We’ve had an email from Janelle for our new reverse Recycle This section:

hi. i’d love to have a go at making a shopping bag out of recycled plastic but don’t know where to start. any ideas?

I’ve knitted carrier bags into a new bag before now - except I picked thicker than normal bags which were a PAIN. Aside from that though, it was pretty straight forward - I just garter-stitched a strip as wide and twice as long as I wanted the finished bag to be, then folded it in half and sewed up the sides. The (short) handles were made in the same way, just handle-sized dimensions instead. It looked more rugged than it felt though - but I think my knitting/sewing skills were to blame for that.

I love the bags woven from old packaging and am planning to give that a go once I get my million other projects out of the way - anyone got any hints or tips on how to get started? Or what types of packaging to use?

Away from plastic, I’ve made a few shopping bags from old/charity-shop pillow case - either standard tote ones (using the bag part of the pillowcase) or slightly bigger one I made with a little help from the cats the other week (it’s great and seems far stronger because of the wider strap).

Other materials: Ecoist, amongst other people, also makes bags from old movie posters; I’ve seen bags made from old bamboo blinds/placemats (the wood stained a fun colour and fabric used for the gusset); the tops of jeans make good rucksack-type bags (built-in pockets!); and I’m tempted to play with making a wallet or possibly clutch bag using drink cans - the cans cut into strips then woven into a flat sheet (easier than reweaving them into a can again…).

Any other suggestions?

(Photo of a non-recycled but colourful & shiny bag by paiviti)

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Following on in our impromptu series of all things water-y, I have a bit of a random query about a canoe/kayak.

Because of the wonders of wireless, I am currently sat our (still not paved) garden enjoying the fact it’s not raining for once and watching with bemusement as our neighbour Jason tries out his new homemade canoe trailer for his bike.

I’ve mentioned Jason’s love of creatively building trailers before but the difference this time is that he’s fixed up the canoe too. He has a habit of acquiring random things in a broken state and either fixing them (as he did with the canoe - although he’s yet to water test it - that’s why he built the trailer, to take it down to the river) or cannibalising them for bits. The previously cracked (fibreglass?) canoe has been fixed, the trailer built from salvaged planks and pram wheels.

But if he hadn’t fixed the canoe, what else could he have done with it?

I guess it could be used as a fun, feature pot for the garden - but a very big one that - if mostly covered like this one - doesn’t offer much room for the plants to surface. Any other suggestions?

(Photo by gundolf)

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Right, another one in our new Reverse Recycle This series: how can I make something out of recycled stuff?

I’ve got a lot of costume jewellery because it’s really easy & fun to make and/or find going unbelievably cheap in charity shops (one of my favourite necklaces cost 10p - ace!).

At the moment it’s all dumped on the top shelf of a three-shelf unit we’ve got in the bedroom but necklaces and floppy bracelets frequently get tangled up and I can’t see what all my options are whenever I’m having an accessorising crisis (usually happening about 15 minutes after we should have left). Some of the necklaces particularly are really quite pretty too, so it’s a shame for them to be in an untidy heap.

I thought about making a wall hanging - with some cool flock-style fabric I found in a scrap-material bin a few years ago - but didn’t know how I would be best to go about this. I imagine cup hooks or something - but would have to find really big, ugly ones for my solid ’80s style bangles.

So any suggestions on how I can make something to display/tidy up the jewellery, using recycled/reused things from around the home etc, that’ll look pretty or cool enough to be in a fairly focal point of our bedroom?

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We’ve had an email from Tracey about reusing an aquarium:

My boyfriend’s fish recently all went away to fishy heaven and now he has a ten gallon fish tank now sitting in the basement until we can figure out something to do with it, we could just give it to value village or goodwill or something but I thought it would be neat if there was something we could make out of it. Thanks!

Poor Tracey’s boyfriend’s fish :(

We’ve actually had two fish tanks from Freecycle over the years - both cracked ones so no good for fish but used for John’s brother’s suitcase gecko - so Freecycle might be an option along the lines of “value village or goodwill”.

But how about reuses? It might be a bit heavy to be used as a general storage but flipped upside down it could be used as a mini-greenhouse (although venting might be a problem).

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by kraaft)

[9] comments

Lucia, of the weather balloons from last week, is another one of those fab people who makes cool things by recycling random stuff.

You can see examples of her creations at http://www.jblarts.com but I thought I’d also feature a few of my favourite things here - namely the egg box fairy light shades (above) and the old electronics as earrings below. I also think what she’s dubbed a “tattoo bracelet” is also very cool - a shaped strip of an old plastic bottle with a pretty design on it - a simple but great idea, with loads of possible variations.

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