How can I recycle this? » Valentines

Upcycled & recycled Valentine’s Day gifts, cards & decorations

louisa — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 12:37:37 +0000

Since it’s coming up to Valentine’s Day, I thought it might be nice to have a round up of fun recycling/upcycling Valentine’s Day crafts – for inspiration or purchase!

Andrea Cook has been making cute Valentine’s Day cards out of recycled handmade paper and fabric scraps. Coupled-up kitties!
Sarah from Wrapped up with String has also been making pretty recycled paper cards.
And Alison Bailey Smith told us: “I pulped up lots of paper, in different colours & add hearts using plastic from advent calendars to make cards” – cute idea.
The Spotted Sparrow has come up with some fun print-and-make ideas: a book of love coupons or an old fashioned library card. I like the idea of reusing the latter each year but that’s possibly because I’m cheap ;)
Not strictly Valentine’s-y but I love this notebook made from recycled materials – an old shirt, beer mats and reclaimed tissue paper have been used to make it. It would make a fab diary.
We saw the equivalent at Christmas but I still love the idea of magazines being upcycled into garlands – using a heart-shaped punch and a sewing machine, this Valentine’s Day garland is made in next to no time. (A flower seed catalogue would work well too – pretty coloured flowers a-go-go – and they’re very common at this time of year.)
Another way to make a heart garland is to curve strips into hearts – and hearts within hearts. Lots of pretty examples made from maps, old books, music scores and other vintage papers…
If your loved one is, like mine, not exactly the most punctual person in the world – how about a heart shaped clock made from an old vinyl record?
Personally John and I aren’t big Valentine’s people but have been known to bestow the occasional love token upon each other at other times of the year. A couple of years ago, we bought something in a paper bag with red hearts on it – when John was out, I cut out all the hearts and left them in his closed laptop – when he opened it, they flew everywhere – a shower of hearts. :)

Will you be upcycling or recycling anything for your loved one(s) for Valentine’s Day? If so, tell us your plans – if it won’t ruin the surprise ;)

(Thanks to everyone who sent suggestions via Twitter!)

How can I reuse or recycle wine gift bags?

louisa — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 09:00:59 +0000

We’ve covered reuses for old gift bags in general before but Meri emailed asking about one particular type:

I have a growing collection of wine bags – mostly paper – that are too nice to toss.

How can I recycle them – get them to people who might reuse them?

Most people I know reuse wine bags (and all gift bags) as many times as they can while they’re still in good enough condition to pass on. There is a bit of a tradition in my family to leave gift tags bare or written using a soft pencil to facilitate multiple uses.

If you’d rather not re-uses them yourself and have a number to give away, offer them on your local Freecycle/Freegle list. Scrap stores would probably welcome them with open arms too, as would organisers of local charity events like tombola or raffles, to make the prizes fancier/more mysterious.

Any other suggestions on where to pass them on? And what about reuses for the tall thin gift bags like these?

Valentine’s Day Recycling Round-Up

louisa — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:00:13 +0000

Ahead of Valentine’s Day on Sunday, I thought it might be worth linked to some of our old posts relevant to this time of year – making homemade recycled gifts & stuff, and recycling/reusing packaging and whatnot from love-tokens you might receive from others.

How can I make a gift bag reusing and recycling stuff?

louisa — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:00:24 +0000

We all know wrapping paper is bad, m’okay? and that reusable gift bags are a far better alternative if you go in for that type of presentation and reusable gifts bags made out of recycled stuff from around the home are better yet – but how do you make them?

I wanted to make a gift bag in a hurry the other day out of some old brown paper. A quick search pointed me towards a number of tutorials which used existing boxes as templates – either intact boxes or as nets – but I wondered if anyone else had any other designs?

Another idea I had was to make a quick pouch out of a pretty fabric – or even just fold the fabric furoshiki style.

Any other suggestions?

How can I reuse or recycle old gift bags?

louisa — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 09:41:34 +0000

Gift bags are great alternative to wrapping paper because it’s a lot easier to reuse them, and amongst everyone I’ve ever spoken to about it, it’s generally accepted that people will reuse them to give similar sized gifts in the future.

But what about when they get a bit tatty to be recirculated again?

I’ve got one – made out of a light card instead of heavy paper – to keep my small, current crochet project out of the preying paws of cats, and I’ve seen big paper ones remade into smaller paper ones – cutting off the tatty edges and refolding it again.

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by lusi)

How can I reuse or recycle Valentine’s Day things?

louisa — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 10:54:20 +0000

Since it’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow, I thought I’d do a quick recap about reusing and recycling the sorts of thing that come up at this loved-up time of year.

Oh, and if you don’t already read it, check out Things To Do Today today – we’ve got loads of Valentine’s Day related things to make, cook or do!

How can I reuse or recycle chalky candy hearts?

louisa — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:16:32 +0000

We’ve already covered a multitude of Valentine’s Day-themed items but Tamara came up with a new one for us:

I’d like to know if anyone has a suggestion for how to re-use Valentine’s candy hearts? The chalky kind with writing on them, I mean. They passed them around at work yesterday. I only like the orange ones, and so I’ve been left with a card-deck sized box of other colors. I thought they might look cute as pins, but i think they’d melt if I tried to shellac them. So what to do?

