9 Great Ways to Recycle Cans

It has been a while since my last recycle post. Even though tin cans are not as harmful as plastic and they are easier to recycle, if they do end up in the landfill they take 50 years to decompose, that's a long time! And a lot of them end up there, much more than you want to imagine.
So here are some fun and pretty ways to recycle your cans.
Colorful ones can be used directly as they are as flower pots.

You can cut them up and turn them in to amazing flowers, or buy them from this artist directly. Cutting tin is super easy with tin scissors, we have a pair and they are really easy to use.

Make clocks and other household stuff you normally buy and are often made of plastic, this is a great alternative and you can paint them in the exact color you want.

This is a super cute lampshade, which will give lovely shadows and is super strong.

If you don't want to mess with electricity, they are also great as candle holders, either standing or hanging as lanterns.

You can paint the cans and use them as plant pots, I like how the ones on the left look like trash but are also cool :)

You can use them in many ways to organize stuff, and personalize them with your own colors and use them for a large variety of things, even for wine bottles!

Flatten the cans and turn them in to amazing pieces of decoration, like this beautiful frame.

Attach larger cans to the wall for a different way of organizing, great for toys but also scarves, socks etc.

And a bonus, use them in your art to make a statement about the environment, or buy from an artist, like these amazing pieces of Stephanie Kilgast:

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! Here the first day of the year has already passed with terrific weather so I have worked in the garden all day to get some sun energy in the process. I hope 2018 will be a year of progress for a better future for this planet and for the people. Let's not forget that one person can make a difference, I loved this video as example, also a good example how we need nature:

9 Natural or Recycled Planters ideas

When you look at Pinterest it seems that you can make a planter of almost everything, here are a few of my favorites :)
I love old clocks, and love this clock planter, although I would only do this to a clock if it is all rusted and broken.

Love these shoe planters, seems a bit odd but I saw various shoe planters on Pinterest and I actually saw it once in real life and liked it a lot. Nice way to let the shoe rot with nature instead of a landfill.

Love this coffee pot terrarium. I think we have two of these kind of pots, you know how it goes; the coffee machine stops working but you don't have the heart to throw away the pot as it is perfectly fine :)

Love these tea cup planters, very cute and great way to use the single odd and widowed cups with a new purpose.

This planter is more a piece of art than a planter, entirely made out of recycled materials, love this cutie from IronMaidArt.

These stone planters are from our shop and just listed yesterday, entirely natural stone with natural holes created by the waves.

It is sad that sometimes tree need to be cut down, but it makes it a little less sad when the remains are used, especially when it is green.

Love these cute tin planters. Here in Turkey you have large tins for oil, that is olive oil and such for food. After the tins are empty a lot of people use them as planters and the plans seem to love the tin as they always grow fantastically in them, and they make for very colorful planters.

These gold sprayed bottle bottoms look very cool. Did you know that by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish left in the sea? Also did you know that a plastic bottle takes 450 years to decompose? Crazy, right? They really should be refilled again and again, it is crazy that they are used just once. It is a horrible thought and good to keep in mind before buying plastic. Here is a video about that, in a beautiful artistic way to grab people's attention, here is video 1/3, please watch all 3 of them, they are intriguing and educational:

9 Great Ways To Recycle Old Sweaters

So besides the obvious that re-cycling sweaters and any other textile product is good instead of trowing them away, another thing to think about: 1 kilogram of cotton can take up to 20.000 liters of water to produce (2 lb 2.3 oz cotton = 5283 gallons of water)! You can read more about the impact of cotton on the WWF website. This is about the amount needed for a pair of jeans and a t-shirt!

So not only our food takes a lot of water to produce but also our clothes. Thus another good reason to recycle clothes, and if you are not handy you can always find people in need or places to donate the clothes you want to toss away, and make someone else very happy with the things you do not use anymore.

Our clothing shop and bag shop are both 95% made of recycled materials, which feels good and the pieces become unique. This bag has an upcycled sweater top, we had more but they all sold as they all turned out very cool :)

• Make pet clothing and bedding out of old sweaters. We made a whole bunch of doggy sweaters as they are so expensive to buy, a win-win, great for our budget, warm doggies and recycled sweaters :) We made ours by cutting it according to Toffee's body but not all doggies will sit still like him so I found a few tutorials for you, here is one with good explanation and pictures, here is one made out of a sweater sleeve good for small doggies. I even found a tutorial on how to make a easy to make doggy (or kitty) bed out of a sweater.

Here some more ideas to recycle your sweaters:

• Keep your hands warm and toasty with mittens or fingerless gloves, find instructions here for the fingerless ones and here for the mittens. And here is another cool mitten pattern.

• Keep your feet warm with leg warmers (made of the arms), socks and slippers. If your sweater is 100% wool you can wash it warm in the machine first to get a nice thick felt for slippers. Here is one of many sock tutorials, and I love these slippers with a step by step explanation and these slippers are very cute :)

• I'm sure you have seen them before, knitted pillows. Often very expensive in shops and can be made free from upcycled sweaters. How adorable is that monster pillow? If you have a kid you could even make it of their favorite but now too small sweater so that s/he can still keep it! And here a tutorial on how to make a simple one for a cozy couch look.

• Cover some pencil holders and plant pots to cover up some ugly things or make baskets to hold your craft supplies and other things.

• Cover your old chairs with a beautiful old sweater or make poufs with a sweater and filling (you could fill them with old rags for an entirely eco friendly project).

• If you think that these are all cute and useful but you have a whole bunch of sweaters, how about a patchwork blanket, and they look super beautiful too! You can find a step by step tutorial here in case you have no idea where to begin with :)

• And if you still think that upcycling is too shabby or so, check this post on Country Living with beautiful decorative projects looking very chic! You can cover vases, lamp caps, anything you want!

• Once you have done your project(s) you will have a bunch of leftovers which are fun too, maybe these two will inspire you, adorable balls and mug cozies, and I'm sure your creative juices have started to flow, have fun and if you want to share your upcycling sweater project please share in the comments!

I limited my post with 9 ideas but there are many more like ear warmers, hats, bags, teapot cozies, you can get lots of ideas on Pinterest, you'll never throw away a sweater ever again!

See more recycle posts here, and more are coming up so stay tuned :)
And if you like this post, please share it on Pinterest!

monday moodboard

1. JKphotography  2. LouisestArt  3. slinkymalinkicat  4. SelenarteDecoupage

Now that the weather is getting cooler here I have all kind of plans to revamp our garden. It is too hot to have pretty grass here, plus it takes lots of work and more importantly it needs lots of water. To make it a more environment friendly garden in terms of less water usage I'm going to slowly change the entire garden this winter. A big project but I'm looking forward to it!
I have to say that the extra push to actually do this was watching the film HOME, I highly recommened it to everyone to become aware of our gifted planet earth.

Have a great week everyone!
You can easily make your moodboard with the mosaic maker.
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