We’ve had an email from Cathy:

Please give me ideas about how to recycle a bird cage. I don’t have childen though I think it could be used to store stuffed animals? Now it is holding old video tapes. Thank you for your help.

I saw a pretty ornate one going cheap (unintentional bird pun, sorry) in a charity shop last year and was tempted to buy it to use as a “hanging basket” type thing for my growing collection of spider plants. I thought it would look nice in our turquoise bathroom – the white of the cage, the green of the plant and the plantlet shoots hanging down. I didn’t buy it in the end but I still think it would have been cute.

If it had been a bigger, less ornate one, I might have been tempted to buy it for the garden for, say, sweet peas or beans or the like. A clear plastic sheet over it would make an impromptu greenhouse to start with and when the plants had got big enough, take that off then the plants can use the wire sides for support as grow.

Any other ideas?

(Photo by bradimarte)

We’ve had an email from Renee, saying:

I use a lot of glue runner, and I want to know how I can reuse the cartridges/tape.

I’m more of a textile-based crafter than a paper one so I didn’t know what “glue runner” is – but after looking at the picture Renee sent over and a little of investigation around the web, I think it’s double-sided sticky tape on a cartridge for easy use (because double-sided tape is usually a right pain to work with) — please correct me if I’m wrong.

(I also wonder if this is what Jen was asking about back in February…)

So any suggestions?

Nigel, who uses old audio tapes for community health projects, has put this request on the audio cassette tape page and I thought it was worth featuring more prominently:

Hi everyone, I am now after any old 8mm film reel or any old and unwanted home movie footage on video or film.

Also any old photo slides as we need them for a film project we are doing but it has to be your images such as old family stuff as we cannot use any copy written stuff.

Doesn’t matter what of and from where as we will use bits if you know what I mean.

Send to me at ACT,West House, Lombard Street West, West Bromwich, West Midlands B70 8EG.

So if you’ve got some stuff hanging around, send it over ;)

(Photo by bop)

We’ve had an email from Janelle for our new reverse Recycle This section:

hi. i’d love to have a go at making a shopping bag out of recycled plastic but don’t know where to start. any ideas?

I’ve knitted carrier bags into a new bag before now – except I picked thicker than normal bags which were a PAIN. Aside from that though, it was pretty straight forward – I just garter-stitched a strip as wide and twice as long as I wanted the finished bag to be, then folded it in half and sewed up the sides. The (short) handles were made in the same way, just handle-sized dimensions instead. It looked more rugged than it felt though – but I think my knitting/sewing skills were to blame for that.

I love the bags woven from old packaging and am planning to give that a go once I get my million other projects out of the way – anyone got any hints or tips on how to get started? Or what types of packaging to use?

Away from plastic, I’ve made a few shopping bags from old/charity-shop pillow case – either standard tote ones (using the bag part of the pillowcase) or slightly bigger one I made with a little help from the cats the other week (it’s great and seems far stronger because of the wider strap).

Other materials: Ecoist, amongst other people, also makes bags from old movie posters; I’ve seen bags made from old bamboo blinds/placemats (the wood stained a fun colour and fabric used for the gusset); the tops of jeans make good rucksack-type bags (built-in pockets!); and I’m tempted to play with making a wallet or possibly clutch bag using drink cans – the cans cut into strips then woven into a flat sheet (easier than reweaving them into a can again…).

Any other suggestions?

(Photo of a non-recycled but colourful & shiny bag by paiviti)

Following on in our impromptu series of all things water-y, I have a bit of a random query about a canoe/kayak.

Because of the wonders of wireless, I am currently sat our (still not paved) garden enjoying the fact it’s not raining for once and watching with bemusement as our neighbour Jason tries out his new homemade canoe trailer for his bike.

I’ve mentioned Jason’s love of creatively building trailers before but the difference this time is that he’s fixed up the canoe too. He has a habit of acquiring random things in a broken state and either fixing them (as he did with the canoe – although he’s yet to water test it – that’s why he built the trailer, to take it down to the river) or cannibalising them for bits. The previously cracked (fibreglass?) canoe has been fixed, the trailer built from salvaged planks and pram wheels.

But if he hadn’t fixed the canoe, what else could he have done with it?

I guess it could be used as a fun, feature pot for the garden – but a very big one that – if mostly covered like this one – doesn’t offer much room for the plants to surface. Any other suggestions?

(Photo by gundolf)