Recycle This regular Anna left a question on the Suggest an Item page:

What could I use to make dog toys?

My friend got a puppy and I’d like to make him some toys. I’ve made cat toys for ages, but puppy toys definitely need to be stronger and bigger.

Dog toys do typically need to be bigger and stronger than cat toys – it’s quite important that they’re the right size for the hound, given the variety of pooch sizes — neither too big or too small.

I’m still quite new to dog ownership – we’ve had Lily for about six months now – and she’s not really one to play with toys, just carry them around, so we’ve not made any toys for her.

I do know though that a quick and easy tug toy can be made plaiting together old tights/stockings/pantihose or strips of an old tshirt.

Or make the equivalent of a ball on a string by placing an old tennis ball (or the like) at the end of an old stretched sock, tie a knot in the sock to secure the ball, then play away!

Any other suggestions? What homemade toys have you made for your dog? Or, more typically, what has your dog found itself to reuse as a toy? ;)

(I illustrated the equivalent cat toy post with a picture of our cat Boron going mad with a piece of string. Lily refused to perform. So comedy photo by Miguel Vera instead – great expression!)

We’ve had two similar requests over the last couple of days so I thought I’d post them together.

First up, Alan wants bottle caps:

I make beautiful replicas of fine art (e.g. Matisse, Warhol) and logos from bottle caps: See my site at www.bottlecapartwork.com

Also, If you have caps, please email me at bottlecapartwork@gmail.com and I can get you some money for your trouble to send them to me. Paypal available.

And Laura’s colleague Vicky wants wine corks:

On of my colleagues is looking for wine corks (real or synthetic) to use for her wedding. Have a look at her blog post here: http://adessi1010.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-corker.html and if you’re interested in sending some of your corks please feel free to contact me via the comments or on email laura.coyne@adessi.co.uk

Contact the relevant person if you’ve got some to send along!

Back in the day, way back in the day, we featured reuses and recycling ideas for wine corks – and there are lots of great suggestions on there. But they nearly all are for real corks, not the synthetic alternatives so I thought it might be interesting to focus on those now instead.

Like with cork corks, plastic wine corks are sometimes just spongy tubes and other times they’re a little mushrooms, with a cap firmly attached to the end like the one in the picture. (You can also get designed-to-be-reusable plastic screw-in corks, but they’re less of an issue here since they’re purposefully bought for homebrewing and will typically be reused for as long as possible).

I imagine some wine cork crafts – such as noticeboards – can just as easily be made from straight plastic corks as cork-corks — but should some things be avoided? (Trivets for hot pots maybe? I’m unsure how heat resistant the plastic will be.)

And what about for reuses/recycling ideas for those with a cap attached/integrated?

We’ve had an email from Jess:

What can I do with my little girl’s cot now she’s too big for it? We’re not having any more so don’t want to keep it and I know you’re not supposed to use second hand beds for babies.

There is apparently an increased risk of cot death if the mattress has been used by a child in another home – but it’s the mattress not the whole cot/crib. All sorts of second-hand baby furniture is available via eBay, Freecycle/Freegle or NCT Nearly New Sales, so you should feel free to sell/pass yours on with a clear conscience.

While it’s best to keep using it for its original purpose for as long as possible, I know they’re reused in fun ways too – a blog I read, I forget which, showed one flipped upside down in a larger chicken run as a broody chicken house, and I’ve seen them used as growing containers in the garden – the plants either tied or climbing up the bars.

Any other suggestions for how to pass them on? Or for reuses around the home and garden?

(Photo by levigruber)

Apologies for not posting yesterday – I was away on an “introduction to cheesemaking” course over the weekend and too tired to type yesterday ;)

I’ve been making super-easy cheeses like paneer for a few years now but before I committed to anything that needed months of effort/ageing, I wanted to learn some core skills from someone who knows what they’re doing. The course, through the Low Impact Living Initiative, was great for that and very very interesting – so now I have a burning desire to make all sorts of cheeses – and that requires moulds.

We saw a selection of stainless steel moulds and (food-grade) plastic ones – and someone else on the course mentioned they’d heard about moulds made from drainpipes. The course leader didn’t exactly advocate that but said that in theory, it would be fine — just drill holes in the rigid sides, making sure the outside of the hole was wider than the inside, and that there was no jagged bits of plastic left on the inside or outside of the holes.

So that got me thinking: what else could cheese moulds be made from? Any food-grade plastic packaging perfect for reusing? Or do any other household/kitchen utensils lend themselves to being used as cheese moulds – either as they are or with a bit of modification? Because it’s just for my consumption, I’m not bothered about them being pretty round cheeses.

If you make your own cheese, what do you use?