We’ve had a question from fishcake on our Suggestions page:

how can i recycle christmas gift wrap bows? I have a few bags worth and was thinking of decorating the fridge but maybe this site can find some more ideas.

There is of course always the option of donating them to a charity show or Freecycle for someone else to use for their original purpose but by the sounds of it, fishcake fancies reusing them at home.

In bow form, the only ideas I can think of are decorative like fishcake’s own fridge idea – but I suspect there will probably more ideas for reuses if they can be opened out into a long ribbon thread than in their bow shape.

Anyone got any suggestions for the bows as bows and/or in opened-out ribbon form?

(Photo by dafunky1

We’ve had another question from Ruti:

How could I recycle a wedding dress? I sewed it out of white satin and it is a skirt, bodice and separate train, also quite a bit of spare material and some small bits of netting (I’ll keep the veil).

I don’t really want to give it away, but I’m not going to wear it a second time!

So far I’ve thought of christening gown (if I ever had a girl), undies/nightdress and kiddy angel costumes. I’d kind of like to make some really frilly baby room accessories if I ever had a girl, but has anyone got any non-clothing suggestions?

If you’re want to keep it – but not bothered about keeping it in one piece, I’m sure there are loads of lovely keepsake craft sections – the satin might make a nice cushion or as the lining of a jewellery box. Or to pull in a suggestion from last week’s post on picture frames, you could use the net in an old frame to make a jewellery display for earrings and the like.

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by lumix2004)

We’ve had a message on our Suggestions page from Ruti (who, incidentallty, have left hundreds of useful ideas all over the site over the last few days – thanks Ruti!):

What to do with laminated signs? I work in a 6th form College and various signs etc. are produced as A3 or A4 and laminated. However, eventually some details become out of date.

What could I do with these? there are only so many placemats / craft messy mats anyone could need!

For some reason, I can’t think of anything other than using white ones to make snowflake decorations – but the end of January is possibly a bit late for that type of thing.

So any other suggestions?

We’ve had an email from Rich:

Any ideas about how to recycle faux wood blinds? They are white and made of plastic. There must be some craft to make with them.

I’m presuming Rich means Venetian/slat blinds – of the type being currently battered next to my head as cats fight behind them ;)

So what can be done with them? With plastic ones like Rich or the soft wood ones about to cause me imminent injury?

Since I’m obsessed with weaving odd things, I think I’d been tempted to give it a go with the slats – no idea what the resulting fabric could be used for though ;)

So any thoughts?

We’ve had an email from Greg:

I’ve got some of those fold-up chairs for camping but the metal tubing on one of the legs has snapped. I’m going to keep the seat fabric as a spare but what can I do with the rest of the tubing?

I’m sure a scrap metal dealer would take it in a flash – we have them patrolling our street every few minutes, I’d just have to think about taking it into the garden and they’d appear to take it off me – but obviously reuses are more fun :)

As straight lengths, they’d be great for supporting growing stems in the garden and cut into shorter lengths, you could make a wind-chime thing out of them (I wonder if they’re a wide enough diameter for the wind to whistle through them as well as clanging them together).

Depending how flexible they are/how strong you are, you could also bend them into a spiral to use it as a trivet under pans/hot dishes.

Any other ideas?