We’ve had an email from Tamara asking:

How can I reuse photo albums that hold up to 300 photos? I have a few as I have created photo books instead. I would like to find another use for the photo albums.

If they’re still in good condition, it might be worth giving them to your local charity shop for someone else to use but I went through a period of decorating my photo albums (because they were dull to start with) and I doubt anyone would want them.

Other reuses then. The most obvious one that springs to mind – but may only be good for flip albums, not big multi-pics-on-a-page ones – is for recipes: write the recipe on a bit of card or paper, slip it into the photo slot and the plastic sleeve will protect it from cooking splatters and greasy fingers while you work. A flip album could also be used as an address book.

Any other suggestions?

(On related topics, we’ve already covered unwanted photos and negatives – check those out for lots of creative ideas!)

(Photo by lusi)

We’ve had an email from Bree, asking:

How can I recycle/reuse the multitude of little allen wrenches I have acquired with my IKEA furniture? I have a pile of them!

It’s a shame they’re not opt-in to begin with – because we’ve got a number kicking around too – but I guess that doesn’t fit with their everything-you-need-in-one-standard-pack concept.

Obviously one or two of them can go into your tool box for other jobs but that’s not going to use up that pile (how many reserve allen keys does a person really need?). We actually tend to tape the leftover allen key to the back/underside of the piece of furniture it arrived with so if we need to disassemble it in a hurry, but that’s only happened once so is probably a bit excessive.

So how about reuses? I imagine they’d be pretty good for keeping with your shoe cleaning kit – for digging stuff out between ridges in the soles of trainers – but that’s only one. Any other suggestions?

(I’ve contacted IKEA about this by the way, to see if they’ve got any schemes or plans to go opt-in — no response yet though. UPDATE: see my comment below.)

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.

A couple of weeks ago, Ann posted a comment about “Bracelets with a Conscience” that she makes out of “soda can tabs”.

She sent me a few pictures of the bracelets recently and I think a great idea.

But what else can be done with those tabs? Any suggestions?

(We covered the cans themselves back in the day – over two years ago, gosh! that’s an eon in internet time!)

On the “how can I make a bookshelf out of recycled stuff” post a couple of weeks ago, one of our lovely regular readers Alice suggested we should do more posts that way around – how can you do/make something out by recycling or reusing old junk.

I’ve added the idea to our suggestions request page but haven’t had any emails about it just yet, so am posting one from/for me instead.

We’re lucky that we have pretty decent doorstep recycling in Leeds – we’ve got a green wheelie bin for plastic (1 and 4), paper, cardboard, tins/cans etc – but it doesn’t include glass or tetrapak.

Our nearest bottle bank is frustratingly a drive away (why there isn’t one on our low-car-ownership estate is beyond me) so we usually collect up a fair stash and combine it with another trip in that direction. But this means we more often than not have a large amount of glass jars and bottles in our tiny front garden – which is both untidy and a potential safety hazard. The tetrapak stuff is safer but the collection spot even further away so we go there even less.

We need a way to keep this stuff out of the way – and dry: we had a set of plastic drawers out there at one point but they just filled with manky water every time it rained (well, fresh water than quickly turned manky).

So we need a recycling bin/shed thing to hold this stuff in and I’d much rather make one than buy anything. It can’t be too big because we’ve not got that much room and it needs to be reasonably easy to empty too.

Aside from looking out for an old bin (which are few and far between now since everyone’s had council wheelie ones for ages), any suggestions for things to make it from? I’m not particularly handy but willing to give things a go. Any tips on how to keep it from filling with rain or with ever curious cats?