Recycling magazines into Christmas gift bows

Easy recyled bows and they're festive and pretty too!

I've been wanting to try this project that I found on How About Orange to craft your own gift bows using magazine pages.  I made several using her method of staple and glue, but they came out a bit bulky due to the staple in each layer.  With a little experimentation I found a method that worked for me.

Here's what you'll need for this recycle craft project:
     * Paper cutter or sharp scissors
     * Hole punch
     * Brass plated fastners - You can find these at the office supply store, or even some grocery stores.  I found mine in the school supply section at Albertsons
     * Colorful magazine pages

This is a fastner.  The point is 2 pieces that open up to secure your paper

So the first thing you'll do is choose a colorful page from your magazine.  Garden magazines are good for full pages of color photos, or I found that the ads in other magazines were good sources for color I wanted to use.  For this bow I'll show you with a beer ad.  Don't worry, when the bow is done you'll be suprised it came from this:

Now, trim off the torn edge and set aside for recycling.  Then align your page with the edge of the cutter and cut off a strip.  Repeat until you have 4 strips cut.

Next, rotate your paper so that you are cutting from the short side.  Cut one strip.  This short strip will be the center of your bow.

Now, rotate your paper back to the long side and cut off 4 additional strips.

You should now have 4 long strips, 4 slightly shorter strips and 1 very short strip.  Starting with the shortest strip, form it into a tube where the 2 ends overlap by about 1/2".  Punch a hole in the center where the overlap is like so:

Push the fastner through from the inside of your tube and then pull the 2 ends of the fastner apart just enough to keep the tube from falling off.  Don't tighten it all the way yet because you'll  still be working with it.

Now grab your first shorter strip and fold it in 1/2 to mark the center.

Open your strip back up and you'll see the fold line marking the center.  Now take 1 end and fold it over twisting it to form this:

Make sure your ends overlap here by about 1/2" and punch a hole in the center like this:

Now place the fastner (still attached to your tube) through the hole.

Repeat with all 4 shorter strips rotating each section as you add it to the fastner.

Then do the same with the 4 longer strips and add them to your bow.  When you've added your last strip adjust the fastner to secure.

You can't really see the beer ad anymore, all you have is a beautiful

recycled bow to finish off your holiday packages!

That's all there is to it!  When you're ready to add this to your Christmas gifts, simply add 2 sided tape and attach.  I thought these came out so great I made a whole stack of them to use on my gifts

Pretty in Pink, Purple, Yellow and Green

They're festive in Blue and Turquoise.

But of course my favorite are the GREEN!

Have fun with this project and try experimenting with other papers too.  I think some of my junk mail could make pretty bows, but I already shredded it up and put it in my worm bin.  Next time, I'll be saving some out for this project.  Another good one for Christmas would be those Netflix red envelopes.  No limits, let your imagination run wild!

Quick N Easy Holiday Swag

Holiday visitors are coming, but my front door is still sporting my end of summer flower wreath.  Oh shoot!  What should I do? 

Here's a quick and easy project to spruce up your front door with holiday greenery that you may have growing nearby or even in your own yard.

What you will need:

* Gardening gloves

* Pretty holiday Ribbon (about 2 feet)

* Wire

* Wire Cutters

* Pruners

* Scissors

Gather together your materials and find a flat workspace preferably outdoors to save time on cleanup.  Then don your gay apparel.  In this case that means your garden gloves.  Now grab your pruners and head to your nearest cedar tree with low branches.

If you don't have a Western Red Cedar growing near your home, no problem, just substitute your favorite local evergreen.  Avoid Hemlocks because they drop their needles really quickly once they've been cut.

Prune off some nice boughs about 2 1/2 -3 feet long.  You'll need a good size stack.  Don't worry if they're not all perfectly proportioned for your swag, we'll trim them to shape as we go.

Start with 3 of your larger cedar boughs.  Lay these on top of each other to form the base layer of your sway.  You should stack them so that the leaves of each layer fall in the gaps of the previous layer. 

Once you have them nicely stacked, cut about 2 feet of your wire and wrap around the crook on the branch where the first row of leaves start. Wrap the wire fairly tightly and wrap around the branches 3 times.  You'll have a long tail of wire left for the next layer.

Now using your pruners, cut the top of the swag so that all 3 of your branches are even.

Next you'll want to add some more layers of cedar branches for fullness.  Go through your boughs and choose the branches that look the most beautiful.  Layer them onto your swag,  trimming them to length.  Now wire those in as you did the first layer. Wrap wire tightly, tie off and snip off any excess wire. Reserve any parts that you removed for the next step.

