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?

Hi! Apologies for the sporadic posts of late – I’ve been having so much needed time off from everything – it’s been fab.

Anyway, 2010 starts on Friday and I’m not quite ready for it. Not only because 2010 sounds like the distant future of sci-fi films but because I don’t have a new desk diary yet. I started looking for one a couple of weeks ago then got distracted by something shiny, as I often do, and now my forward planning is taking place on a piece of scrap paper.

So how can I make a 2010 diary reusing, recycling or upcycling stuff instead? Looking around the usual sites, a lot of the homemade diaries are just commercial diaries recovered with a vintage/scrap fabrics but what about using scrap paper? Perhaps printing a week-to-view layout onto old paper bags – like Crafting A Green World’s brown paper bag recipe cards?

I suspect it’ll be easier to make a month-to-view calendar by hand since there only needs to be 12 panels instead of 52 pages. Any suggestions?

What about making reusable calendars to avoid repeating the making process each year? I thought about using a blackboard but it is quite handy to be able to see when we did something, say, two months ago. Ideas?

(Hi! Sorry for the lack of posts recently, I’ve been ill and have mostly been slumped on the sofa in a heap. Feeling a bit more human now so without further ado…)

We’ve had an email from Lesley and Julia, explaining:

We have a pair of scissors at work. There’s nothing wrong with the blades, but the rubbishy plastic handle has broken off. Any ideas?

I remember a pair of all metal scissors breaking at the hinge when I was in my teens, and I kept the blades to use instead of a craft knife — but the individual blades were nowhere near sharp enough or thin enough to do that well.

So any other suggestions?

Righty, we’re back in Blighty now and if I have to leave the house today, it’ll be a disappointment. We arrived back home about 10:30pm last night after an elaborate performance of airport security theatre, and boy, were the cats glad to see us again. It’s freezing cold here today but I don’t mind because I’ve got three furry hot water bottles attached to me :)

Anyway, this recycling thing. As well as noticing the great procedures in place for recycling glass bottles in Madrid, we also noticed a great love for lotteries in the city – every official office had a queue 90 miles long outside it (at all times of the day, every day) and there were lots of street vendors selling scratchcards too. Of course, because I’m a recycling nerd, I started to wonder what the options are with recycling scratchcards.

Once all the scratchy stuff has been scratched off and hopes dashed again, they’re just normal cardboard – right? So they can be recycled with other card – right?

If they’ve still got a lot of the scratchy stuff on them, can they be recycled? It’s typically latex based apparently.

Any fun reuses for them? Anyone doing any crafts with them? Gift tags perhaps?

• dancingfarmer over at Not Dabbling In Normal pulled together a comprehensive list of ways to make starter pots for seedlings out of newspaper – different methods to suit different uses. (The dancing one has also written a great article on how we often kid ourselves about how much time our “convenient” lifestyles save us and also how what at first seems overwhelmingly difficult and time-consuming, can quickly become internalised and easy peasy.)
• Crafty Nest featured a cute tote bag tutorial last week – made using old tank tops/vest tops. Two different methods are used, drawing on the style of two different tops.
• It’s a few weeks ago now but Kate over at Living the Frugal Life wrote a great article about alternatives for feeding chickens – using what the land provides rather than just using always store bought food.
• Dollar Store Crafts linked to this fab necklace made from pennies – I like the idea of making a holiday memories one with very low value (so not worth changing) coins from a trip.
• And Junk Jewelry‘s Jane has added to her list of other junk jewellers – her list now totals 53 – lots of ideas for reusing and recycling lots of things to make fun and interesting jewellery.