It’s been a while since I’ve featured some of the wonderful reusing, recycling and upcycling links I’ve spotted recently. So, without further ado…:

• Drinks can pop top lampshade I love this lampshade made with drinks can pop tops – it’s like modern chainmail :)
• Drinks can bottoms necklace The other end of the cans – a great reuse since so many crafts using the pop tops or the sides of the cans, but I’ve not seen many using the stiffer curved bottoms.
• Fake shell-like pendants from bubble wrap Following on in the “you’d never guess what this necklace used to be” line, this tutorial shows you how to make shell-like decorations for jewellery from bubble wrap.
• Old jeans into placemats I think I’ve seen something like this before but it’s still a great idea – denim placement from old jeans, using the pockets as cutlery/napkin holders – cute!

• Very fun bench from three old chairs Speaking of cute, how fab is this bench made from old chairs?
• Old t-shirt wrapped bangles Revamp old boring bangles with old fabric from t-shirts or the like – two upcycles in one!
• Thumb-controlled watering can from an old bottle The simple on/off functionality of this quick creation from Hester at Fun in the Making would be perfect for watering little pots and seedlings in the garden without wasting water.
• Quick bags & punnets from newspaper Finally, Lucie has been in touch to show off this ace video for making small bags for fruit/veg from newspaper. Perfect if you want “disposable” bags for sharing your crop gluts this summer:

(Bench photo by Kindall)

Granny Cain emailed about Ariel Gel Dosing Devices:

Enough!! I now have enough dosing devices for each child in a classroom…. but what to do with them? Tried poking a hole through the side, adding twine and making a bird feeder, but it kept flipping over. Needed some technical refinement… too much for my puddle brain. So folks please help me out!

I hadn’t heard about these dosing device but by the looks of it, they’re the new version of ye olde washing powder dosing balls but according to the only tiny picture I can find of them, more of a bowl than a ball, and apparently it “contain[s] an integrated soft plastic sphere”, whatever that means. (Is that right?)

Firstly, it’s obvious but since “reduce” is the most important thing to do, it’s worth repeating: really try not to collect any more. Liquid laundry detergent has a far bigger carbon footprint in packaging and transport costs – the gel is supposed to be a bit better on both accounts (and does promote itself on the idea that it can be used effectively at low (below 40C) temperatures) – but still.

As for the stash that’s already been collected, I’m struggling for ideas – either on how to make them into a bird feeder or anything else – since I’ve not actually seen one in the flesh — so over to you guys! Any reuse suggestions or recycling ideas?

We’ve had an email from Donna:

My 12 year old daughter has just had her long long lovely hair cut off and when we got home from the hairdressers, she cleared out a big box of hair bobbles, loop bands, Alice bands, scrunchies, ribbons, all sorts of things like Claire’s Accessories threw up in a box and told me she’d “never need them again”! They’re all used as far as I know so I don’t think a charity shop would want them. Would anywhere else take them?

(Heh, shop vomit.)

Perhaps Donna’s daughter will be better keeping on top of her new ‘do but I regularly need elastics when my (supposedly short) hair gets a bit long – so if I was her, I wouldn’t throw *everything* away. An alice band and clips/barrettes are always super useful for those days when everything’s pointing in the wrong direction.

If she has a lot of them, chances are most of them will probably be in good condition – how about washing them and encouraging her to sell them at a car boot sale? You could declutter some other stuff at the same time :)

I’d yoink the ribbons for craft stuff and the little elastics that are essentially a fabric covered elastic band as useful as gentler-than-normal elastic bands – I’ve heard them used in place of elastic bands in a number of household applications, but the only one I can think of at the moment is around the bottom of bouquets — the elastic is less likely to damage the stems. Any other suggestions for that?

And what about other ways to pass on or reuse all Donna’s daughter’s hair bobbles?

We’ve had an email from Debbie:

Any ideas what we can do with individual microwave pudding pots from the supermarket? They’re plastic.

First up, as always, reduce if you can – I know those puddings are convenient but it doesn’t take that much longer to make your own with a microwave (for example, a syrup pudding only takes about five minutes from scratch and there are plenty of “chocolate pudding in a mug” recipes out there). Or, if there is more than one of you puddinging and you *have* to buy one, getting a bigger single pudding instead of lots of little ones – the overall amount of packaging will be slightly less, and the bigger pot will be more reusable.

Bringing us neatly onto reuses: any suggestions? I suspect there will be considerable overlap with yoghurt pots – but the ones I’ve seen are a little more shapely than those so that may allow other reuses.

The little ones are fine as seedling starter pots (make holes in the bottom for drainage), or as little paint pots. They’d make dome-shaped jelly moulds for individual jellies – or for making your own microwave puddings! You could also cross the plant pot/dessert mould ideas over and make dirt puddings ;) Any other ideas?

As for actual recycling, does anyone know what number plastic they are? From a bit of Googling around, I think they’ll be number 5, polypropylene – but I’ll check next time I’m at the supermarket.

Leo emailed to ask:

Hi, your website is great. I’m interested in reusing broken ceramics, terracotta tiles, stone etc. to do a floor mosaic. Do you have any advice about installing this, e.g. cheap or recyclable adhesive, mortar etc.?

The only time I’ve make a “crazy” tile mosiac, I had some normal tile adhesive and grout leftover from a project so just used that. Has anyone else used anything else?

And, while Leo doesn’t explicitly ask for it, anyone got any other advice for building such a mosiac recycling and upcycling various things?

(Photo by stay4while)