Posts tagged "cards"

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

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!

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 bashed up playing cards?

Playing cardsWe’ve had an email from Josh:

Hi, I’ve got one for you, playing cards. I play a lot of poker with my buddies and our cards get bashed up pretty quickly, the edges bent over primarily so we can’t play with them anymore. They’re plastic (?) coated so can’t be recycled with cardboard, right?

Just because you can’t play with them any more though doesn’t mean that they’re at the end of their useful life.

Yes, you’re right that they can’t be recycled as paper if they’re plastic coated – but they’d make fun bookmarks, the non-face cards could be used for shopping lists and if some still have strong edges, you could drag them between keyboard keys to pull out the stupid amount of cat hair and sesame seeds collected in the gaps (maybe that’s just my keyboard).

Any other reuses?

They can also be included in a number of crafts/decoration projects – for example, they could cheer up dull storage boxes, and could also be used as a fun way to differentiate the boxes or label them if they need to be in sequence. Some brilliant people have turned them into business card wallets, MP3 players/iPod cases, or even a fantastic bag. They can also be used for any type of small scale papercrafts that require a light card.

Any other suggestions on what to make from them?
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How can I reuse or recycle Valentine’s Day things?

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 :)

Recycling and reusing at Christmas

Hark the herald angels sing;

“we should all recycle that thing;

Please the earth”, the angels cried;

“it’s easy with the Recycle This guide!”







(Photo by LuisFico of a very cool tree made from light)

How can I reuse or recycle … old plastic (credit) cards?

Credit cardsBecause of all the hoohah over identity fraud, we’re told that bank cards and credit cards need to be snipped up into a million pieces then strewn to the four corners of the earth, preferably into volcanoes and the like. But are there any green (yet still not fraud-risky) ways to recycle them instead?

And what about cards that don’t require such precautions? I have a whole wallet full of plastic credit-card-esque cards that have expired – like discount/reward cards, my old library card and the frequent flyer card from when I frequently flew.

Aside from breaking and entering locked warehouses in movies, anyone got any suggestions for reusing them?

(Photo by LotusHead)