Next we'll make the accent with our trimmings.  The great thing about this cedar is the 2 tone color of the leaves.  The backside of the leaves has a brighter tone than the front, so for the accent piece we'll use the back of the leaves. 

Snip off 3 boughs at about 8 inches.  Layer these together much like you did for the swag above.  Now trim individual leaves from the remaining branch and add these for fullness. 

Cut a 6 inch length of wire and wire this tightly together and then add it to the large swag for accent and to cover any of the wires showing through the first layer.

Next we'll add an accent bow.  Click here for instructions to make your florist bow.  Using your pretty ribbon, create your bow and wire it onto your swag to cover any wires that are showing.

Now you can add any other embellishments you like.  I added a silk poinsetta and a cluster of ball ornaments to match my ribbon.  Other ideas I've done in the past:  Rose hips, pine cones, more bows, and baby's breath.

Viola!  Your holiday visitors will be greeted by some beautiful greenery when they come to your door.  And since this project only takes about 15-20 minutes, you still have time to set out the hors de vors! 

*** I used my left overs to make a mini-swag for my bathroom door too!

and the Winner Is......

There were so many great ideas of how to go Green this holiday season that it was hard to choose one winner based on that alone, so I decided to draw a name from a FatBottomBag

All entries were put into a FatBottomBag and I reached in and pulled out a winner

Carolyn Keys Cutter!

The winning entry is:  Carolyn Keys Cutter who entered through FatBottomBags fanpage on Facebook!  Congratulations Carolyn!

Carolyn is going Green this Christmas by:

1. Sending everyone homemade fudge
2. Making cards from recycled papers and left over ribbons, buttons etc.
3. Eliminating wrapping paper by giving her fudge in reusable tins

Thank you to everyone who entered the Green for the Holidays FatBottomBag Giveaway.  You all had some great ways to reduce  your environmental impact this Christmas.  Look for tomorrows blog where I'll be sharing all of your great ideas and more ways to Go Green for the holiday!

More Recycle Crafts For Christmas

Christmas countdown at FlashBannerNow.com

I love a homemade Christmas. One year I made all of our tree ornaments from fabric scraps turned into "lollipops" another year I crocheted and starched string snowflakes.

Each year I try to do something homemade for Christmas because I think that is what the holiday is really about, sharing the gift of yourself with friends and family.

This year I'm continuing with my handcrafted Christmas tradition with a recycling twist. I'm finding fun and fantastic ways to make recycled decorations and sharing what I've found with you.

Recyled 6pack rings turned into this beautiful snowflake decoration!

Over at About.com, Sheri Osborn will teach you how you and your children can turn those old puzzles into very cute ornaments for your tree

Ehow has a quick and easy tutorial to make a drum ornament from common "throw away items"

Happy Bird's Crafting Haven has a real easy project for recycling your old cards into tags for Christmas.  You could use the same idea to make tree ornaments too!

Use your colorful junk mail or recycled cards to make these pretty tree ornaments

Here's an easy and beautiful way to reuse your old scratched up ornaments

InsidiousNeth shows us a really neat oragami gift box to make in this YouTube video

Have an old computer keyboard?  Try this ornament made from the recycled circuitry.  Suprisingly beautiful!

Turn an old soda can into a beautiful 3 dimensional star ornament

Or you can make the whole Christmas tree out of cans like they did over at http://mdewtree.com/
Here's the video from YouTube



Heres another 3 dimensional star, make this one from recycled Christmas cards.

You can use recycled paper and then follow along with iespila to make a 3 dimensional snowflake



This might be my favorite one.... Recycle a wool sweater into an adorable polar bear ornament from Fun in the Making

You'll never believe these pretty stars are made from recycled plastic bottles!

WOW!  This is amazing. She just used glue, glitter, garland and Toilet Paper Rolls and made gorgeous tree ornaments!



Let me know your green holiday ideas and don't forget to enter the Green for the Holidays FatBottomBag Giveaway

Make your own FatBottomBag

Today I'm revisiting these video tutorials I made a while back. I'm planning to update them for better lighting but will have to wait until I have a new video camera. Enjoy!








If you like FatBottomBags, but don't want to make one of your own, why not sign up for the Free Green for the Holidays drawing at the top of this page on the right.

MMMMMMMMMore pickles

This moning my canner was still out on the stove from yesterday's canning project.  I thought I might as well get another small pickle project done before washing it up and storing it away.  Todays project is pickled carrots.  I like the italian style ones and Ben enjoys the mexican style ones, so I did both. The following recipe is enough brine to make about 6 pints of pickled carrots.

