Thu 22 May 2008
Following my post at the start of the month about Jan turning pop bottles into flowers, Jennifer Houck got in touch about some art she’s made out of old rubbish.
I have made quite a few things out of plastic bottles and caps. Our recycler only comes once a month, and will not take bottle caps. So with overflowing amounts of caps and bottles, I decided to see what I could do with this surplus.
This picture she says is playing with colour and texture of the original bottles but in other photos she sent, she painted the bottoms of clear bottles with marble-effect paint - which I think highlighted the cool, and often pretty shapes, of the bases themselves.
She’s also made these really fun figures out of old bottles - using the curved shape of the bottles to full advantage on the bug’s wings and chicken’s tail - and papier mache from old magazines. I like them a lot and am very tempted to give it a go myself.

- How can I reuse or recycle … plastic bottle tops?
- How can I reuse or recycle … the bumpy bottom of pop bottles?
- How can I reuse or recycle … beer bottle caps?
(Are you, or anyone you know, making art by reusing/recycling random old stuff? If so, let me know and I’ll feature it here.)





Ann Harmon
May 30th, 2008 at 2:00 am
I started my company, Ann-Made, LLC last September. We make “Bracelets with a Conscience” out of soda can tabs. We’ve sold over 1,000 bracelets since then in juried craft shows, our website and the 13 retail stores we’re in. Guess we’re not the only ones that think this is a great way to make a statement about your commitment to recycling and helping the health of our planet. Oh, not only do we purchase our tabs from a non-profit organization that collects them, we pay them over 3 times what they get from the recycler…and redonate back all the tabs that aren’t good enough for our bracelets. We also donate a portion of each bracelet sale to environmental causes.
They are funky, and chic and get a lot of pesky tabs off our streets as well as, get a lot of attention. Our goal is to do whatever we can to be a business that “does good” in all aspects of our operations.
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louisa
May 30th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
I’ve had a follow-up email from Jennifer and she sent this cool photo frame she decorated with random old fixings - I like a lot :)
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twinks
June 7th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Oh I LOVE the pop bottle sculptures - very witty!
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