From their pages on Wikipedia, the UK Love Hearts and the US Sweethearts sweets look a bit different but since Tamara (who I’m presuming is based in the US from her use of the spelling “colors” ;) ) refers to them as being “chalky”, I guess the texture and ingredients are pretty similar.

So any suggestions? I like the cute jewellery/badges idea but agree that it might be problematic – any ideas on how to get around that?

(Photo by kymmie_xox)

How can I reuse or recycle Valentine’s Day things?

louisa — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:00:51 +0000

Just a quick post to point you in the direction of a few ideas for reusing and recycling all those Valentine’s Day gifts.

We’ve got:

So there are plenty of ways you can show your love for the environment after someone’s shown their love for you :)

How can I reuse or recycle … the plastic wrap from bouquets?

louisa — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 10:21:29 +0000

We’ve had an email from Ciara Fletcher:

My colleagues at work gave me a beautiful bunch of flowers for my birthday but it seems to be wrapped in about 10 yards of cellophane!! What can I do with it? It’s mostly clear with a cute white flower design on it but I can’t think what to do with it because it’s so noisy!

If you grow flowers yourself, you could reuse it if you ever want to give a bunch to anyone else – but aside from that, I’m out of ideas. Any suggestions?

(Oh, and by the way Ciara, here are some suggestions for re-using the flowers when you’re done with them.)

(Photo from Ciara)

How can I reuse or recycle old (now empty) chocolate boxes?

louisa — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:18:13 +0000

We’ve already covered a number of Valentine’s Day type things:

And while we’ve thought about the wrapping on individual chocolates, we haven’t thought about the chocolate boxes themselves.

Some of them – particularly the high end, Valentine’s Day ish ones – are quite pretty and I’ve used them in the past for storing letters and the like. But what about other reuses? Have

Some boxes have formed plastic to hold the individual chocolates – like cake packaging – so it would be great if anyone had recycling ideas for those too.

Best Suggestions

Reduce: When giving chocolates (or buying them for yourself, mmm), look for packaging that’s easier to reuse or recycle – perhaps a sturdy cardboard box or even a big tin of them?
Reuse: Use boxes for storing letters, craft supplies (boxes with compartments for individual chocolates are great for beads, buttons, screws & washers), or jewellery.
Use them again: Make your own chocolates, truffles or fudge as next year’s Valentine’s gift!
Recycle: Cardboard boxes can be recycled with paper and other light card (like cereal boxes) but remember to remove any plastic inserts and “windows” first. Metal chocolate tins can usually be recycled with tin cans.

(Photo by lynnc)

(Oh and hello people from i-am-bored.com! :) )

How can I reuse or recycle birthday/Christmas wrapping paper?

louisa — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 11:28:41 +0000

It’s John’s birthday today and while between the two of us, we’re not big gift givers, he’s sure to receive presents from family and friends.

Back when John and I first met and still gave gifts, he once wrapped my birthday present in newspapers and elastic bands, with a spoon for a “bow”, but his friends and family are more traditional when it comes to gift wrapping.

So what can we do with the gift wrap once its cast aside? Even with careful opening, it might not be in big enough pieces to use for any substantial present wrapping in the future so what are the alternatives?

And with Christmas around the corner too, any special ideas for reusing or recycling festive Christmas wrapping paper?

(Photo by shanii)

How can I reuse or recycle … dried fresh flowers?

louisa — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 10:09:30 +0000

Back in the day when John used to buy me flowers*, if possible, I would keep and dry the flowers to preserve the gift.

I’ve ended up with quite a stash of dried flowers hanging from various parts of the kitchen because I couldn’t think what to do with them once they were dried.

They are not flowers grown intending to be dried so they don’t hold their petals enough to be used in a dried flower arrangement – and I’m not really a dried flower arrangement girl anyway. I’m not really a pot pourri fan either – the cats would just try to eat it. Or poo in it.

So any non-flower-arrangement, non-pot-pourri-in-bowls reuses for dried flowers? It seems a shame to just compost them after all this time but they’re just getting knocked about in their current position.

* This isn’t a dig at him: he doesn’t buy me flowers now because I made him stop for environmental reasons. We have lots of (home-grown) plants around the house instead now.

(Photo by Christopher Rayan/StockXpert)

How can I reuse or recycle greetings/Christmas cards?

louisa — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 10:09:02 +0000

Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday to me-eeeeee,
Happy Birthday to me.

For no particular reason, why not let’s think about how someone can reuse or recycle greetings cards, like, you know, Christmas cards or perhaps birthday cards? And while we’re thinking about it, I’ll eat this gigantic cake.

Hurrah for nothing whatsoever of note happening 27 years ago today : )

Best Suggestions

Reuse: Greetings card are a good weight to use in paper crafts including scrapbooking. They can also be used as the basis of gift tags or repurposed as postcards.
Recycle: Card can, thankfully, be widely recycled – most kerbside paper collection includes light card like this.
See the comments below for more suggestions and ideas

(Photo by djj)