• I’m a big fan of reusing milk bottles for all sorts of things and this idea for using them as stationery organisers is fantastic. If they were for use by little delicate hands, I’d be tempted to sticky-tape the cut edges to make them less sharp.
• Kristin from Craft Leftovers used the offcuts from fitting a bamboo blind to make coordinating twined coasters.
• Jan McNeil, a Sculpture & Photography student from the University of Ulster, emailed to ask if anyone has any old baby dummies/pacifiers lying around – she wants them for an art project. Get in touch if you’ve got some – or have any ideas for where she might be able to get them from – and I’ll pass your details/suggestions along.
• I love the idea of this toothbrush holder made out of old toothpaste tubes. (Although I’d want to make sure it was easy to clean – which, with the lips, I’m not sure it would be in this design).
• This reusable lunch bag how-to uses new shower curtains but it could equally be made from a clean old one. A great way to reuse to reduce.
• Someone – a name didn’t make it through so I don’t know who – sent over some photos of a birthday table cloth made from old balloons: “I recycle my birthday ballons by gluing them to a clear plastic sheet, gotten in the fabric dept. They make a cute table cover for the party!”

We’ve had an email from Pauline:

I would like to use steel and aluminium cans to make jewelery. Do you know how to cut the metal out? Should the can be crushed first? Do you know how to smooth the edges so they don’t cut? If you could throw any light on this or point me to a website as I am not getting much coming up in google at the moment? Thanks.

I’ve made numerous things out of drinks cans (all aluminium I think) over the years and have mostly just used scissors for the cutting – it’s not as hard to cut as you’d think. I might use a can opener to remove the lid or a knife to start a hole in the body but then scissors suffice. I typically cut down the print “seam” and around the top & bottom to remove the curve so am left with a flat rectangle of metal.

(I’ve tried using shaped hole punches on cans but only lightweight ones so not had much success. Alison Bailey Smith has talked about the heavy duty ones she uses on plastic – I wonder if they’d be good on metal.)

And if the edges are smooth, not jagged, they’re also not as sharp as you might think. I’m not saying I’d necessarily want to wear them as jewellery in their nude state but in all my making, I’ve not once cut myself. Anyone got any tips for making the edges safer though?

Finally, anyone made any interesting jewellery from cans – or seen any inspiring examples of work around the wonderful worldwide web?

Scott Bedford from the wonderfully designed What I Made.com got in touch to tell us about some of the great reusing/recycling projects he’s done over the last few years.

He’s made a strangely beautiful candle holder out of an old motorbike exhaust, an edgy planter out of a deliberately mangled paint can, a Heath Robinson-esque candle holder/timer out of wire and old bricks and a wine rack from an old wooden veg box (pictured).

Wonderfully inventive stuff, very different from a lot of the stuff we usually see – and all reusing & recycling old stuff, hurrah!

• We get a lot of tutorials on making random old textiles into bags or aprons – but this is the other way around: use a cute old apron as an instant cafe-style kitchen curtain. I also love Ki’s use of an old paint roller as a kitchen roll holder.
• Courtney of the Greenists linked to this TED Talk by Treehugger’s Graham Hill about becoming a weekday vegetarian.
• Crafting a Green World on how to upcycle plain tiles into pretty coasters.
• I’m a sucker for not throwing away those last couple of yards of yarn at the end of a ball/project – and here is a very mini project to use them up.
• Speaking of using up scraps, Sandra of sawdustandpaperscraps make a very nice pinstripe picture frame using scraps of wood.
• And finally use an old hardback book and a dull pad of paper to make a more hardwearing and fun notepad.

(I hope everyone had a lovely long weekend btw – and for those who didn’t get yesterday as a holiday, sorry for rubbing it in that we all did!)

Linzi email us with a rather specific question:

I would love to know how to make those chickens made from plastic bags? I desperately want to to know how to make, I teach art and crafts and I know my students would love to make them.

I double-checked what she meant by “chickens from plastic bags” and she means these guys, which are apparently made by communities in deprived parts of South Africa.

My Google-fu is failing me to find either a how-to for those, or indeed any alternative chicken decorations that could be made from plastic bags. I’ve made some little tin chickens from old drinks cans and I’ve seen lots of chickens for dangling made from, essentially, a circle of fabric/crochet – but I can’t find the tutorials for those either now… One thing I did find was the cockerel made from plastic bottles which we featured a couple of years ago – but again, I can’t find any how-tos…

Anyone got any links bookmarked or are better at searching than me?