We’ve had an email from Kate:

i want to make a pair of slippers for my boyfriend for his birthday. he’s really into green stuff and i’m broke (back at uni!) so i thought i’d make them but don’t know where to start. any ideas?!

After making booties for our niece Mia a few years ago, I got excited about making supersized booties for us but never got around to it, and that’s more knitting than recycling anyway (unless you’ve reclaimed the wool). (On that topic, I also have this “dorm boots” pattern in my “growing and eating and making” bookmarks folder from when I was looking for a pattern for Mia.)

Away from knitting, you can make them out of towels or misc woollen fabric (like a blanket or an old jumper).

John also made himself some “outside slippers” from a pair of old comfortable but battered trainers - we wear socks around the house but he needed something he could slip-on for running out to the bin or going into the sometimes-damp cellar. He just chopped the back out of the shoes to make mules and sewed up the rough edge.

Any other suggestions? Or hints on how to get started?

(Photo by prototype7)

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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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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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As I mentioned yesterday, and alluded to the other week when asking about how to make a recycling bin thing, John and I have decided to tidy up our garden. “Garden” is quite a grand word for it because it’s really just a small yard that we’ve tried growing things in - but been unsuccessful because it’s north-facing in a not exactly warm or sheltered part of the country.

Over the years, I’ve tried growing all sorts of bits of veg in the not even 2m by 3m soily bit but not had much success because of the north-facing-ness, the resulting slugs of doom and our horrible clay-y soil which even repeated emptyings of the compost bin hasn’t really helped. I’m going to keep growing shrubs and anything else I can keep alive in pots but we’ve decided to “pave” it over so we can use the area in different ways (more space for drying clothes, entertaining friends and having space to do large scale, messy craft/building projects) - at the moment it’s a good-for-little muddy mess.

For obvious reasons, we’re reluctant to use newly cut stone for the job and have been on the lookout for patio flags that other people are replacing - but I’m wondering if anyone has any fun suggestions for us to use instead.

We’ve got some flat-tish pieces of york stone that we salvaged a few of years ago (they’ve actually been used as edging on the soil bed - shown in the picture the day we put it in) which we can use as crazy paving, but we don’t think we’ve got enough for the full job. So any suggestions of things we can use to pad the paving out a bit? Or put between the cracks?

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Hurrah! We’ve had a “Reverse This” question from Kathryn for our new, hopefully regular feature - Recycle This working backwards :)

Kathryn says:

I’ve been into recycled crafts lately, and want to make a notebook out of recycled materials. How can I do this with easy stuff found at home?

Ooh, I’m sure there are loads of ideas for this one, probably somewhat more creative than my usual bulldog-clip-around-scrap-paper efforts.

Any suggestions what Kathryn can use for covers? Or ways to hold it all together?

• Got something you want to make out of recycled stuff but need a bit more inspiration? Send me an email about it and I’ll feature it on here: reversethis@recyclethis.co.uk

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