Natural and Organic Beauty Recipes

This isn't per say a recycled craft, but most crafters will also enjoy making their own homemade cosmetic recipes. Commercial lip glosses may contain allergens, or worse, carcinogens. Stop swallowing cancer-causing ingredients and opt for these healthier alternatives.
Natural and Organic Beauty Recipes

Magazine Holder from Old Magazines

More poetic reuse: you've heard of a trash can from trash (old paper). Now, here is a magazine holder made from old magazines.

Book Review - "Craft Cycle"

I've been reviewing books of recycled crafts lately. I went on a bit of a book shopping splurge. Of the recycled craft books that I purchased, this is my favorite! Why? It has detailed instructions for how to make each craft. It's also loaded full of crafts. It has 100 projects to be exact. The recycled craft projects in this book aren't the ones that you've seen over and over again. It offers practical reuses that you may have never seen before, or thought of on your own. I felt inspired when I finished reading it. You will too!

Book Review - "1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse," by Garth Johnson

I ordered this book from Amazon.com and it arrived today. I opened it up and it wasn't at all what I expected. It is a book of photos. There are no instructions to make the ideas listed in the photos. In fact the only text at all associated with the photos is a number, the name of the photo contributor and the contributors location.

I flipped to the back of the book and noticed that the photo numbers are indexed in the back. By each number appears again the name of the contributor and a small blurb, less than a full sentence, with the craft name and the materials used to make it.

I was encouraged that at least I could figure out the materials used to make the craft, by flipping to the back index. I browsed through the book photos once again, trying to decide if I was going to send the book back or keep it.

The book is divided into sections including: soft goods (clothes), jewelry, crafts, housewares, and art. To be fair, I am a very practical person. I want to make crafts that are functional. The majority of the ideas (photos) in the book are artistic, but not very practical, or functional. There are many ideas for artwork that is rather interesting, but would serve no real role in the home other than a conversation starter. From the book, I personally picked out 10 ideas that I enjoyed and thought I could use, but I had no instructions on how to make the ideas that I saw. Soon I will start working on that.

I decided to keep the book. I guess that I felt the 10 ideas were interesting enough to keep the book around. However, if I didn't have to pay shipping to send it back, I probably wouldn't order it again.

Here is the book on Amazon:


I also ordered some other recycled craft books at the same time. They haven't arrived yet, but as soon as they do, I will review them as well. Stay tuned! :)

Make a Bank from Denim and a Pringles Can

Today, we made a bank from a Pringles can and some old jeans. Here's how we did it:

You will need:
Pringles can
old jeans
tacky glue
sharp scissors

Instructions:
We rinsed out the can.
Cutting along the double stitched seam of the pants leg, make a flat piece of denim.
Wrap the denim around  the can, so it fits just under the top lip and cut it to fit the bottom edge.
Mark where you need to cut it to get it to fit vertically and horizontally.
Cut the old denim jean fabric.
Tacky glue the denim into place.
Cut a small slit in the lid for the coin hole.
Lie the lid on a flat piece of denim and using a marker outline a circle about 1/4 wider than the lid.
Cut the circle.
Tacky glue the circle over the lid, making sure you use glue around the edges.
Use a rubber band to hold that in place around the lid, while you embellish the bank.
Some ideas for embellishment are:

• pockets
• using the inner seam of the jeans to run up the side of the bank.
• buttons
• ribbons
• faux fur
• hand-drawn artwork

Tacky glue the inner seam of the jeans around the outer edge of the lid.
Use sharp scissors to cut the opening in the denim where the opening in the lid is.