How can I reuse or recycle cracked Christmas baubles?
We’ve had an email from Gwyn:
Taking our tree down yesterday, we found 6 (six!) baubles were pretty much destroyed and only staying together through some sort of Christmas miracle and another 10 were fractured and set to go the same way. Bloomin’ cats!
They’re glass so I was thinking I could recycle them with our normal glass recycling but then my fella pointed out that they might not be the same type of glass and they’re all painted/varnished too.
Can we recycle them or not?
I’m not 100% sure but I suspect the answer is no because of the layer of paint – especially if the paint is some sort of acrylic matte stuff or is glittery. Anyone know for sure?
Depending on quite how smashed they are, you might be able to renovate some of them to make a feature of the broken bits – perhaps poke a thin paintbrush through a hole and varnish the insides to hold the cracks together, then place a tiny decoration in there.
Failing that, wrap them in some newspaper (so bits of glass don’t fly everywhere) and smash them up into smaller pieces, then use them to do a mosiac design on, say, a photo frame or something.
Any other reuse suggestions – other than getting baubles that bounce in the future? ;)
(Photo by fishmonk)
Smash them up in a stong plastic bag then use them to decorate picture frames or boxes. Stick them on with lots of PVA to get a glamourous mosaic effect.
Smash them up and mix them into concrete to use on the top of a security wall? :)
If they are the ones made of really thin glass there is an “easy” mosiac technigue that works. Put lots of glue on the flat surface that you want to decorate put a larger piece of the glass on top af this and press down with a protected finger. Thepiece shatters into a mosaic like pattern. This work really well with egg shells too.
they sound rather lovely, keep the larger pieces in a glass jar with a top to kee the dust out, on a window sill, they will be lovely when the sunlight shines through and add to it it over the years.
use them like eggshells to keep slugs out of our gardn
You can also spray paint them or spray varnish them, several layers will seal the deal.
Glue twine over them for a rustic look.