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.

• How to reuse or recycle dried fresh flowers – such as roses?
• How to reuse or recycle chalky candy hearts?
• How to reuse or recycle the plastic wrapping from a bouquet?
• How to reuse or recycle a wedding dress?
• How to reuse or recycle greetings cards?
• How to reuse or recycle wrapping paper?
• How to reuse or recycle chocolate boxes?
• How to reuse or recycle wrappers from individual chocolates?

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!

We’ve had an email from Jamie:

Hey. I’ve got a broken Guitar Hero guitar. Don’t know what to do with it and saw your page about game controllers so thought you might be able to help.

Depending on how/why it’s broken, you might be able to send it back to the vendor: if it’s their fault, they should replace it. If however, it’s broken because you got a little too into the Rock moment and smashed it on the floor… they’ll probably be less like to replace it ;)

Again depending on how it’s broken, it might worth eBaying it for “spares or repairs” – I know the head and neck separate on the newer guitars, I wonder if if the broken part could be swapped out… If it’s broken for an electronic switch issue, someone that way inclined might be able to fix it in a shot.

Aside from that, a toy for a kid?

Other ideas?

(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

We’ve had another email from Maja, saying:

I bought myself an iPod AT LAST. It’s a violet Nano, and I need some decos for it, like a cute sock or a charm.

What can I recycle into some nice iPod stuff?

Playing with Nancy’s necklace idea recently, I made myself a cute charm out by stacking tiny circles of plastic on a piece of thin wire – the circles punched out with a regular hole punch so they were both tiny and even. A few pretty buttons on a length of pretty thread would work in the same way.

As for the sock, you could quickly and easily sew a little pocket using fabric any item of old clothing – I like it when upcycled things include features of the original clothing, like buttons or belt loops from the original item.

I’d also be tempted to crochet, knit or weave some unusual material just to see what happens – the pocket is so small it wouldn’t take long to try out a few different things. Narrow strips of old carrier bags? The shiny insides of crisp packets? The wire from old knackered headphones?

Any other ideas?

We’ve had an email from Siddharth:

How do I recycle plastic bird food bags? The brown paper ones I can just throw into the paper bin, but the recycling facility doesn’t accept the woven plastic ones.

I suspect there will be some overlap between these bags and the plastic sacks we get when bulk buying rice.

Suggestions over on the rice sack page include making them into shopping bags, aprons or using them as a groundsheet/roof-liner for kids’ playhouses.

Cut into strips, they could also be used as ties around the garden – we always have stuff out there that needs tying to other stuff ;)

Any bird seed bag specific suggestions?

We’ve had an email from Dan:

Hi. I saw your page about laminate floor and I wondered if you knew what I could do with the foam underlay. We bought a giant roll but only used half of it. What can we do with the rest?

As with the flooring itself, eBay or Freecycle might be the easiest options if you just want to get rid of it.

Aside from that though, I guess it could be used in the same was as thin foam sheeting or foam shelf liners from supermarkets – as packaging, insulation around pipes or for making wine bottle/can sleeves to keep them cool.

Any other suggestions?