesson here. It took about 10 attempts to get this on video because the zip ties kept snapping (blooper reel here). This is why you don’t use the zip ties from the Dollar Store. Go spend the extra dollar at the hardware store. It’s totally worth it.

And there you have it folks. I had no need to add hangers because they just poke in my artificial Christmas tree easy-peasy. If you are using them on a real tree, you might want to grab a needle and thread. Or just don’t put them in a tree. They’d look great in a bowl on a coffee table all year round. Listen, I don’t know. You tell me. But these are nifty as all get out and you are going to want to try one.

Merry Christmas from the funkiest tree in Chicago!

Funky Christmas

by aunt peaches 27 Comments

My friend Noeleen was over last week and we got bored and didn’t have wine slushies or armadillo dip. So what did we do? We put up another damn tree. I told myself I wasn’t going to put pictures on the blog until all my decorations were up, but some things are too good to not share.

Because, as much as I liked putting up that other Christmas tree for Michael’s, all that Pottery Barn style normaility made me itch to put up something a little more…home grown. Unconventional. Funky. Yes, I think that’s the best word to describe it: funky.

Sing it, James Brown!

Also, I had some leftover copper molds from the kitchen. Not enough to cover a wall, but too many to sit in a box. Kiki suggested they might make great Christmas ornaments and I was inclined to agree. Initially I was thinking it would be fun to keep the tree ‘kitchen’ themed by adding copper scrubbers (3 for a buck at Dollar Tree – and totally useable after Christmas)…but then I’d have to keep it in the kitchen, but I learned my lesson on that last year. Last thing I ever want in my kitchen is a tree. It takes up too much floor space, and even as a hardcore glitter enthusiast, I don’t want it in my dishwasher. Plus, this tree just looked so cool and colorful, I thought it would look nice on the black and white stripe dresser in the living room, slapped on an old sequin skirt that no longer fits my ass, and called it a day.

Just about everything on this tree is crazy cheap or repurposed from another area of the house. Plastic straws play a heavy part — I’ll show you how to make those later.

Recently, I have been on a yarn tassel binge. They are a great, compact craft for all occasions. If you are anticipating a long trip to granny’s house for Thanksgiving, I suggest you bring tassel makings to keep you company. They are easy to make and your relatives will be really impressed (and/or drunk and/or too strung out on football) and leave you alone to make tassels with the cat in the corner.

The glue that binds all this fantastic Christmas fun together is the pompom pinecones. If you like a funky tree like me (and James Brown, rest his wig wearing soul), I suggest you look into getting yourself some pompom pinecones. They are really easy to make.

Click over here to get the skimmy!

Ooooh. Pretty colors!

School Supply Makeover with Tape

by aunt peaches 12 Comments

Hot and bothered, August is known as the only month without holidays. What’s up with that?

As a kid that bugged me. Could they not come up with a holiday for August? Were they waiting for someone to die so they could be commemorated? Why would there be no big hoopla August holiday? As an adult, I’m over it. But, when you think of it, there are more important things to celebrate in August than any other month of the year. For example:

–Left Handers Day
–National Middle Child Day
-Davy Crocket’s birthday
–National Rootbeer Float Day
-The 147th anniversary of Thomas Edison’s patent for his Kinetoscope
– Prime time television no longer sucks
– Back to school supplies are dirt cheap

Yeah, baby! August has a lot to celebrate.

As part of Michaels Makers back to school challenge, I decided to make over my school supplies using some awesome tapes with nifty colors and patterns. Because, honestly, even if I have long out-grown my Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper (YOU GUYS – IT WAS SO COOL!)…I am still using binders and notebooks on a daily basis. Why should they not be decked out and snazzed up? Who says adults have to miss out on the fun?

A couple weeks ago I bought a bunch of duck tape to make this desktop organizer using old cereal boxes (FYI: it came out pretty rad) and I have been on a tape kick ever since. You will find all sorts of tapes at Michael’s big honking duct tape in crazy patterns, colored masking tape, as well as tiny little rolls of washi tape. Mix them altogether and pair with your favorite school supply, you are ready to rock and roll!

Binders are super easy…

The edges can get a bit ragged so I cover them up with a single vertical line of gold tape on the inside. It lends a special touch and will increase durability for years to come.

If I was still in school, that inside flap is probably where I would tape down my class schedule. As I am not in school, this is where I would insert coupons for unglamorous things like mouthwash and tampons. So beat that, Lisa Frank!

And this is where I keep my pencils. All you need is a plastic baggie with a slide lock closure.

Tip: Getting the tape to stick to the bag nicely is much easier when you lay it on a flat surface.
Another Tip: You can add a 1″ flap of of heavy duty tape to the bottom of the bag, then punch three holes in it and keep it in your binder. COLOR ME NIFTY!

I’m not sure what this is for but I made it out of the cardboard tube leftover after I finished off a roll of tape. Recyclin’. Haayy.

