Ruby Re-Usable, a.k.a. artist Diane Kurzyna, is the diva of the Olympia Dumpster Divers in Olympia, Wash. She dedicates her life to art and craft made from recycled materials, which she also blogs about. Her website includes a portfolio of … Read More ...
Magpie Recraft Fair
This weekend isn’t yet over, but it’s not too early to start planning for the next, which should be a good one for anyone in the Boston area: It’s the first-ever Recraft Fair, which features an afternoon of recycled craft … Read More ...
Dirt-Cheap Dorm Room Furniture
Continuing with the theme of back to school, here’s a frugal — and green — idea for dorm room design: cardboard furniture. While you may not be able to craft Frank Gehry’s award-winning, high-design Wiggle Chair (retail $875, shown), I … Read More ...
Back-to-School Notebooks: Part 2
I’m glad I’m not the only one who sneaks a few paint chip samples just to have pretty colors on hand. Maia from Lollipoop Designs (no, that’s not a typo) creates these too-cute Paint Sample Notebooks in an array of … Read More ...
Back-to-School Notebooks: Part 1
Make schoolwork a bit more exciting by studying with Cap’n Crunch, Count Chocula or (shown) Toucan Sam! Etsy member Nature Made Scents has created a few fun notebooks using cereal boxes as covers. How about using Alpha-Bits for English class? … Read More ...
Quoth the Raven
Artist Mark Orr of Scavenger Art repurposes an interesting family of items — billiard balls, shutters, stair balusters, wooden shoe forms and more — into striking one-of-a-kind artworks. Take this “Raven on 8 Ball,” for instance, made of carved and … Read More ...
Tiny Cassette Tape Purses
Check out these microscopic Barbie purses crocheted from cassette tape at MyRecycledBags.com. (And don’t miss the recently posted matching Barbie halter dress and hat.) The creator, Cindy, generally crochets standard sized handbags, totes and other useful objects not … Read More ...
Silver Dollar Ring
MAKE magazine (the older sibling of CRAFT magazine) offers a video podcast on creating a one-of-a-kind hardy hand-crafted ring from an old silver dollar.
Even I (who has zero background in jewelry making or silversmithing) feel as though I could … Read More ...
From Junk Mail to Fine Art
Paper craft extraordinaire Patricia from A Little Hut has created a series of recycled art projects on her blog, including this first in the series of six (so far). For this project, she simply cut junk mail into thin … Read More ...
Aluminum Mini Trays
Using only a pair of scissors, Instructables member xavtek has been making these mini trays from aluminum cans for years. They’re meant to be used as ashtrays, but they function just as well as jewelry holders, soap dishes, spare change … Read More ...
Better than HDTV
Move over, Animal Planet – here comes a more realistic wildlife channel. Sender-inner Trisha brought to my attention this tutorial of converting an old console TV into a fab new home for your fish. By carefully replacing the TV with … Read More ...
Recycled Barbie Doll and Friends
Up for an indie recycling art show?
San Francisco’s 5th Annual Altered Barbie Show, “Out of the Box: Reclaiming and Recycling Barbie,” features 75 artists and vendors celebrating Barbie’s (and Ken’s and Skipper’s) second life. The art show, which … Read More ...
Vinyl Sign Jotters
Leslie Herger of Comfortable Shoes Studio upcycles colorful and funky vinyl signs into one-of-a-kind covers for her delightful — and very reasonably priced — handmade jotter notebooks. She gets her sign vinyl from a grocery store chain where she works … Read More ...
Three Phone Books Too Many
Yet another phone book company delivered a book of “friendly” yellow pages to our front door this month — for a total of three giant phone books from three different companies — for our two-person household. I don’t remember the … Read More ...
Carpet Sample Transformation
Interior designers and architects receive a fair share of carpet samples and then discard them the next year when they receive the latest-and-greatest shipment of samples from the same carpet manufacturers. This year the Ample Sample Design Contest challenged designers … Read More ...
