It’s very definitely jam season at the moment (in the UK at least) and I thought it might be fun to hear people’s favourite fixes for sticky situations (ho ho!) when the preserves don’t come out quite as you’d hoped.

How do you test for the set point? The most common method seems to be the “when it wrinkles on a cold plate” test but anyone use any other methods?

What do you do if it’s too runny once in jars? Or too solid?

And, not quite in the question but related, do you use/reuse anything interesting instead of commercial-bought pectin?

And any tips for reusing old jars? Reusable alternatives for waxed discs?

Finally, what do you do with jam that can’t be saved – stuff that burnt in the pan for example?

(“Why is this on Recycle This?” I hear you ask because it is a little tenuous as a “repair”. Well, one, because with the giant piles of fruit in our kitchen at the moment, I’ve got jam on my mind. And two, because jam failures may lead to food waste – and if we can save some rescueable jam from going in the bin, that’s a good thing.)

This is usually a links round-up but this week everything seems to have arrived in my inbox instead ;)

Daniel emailed us pictures of cannon he made reusing and recycling stuff. Yes, you read that right, a CANNON. (Ok, ok, a decorative rather than functioning cannon but still).

I applied for a job working on the gun side of BAe, I did not get a reply and took it upon my self to make my own as a personal token of disgust with them out of rubbish.

The barrel is made from a plastic spoil down pipe, which is resting on a tables extending brace that is found underneath, with the tow bar that was picked up off the road while walking the dog. The handles at the base of the barrel is a bit of broom handle, and the end cap is a plastic part of a polishing buff for cars. The brass hub cap is the back plate off a door handle, and the fire hole device is a letter of a car name badge, with the brass design in the middle coming from a handle back plate off an old video cabinet, the axle is a cut off from a scaffold pipe. It’s painted with black and copper paint from the shed.

Good job Sellafield replied!. (Didn’t get it.)

He also made a decorative well with a weather vane attachment for his garden:

The roof is made from slate taken from where a velux window was installed. The two support beams were from a shed, the rope was washed up on the beach, the rope is wrapped around the other half of the cannon barrel pictured earlier, the winding mechanism on the right side is part of the table extender mentioned earlier, the winding handle is a pedal and cog that has been adapted. The base is the wooden base of a fish tank that has a plastic liner and two fish-(not recycled).

The eagle is weather vane that always faces the wind and keeps seagulls out of my garden. This is made from a broken wheely bin with the wing tips heated to curl up, the legs are made from the same brush handle as the cannon and is set in attack mode with talons made from half a clothes peg. The eagle is painted in the eagle colours using shed stains, and the north, west, east and south is off a xmas and noel decorations… Full time score=EAGLE 1:0 SEAGULLS.

Great reusing & recycling Daniel – fantastic to see so many things being reused so creatively!

Patty got in touch to tell us about her reuses. She reused some old placemats to make crumb catchers/bibs for messy eaters on the go:

It catches all the droppings from sloppy eaters! The bottom edge snaps up to catch the crumbs. A ribbon is around the neck and attaches to a small button. It can also be unsnapped, rolled up and buttoned to keep it snug and then just rubber band it to the visor to be used in the car.

She also told us about using old egg boxes (particularly plastic ones) in her jewellery drawer:

I have used my cartons in my jewelry drawer. My rings and ear rings fit where the eggs go and necklaces and bracelets go around the opened top side where the separators stick up. That keeps them from tangling. If you have a deep drawer, they stack beautifully!

As someone who is constantly detangling bracelets & necklaces, thanks for the great suggestion Patty!

We’ve had an email from Kate/Glitter Pixie:

Hi, I wonder if the Recycle This community can help. My husband and I have finally moved into a house with outdoor space and want to seize the opportunity to begin composting. However, our yard is completely concreted over so a normal compost bin won’t work. I’ve done a bit of research and think a wormery might be the ticket but they are so expensive! I just want to make a haven for the little wriggly guys we buy, so does anyone have any neat ideas about how to build a wormery and what to use? (obviously reusing general household junk where possible). Thanks so much you guys, absolutely love the site, you are awesome!

(She’s right – you guys in the Recycle This community are awesome!)

Normal compost bins would work on concrete – we just had a piece of wood underneath our open-bottomed one at our old house to facilitate air circulation and moving it around (although we have yet to move it to our new house – that’s going to be quite a effort!) – but wormeries are great too, working a bit quicker so don’t need to be as big – plus who doesn’t want 1000 new wriggly pets? ;)

I’m tempted to build a wormery too for dealing with dog & cat poo (the output can’t be used on veg, which limits our use of it here but better than it going to landfill) so any suggestions?

A lot of the commercial ones I’ve seen have been tray-based to allow easy rotation/access to the new vermicompost. The trays have mesh bottoms to allow the worms to move constantly upwards in search of food – when they reach the top, whip the bottom tray out to the top and start filling that one instead. The trays should fit together snugly – the bottoms touching if it wasn’t for the waste matter – rather than stacked to allow the worms to travel about. They also tend to have a drip tray at the bottom for collecting liquid run-off (which is a great fertiliser).

There are also ones more like purpose bought compost heaps – with an access hatch at the bottom. Possibly easier to make but apparently harder to keep healthy when you’re new to wormerying.

Also any suggestions for where to get the worms? Any types of worms to look out for/avoid?

I discovered something amazing the other day: in four and a half years of running this site, after asking “how can I recycle this?” about over 850 different things, we somehow have managed to miss mentioning magazines. We’ve covered the plastic baggies they’re delivered in and various similar paper items like catalogues – but not magazines. Shocking!

The discovery happened because a friend of ours has 300+ old New Scientist magazines that he no longer wants and would like a green option for disposing of them.

A few years ago, many paper recycling bins couldn’t accept glossy paper – they were either office paper or newspaper only – but that’s changed now and magazines can be recycled in most paper bins so as a minimum, our friend could do that. He could also try giving them away on his local Freecycle/Freegle group – the magazines will be out of date from a news point of view but someone still might want to read the not so time critical articles.

For smaller quantities of magazines, there are a lot of examples of people re-using magazines for crafts – often using rolled up pages to make photo frames or ornamental bowls.

Any other suggestions?

• 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!”