Are you looking for more tricked out school supplies? Check out Michaels’ Back to School Pinterest Boardto find project ideas to kick the year off in style!

Check out these creative ideas from some of the other Michael’s Makers.

An InLinkz Link-up

Back to School Homework Caddy

by aunt peaches 36 Comments

Well folks, it’s that time of year again: Polish your apples and sharpen your pencils. It’s time to get ready to go back to school!*

* Whoa. Did you hear the collective sigh of relieved parents all across the internet? Me too!

When I was coming up, the best part of back to school shopping was going to store to pick up school supplies. Pens, pencils, two-pocket folders, maybe even a Trapper Keeper. Remember those? Nowadays kids to everything on their fancy electrogizmos, but let me tell you, a childhood without a Trapper Keeper isn’t a real childhood.

But I digress. School supplies are still in demand and now is the time of year when an influx of papers, notebooks, textbooks and office supplies start parading across kitchen tables. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a spot to coral all that stuff together and out of the way? And wouldn’t it be nice if the kids could make it themselves? And it would look cool? Thought so.

To get inspired for this school year, I’m working with Michaels to help teachers and parents create DIY projects that will keep young students on track. Michael’s is calling this their #Create2Educate campaign, and you can join in the fun. Details to follow below, but for now let’s take a look at how easy these are to make.

MATERIALS

3-5 Empty cardboard cartons (leftover cereal, pasta, and granola bar boxes seem to work just great)
Duck Tape (have you seen the colors and patterns this stuff comes in these days?)
Scissors
Cardboard tubes (optional)
Let’s get started…

INSTRUCTIONS

Place your cardboard cartons side by side then tape the bottoms together. For this first step, you may find it helpful to employ a second pair of hands (one person to hold, one person to tape).
Trim the tops of the boxes off to the desired heights.
Keep wrapping the tape over and around the surface of the boxes and just inside the rim. You may wish to use a credit card or the back of a spoon to make sure the tape gets into every corner.
To convert the front pocket into a marker caddy, insert a few empty cardboard tubes trimmed to size. They will keep pens and pencils standing upright and accessible!

TIPS

Here I worked in stripes, but you may find it easier to work in an abstract ‘paper-mache’ style.
Surface wrinkles are part of the fun, but you will find them easy to disguise by choosing a patterned duck tape.

I just know you crafty peoples (and your kiddos) have a million great ideas up your sleeve. So get out there and show of them skillz. It’s back to school!

$3 Bottle Light

by PEACHES 17 Comments

I need a new light in my dining room. I’m on the hunt for an old fasioned chandelier (to pair against Mrs. Snow), so in the meantime, I’m gettin’ funky.

When I gave up Diet Coke earlier this summer, the gradual phase out included a few weeks lemon-lime soda consumption. It’s not much better for you than Diet Coke, but it was as close to Diet Coke methadone as I could get. For a couple of weeks it was straight soda, then I started buying it in mini-bottles so I could just pour some into a glass of water to hot my sweet-n-fizzy spot at the same time. Eventually that phased out and I moved on to non-sweetened seltzer, then mostly water, which is where I am now. Aren’t you fascinated by this? I know I am.

I discovered two things in the lemon-lime soda phase. 1. You can replace 7-Up for lemonade in an Arnold Palmer and it will knock your socks off (add extra lemons for a kick). And 2. 7-Up bottles are really pretty when they are empty, clean, and cut to bits. Like this!

Materials

10 clean plastic bottles (free)
1 plastic light bulb cage ($2.19, found in the electrical supply section at the hardware store, popular at construction sites the world over).
10 zip ties ($1.00)

Cutting the bottles is the hard part. get yourself a sturdy pair of kitchen shearsand turn on the movie, it could take a little while.

Binding the bottles to the outside of the bulb cage is easier if you spread them out a bit. I nearly gave up half-way through to swap it out for wires, but the sip-ties work just fine. Before you trim off the tails, make sure you arrange them in a way that the cage can close around your light bulb (I learned that one the hard way).

Shazam!

Two Dollars of Awesome: Polka Dot Label Vase

by PEACHES 9 Comments

I’m bored.

Let’s make nifties with office supplies.

Round labels + dollar store vase/drinking glass = polka dot vase.

BAM.

And here is some more math: $1 vase/glass + $1 labels + Free lilacs (snipped off tree) = Two Dollars of Awesome

BA-BAM-Bop-BAM. BAM!

You’re welcome.

I love having a vase full of lilacs on the table. They don’t last long but it makes me feel like Patty and Selma from The Simpsons are over for dinner.

Also, if/when you decide to take the labels off the vase, just fill the vase with ice cold water. Condensation will take affect in a few minutes and loosen the labels from the inside out. That’s a nifty trick worth remembering in general when it comes to labels on glass. Wax on glass is a different trick.

PS: This craft was inspired by these polka dotted jars from Lemon Jitters. Check her out!

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