The wonderful Alice in Blogland sent me an email last week:

Thought of another recycle that I could use some help with!

I’ve taken some waterproof trousers, jackets and cycling gear from someone who didn’t want to just dump them in landfill. I thought there would be
loads of things I could make with them – my ideas so far are a pair of rainlegs, a pair of gaiters made from the bottom of some waterproof trousers, a rucksack cover like this, a waterproof bike saddle cover and maybe a waterproof hat.

Can anyone come up with any more ideas? And does anyone know how I can seal the seams for things which need to be really watertight?

I think we’ve talked about the watertight seam question before – but if anyone has any new suggestions, please do feel free to add them.

As for things to make out of them, if I still used my bike, I’d probably want a waterproof hat/helmet cover – with a peak at the front to protect my glasses a bit. I also like the idea of gaiters as my trousers always puddle-soak.

As it is though, I rarely have to leave the house in the rain so if the waterproofs were made from a neoprene type material, I’d probably use some of it, along with a bit of expanded polystyrene foam, to make a bath pillow – much more my speed now ;)

Other ideas?

Every now and then I realise I’ve had some great ideas & links sent to my email but not shared them with you yet – this is one of those times!

First up, Vernon got into touch to tell us about his plastic bottle creations. He says he’s been making them for 15 years and sent me pictures of a wind twirler and a flower made from old bottles – but this bird was my favourite – such a fun character!


And speaking of creative characters, Mario Caicedo Lange sent us a link to his Flickr account featuring the “arts, props and crafts” he’s made from recycled materials. He makes little robot style creatures – with many of his recent onesdoubling up as plant pots!


Next, Malcolm was in touch to tell us about Juzi jewellery – chunky beads made from recycled magazines by two self-supporting cooperatives in Kenya. Turning colourful magazines paper into beads is a fun way to recycle them yourself – but if you’re not a crafty sort, then this seems a great way to get the look and help others at the same time.


Agy on Green Issues Singaporeemailed to say she’d created two new lampshades – one from an old tshirt, the other from an old computer keyboard. Two very different looks but both fun!

Thanks for all the emails guys!

We’ve had an email from Karen which is a bit different from our normal “how can I recycle…” questions but a good question all the same:

I’m a fashion student and I am interested in doing my final project/collection using waste products! I’ve been looking for things like parachute silk with faults in (apparently over half of what they produce is waste because it has to be SO perfect!) and anything else along those lines. I’m not so interested in taking old things and making them into something new, for me it’s more about using the waste products of production.

However I’ve been really struggling to find any, do you know where I might be able to find some? I have loads of great ideas and I promise to share what I do with you :)

The first thing that comes to mind is something that I’m sure has already occurred to Karen – to contact relevant factories. While obviously a lot of manufacturing has moved offshore these days, there are still a fair few specialist factories around – or people that take offshore-made fabric and turn it into something else (for example, I can’t find it now but someone contacted me a while ago about recycling leather/pleather offcuts from making motorbike seats).

Scrap stores may be able to help too – they often work with local industry/businesses to take unwanted materials for crafty reuse/recycling and depending on the area/their links, that might include production seconds/thirds and offcuts etc.

Any other suggestions? Any specific places? I’ll contact Karen to see whereabouts she is in the country in case that makes a difference. (UPDATE: she’s replied to say: “I’m down in Brighton, so anything kinda south coast/Sussex way would be useful :)”)

We’ve had an email from Lauren:

I’m a knitter but I can’t throw away the ends of yarn, not matter how small! I’ve got a carrier bag full of ball ends, some a couple of yards long, most less than a foot. Any ideas?

The longer pieces could be used for the inner rings of granny squares if you crochet too or mini-crafts both knitted or crocheted – if you’re on Ravelry, on the advanced search you can specify projects by yardage — I just did a search for projects using 5yards or less, and got over 400 results (including, I kid you not, a penis shaped chapstick holder!). The shorter pieces could be used for the odd few stitches of decoration such as eyes & noses on soft toys or tapestry/embroidery work. If you had lots and lots of shorter pieces, they could be used as stuffing for small toys.

Away from sewing & crafts, I used pretty yarn instead of string for tying up parcels etc and for clothes repair/enhancement – a little colour-clash darning, sewing on chunky buttons or used for adding hanging loops onto scarves/light jackets that come without them.

Any other suggestions? If you knit/crochet, what do you do with your scraps?

A couple of weeks ago, I spotted an article someone was promoting on Twitter about “sprucing up your tired winter coat“. Ooh! I thought, I like sprucing! It’s a great way to upcycle & reduce after all — but when I clicked over to the article, I found the sprucing involved the addition of various belts, brooches and doohickeys, which is fine but not very me.

For me, it’s both a “repair this” and “reduce this” type question – how can I refresh that tired winter coat so I don’t need to buy a new one? I think it’s important that it not just so that it looks better but that I feel better about it too.

I basically have three coats for throughout the year – a light cotton hoodie (which I wear most of the year), an expensive-for-me big super-warm cotton parka type coat for freezing days, and a cheaper, shorter “wool” one which I wear when it’s not quite so cold and I need to look a bit neater than in the parka.

So how can I freshen those up?

For me, there are two main areas that get tired dirty – my cuffs and my pockets. The hoodie gets thrown into the wash regularly, hurrah for cotton. The parka & wool one aren’t as easily washable, especially mid-winter but spot-washing on the cuffs improves things a lot. As for the pockets, I treat my pockets like some women treat their handbags – a site for the accumulation of detritus. This is sometimes good (I found a fiver in my parka coat when I put it on the first time this year!) but mostly bad (crumbs of dog biscuts, bits of paper, sticky sweets). Emptying out the junk & cleaning out the crumbs and dirt from the pockets won’t make it look any better (although a lot of junk does ruin the line of the coat), but it’ll make it feel better for me and enjoy using it more.

Another thing: my wool one – it’s not 100% wool but wool-heavy and it’s that heavy woollen style – is bobbly. A bit of combing with a debobbler would make it look a lot tidier. I suspect there will also be some snags too which could be tidied up. I’m also going to debobble/de-snag my scarves, gloves & mittens for good measure.

Yet another thing: the zips on my hoodie and parka coat have been playing up recently – I could secure the bottom zip section in place with a couple of stitches and rub a little soap on the teeth to stop them snagging, and it would make zipping up a less frustrating experience.

Another, more involved thing: the lining on the wool-ish one has always bugged me – it’s icky polyester and now it’s torn a little too. I could use an old fun-patterned shirt to replace it – using the original lining as a pattern – an upcycling idea and revamp in one.

So that’s what I do/will be doing. Have you got any ideas for ways to freshen up an old coat?

(Photo by sh0dan)