Last September, Karen emailed us about the vast collection of novelty jester hats that her boyfriend had collected at various carnivals and festivals over the years. She wanted to know how she could reuse or recycle them as she hadn’t had much success giving them away.

Lots of people made suggestions – including trying to give them to local schools/drama groups/groups that did clowning classes or making them into a purse or tea cosy – but Karen loved Meg’s suggestion of turning them into bunting/pennants:

Last year I sent an email about novelty jester hats and of the suggestions was to make a string of decorative pennants, like the kind for birthdays (the upside down triangle). I did this and am pretty proud of the result!!

Oh very fun! Great work Karen – and thanks to Meg for the suggestion in the first place! :D

I do love to see what people are reusing and recycling – especially if they’ve been inspired by something on the site – so if you’ve reused/recycled anything in an interesting, clever or fun way, please do get in touch :)

Who wants generic shop-bought Christmas decorations when homemade ones are so much nicer, cheaper and better for the environment? ;)

Our 2010 round-up of our favourite ideas for making upcycled/recycled Christmas decorations has been very popular this year and I hope it’s provided lots of people with lots of inspiration – but if you’ve still got a little space to fill before the weekend, here are some more last minute ideas:

Paper wreaths have been very popular over the last couple of years but I love this one from EcoEmpire because, aside from staples, it’s entirely made from reusing household waste – newspaper, cereal boxes and a little scrap of ribbon (Kat suggests the loops from clothes – I’ve got a drawer full of those!)

Sticking with paper crafts, I also love these paper ball ornaments – either as individual baubles or strung together into a garland. I also love the idea of using foil packaging to make silver or otherwise shiny ones.

These letter ornaments, decorated with scraps from old sweaters, would also work well on their own or as part of a garland spelling out a holiday greeting/special word. “Merry Christmas” if you’ve got a lot of scraps, “joy” if you haven’t ;)

If you prefer your decorations a little more natural, these mini Christmas trees made from twigs are just fab – a simple idea but really nicely executed.

The Crafty Green Poet also reminded me that you don’t have to just use special Christmas ornaments on your tree – any ornaments or little items that don’t usually see the light of day can be hung up on there – even earrings on smaller trees for a little sparkle/bead-y delight.

Finally, Deb/Urbanwide sent me this fun Nativity scene idea: the whole Nativity crew painted on champagne corks. Perfect if little ones want to play with the scene – although if you want one for this year, you’ll have to get working on drinking all the champagne ASAP ;) (A slightly healthier alternative – but one that needs nearly as much forethought – is to use Actimel bottles for the bodies instead.)

Anyone else got any fun recycled Christmas decoration makes or discoveries to share?

(Photos © EcoEmpire & MicheleMadeMe respectively)

Over on The Really Good Life, we’re in the middle of a decluttering month, with the hope of developing a general habit of asking “do we need or even want this?” rather than getting blind to things that have been on shelves for years. I’m also setting a weekly mini-challenge to focus our attention on specific areas: this week has been often overlooked spots in the wardrobe. We remember to sort through our shirts or jumpers regularly, but what about smaller things?

As I’ve already said, I got rid of a whole load of old trainer socks a couple of months ago. Around the same time, I also got rid of about twenty pairs of old knickers that had been cluttering up my underwear drawer – ones that no longer fitted properly or I didn’t like the style any more, but previously couldn’t bring them to throw them away because … well, I’m not very good at throwing anything away.

The other day, as part of the mini-challenge, I continued on that theme: I got rid of some old tights (well, moved them into my craft stash for some reuse), put aside some barely worn bras for eBay, sent a couple of pairs of unworn pyjamas to the charity shop and found a few “silky” things – pretty camisole sets – from years ago that I no longer wear. It’s all made out of synthetic fabric too, so even if I could fit into it now, I wouldn’t be able to wear it because synthetics make me sweat unattractive amount of sweat and that’s not a good thing with lingerie!

One set still had the tags on it (sigh) so I’ll give that to a charity shop as they should be able to sell it on but I don’t know whether they’d be particularly interested in the rest, so I’m imagining it might be better to think of other reuses for them.

The fabric is all light & floaty: some opaque, some lighter than that and some are patterned, others plain black. I very much like some of the abstract floral patterns – which is why I bought them in the first place – but they’re too light and flimsy for the type of crafts I usually do (I’m all about the practical these days and I don’t think they’ll make a very good shopping bag or anything like that). I could just add them to my fabric stash on the off-chance I’ll need them for something in the future, but that doesn’t seem very in the decluttering spirit, just shifting the problem somewhere else!

So any ideas for reuses? Know of any specific craft projects that would make it worth my while keeping them in my stash? Any more practical reuses?

Kathleen has emailed to ask about an ironing board cover/pad:

There just has to be something I can do with this……it’s way too big to toss!

Ironing..? board..? what is this thing of which you speak? You mean some people don’t have perpetually creased clothes? Amazing! :D

We do have an ironing board but it gets used more for stuff like fusing plastic than it does for actual clothes — if I had a spare or old ironing board cover, I’d keep one for potentially leaky crafts like melting plastic and one for clothes.

As for repurposing it, if it’s a fabric one with a quilted/heavily padded section, could it be made into an oven mitt? I’d imagine they’d have similar heat absorbing qualities. At one time my mum had a thinner silvery one – could that be used for lining/insulating a lunch cool bag? Would that work?

Any other ideas or suggestions?

Karen has emailed about her boyfriend’s hat collection:

When cleaning up I came across a lot of jester hats from my boyfriend (about two dozen). He has collected them over the years for free at carnival (we are from Holland). Giving them away hasn’t been succesful, and we don’t have freecycle nearby. So I was wondering if we could reuse them in some way. They are made of different kinds of fabric, some I can’t place (and there is nothing on the labels). Some are felted and some are fake velour I think.

Two dozen jester hats! That’s quite a collection! I really hope he knows to reduce from now on and not collect any more.

As for reuses, the felted ones may lend themselves to small felt craft projects – there are lots of felt brooches around these days and basic (but pretty) ones are quite easy to make (for example, these butterflies ones).

As for the velour ones, I have half a memory of seeing a cushion made out of novelty hats but no amount of Googling will confirm I didn’t just make that up in a cheese dream.

Any other suggestions?