To start with, sterilize your jars.  Then you'll want to make a pickling brine.  This time I used this recipe:    
    5 Cups vinegar
    1 Cup water
    2 Cups sugar
    2 Tablespoons sea salt
    4 Tablespoons mustard seed (whole)

You will also need:
     Carrots (about 1/2 lb per pint jar)
     Garlic (1 clove per pint)
     Onion (1/4 Cup per pint of Mexican style)
     Jalepeno pepper (1/2 pepper per pint of Mexican style)
     Green bell pepper (about 4 cut sticks per pint)

Bring the brine to a boil.  In the mean time, wash-peel and cut your carrots.  For Italian style I made carrot sticks and for Mexican style I cut rounds. 

Peppers, onions and garlic add flavor and color to your pickled carrots

Start with Italian style pickled carrots. **It  is important to start with these because when you cook the Mexican style ones the brine will get too spicy due to the jalepeno peppers.**

Place a pinch of mustard seed in the bottom of the sterilized jars along with a pinch of whole leaf oregeno.  Add a whole garlic clove (I like to slightly crush them with the side of my knife first.)  Then add your raw green pepper sticks.

Place  your cut carrots into the hot brine.  Cook this on medium heat for about 8 minutes or until the carrot sticks are al dente.

You can fit about 1/2 lb of carrot sticks in a pint jar

Next add these hot carrot sticks to your jar using tongs.  Cover these with brine leaving about 1/2  inch of headroom in the jars.  Now put the lids and rings on jars and set aside on a towel on your counter.

For Mexican style pickled carrots:

Cut your cleaned carrots into rounds.  Cut jalepeno peppers in rounds and dice onions in large pieces.  Add these to the remaining brine and cook on medium heat for about 10 minutes or until al dente.

Cooking the mexican pickled carrot mixture

Add 1 slightly crushed garlic clove to bottom of each hot jar.  When the carrots mixture is cooked add that to the jar.  Be sure to include jalepeno pepper slices in each of the jars.  Cover with hot brine leaving about 1/2 inch of  headroom.  Add lids and rings.

Place both  Italian and Mexican style carrots into your water bath canning rack and waterbath for 10 minutes.

Remove from canner onto a towel on your counter and allow to cool.  Once completely cooled  remove the rings and label your jars.  Store in a dark cupboard for at least 1 month to allow for all the flavors to mature.  Ours should be ready to go for Thanksgiving!

Yummy Mexican and Italian pickled carrots!

What am I gonna do with all these little green tomatoes?

Pickling is a great way to preserve your

green end of season tiny tomatoes

We've had torrential rains for the last few days.  October in the Pacific Northwest is the wet cold season and now that the rains have started, there's no telling when they'll end. 

I still have 3 large yellow pear tomato plants in the garden that are producing. All this heavy rain is causing them to split as they ripen.  So today I went down and filled my pockets with tiny green tomatoes for pickling.  Then I grabbed the pruners and harvested a handful of anise flowers and oregeno from my organic herb bed along with about 8 garlic cloves that didn't get planted earlier this week.

Yellow pear tomatoes are about 1/2 the size of cherry tomatoes

When fully ripened they are a bright yellow, but these green ones

will be better pickled

Organic Anise flower from the boat garden

Garden fresh organic oregeno from the herb beds

These garlics didn't make the cut for planting but they will

compliment the small tomatoes for pickles

Back in the kitchen, I washed all of my items and pulled out the canning equiptment again.  First thing was to sterilize 4 quart jars and start the water to boil in the canner. 

In a seperate pot I brought these ingredients to a boil for the brine:

     *1 1/2 Quarts of white venegar

     *1 Cup sugar

     *1/3 Cup sea salt

As the brine was heating  I placed a pinch of mustard seed, corriander, and a few black pepper corns along with a few sprigs from the fresh herbs in the bottom of each jar.

No need to measure, just add a pinch to each jar

 Next I drained the tomatoes and packed them raw into the jars and added 2 cloves of peeled garlic in each jar.

So pretty!  The tomatoes and garlic cloves are the same size

Once the brine was boiled, I removed it from the heat and poured the hot liquid over the  tomatoes and herbs.  I left 1/2" of head room in the top of each jar and then added the lids and rings.  These went into a hot water bath canner at a boil for 10 minutes. Next I pulled the jars out and set on a towel on the counter where they will cool.

Pickling tiny tomatoes is quick and easy

Once they're cool I'll remove the rings, label the jars and place in the cupboard for at least 1 month.  After brining for a month these will be delicious little pickles and would make a nice garnish for bloody mary's or compliment any relish tray.

Recycling Tshirts into rugs

My wonderful fiance Ben is a clothes horse.  His closet puts my own to shame.  It is packed full of Tshirts many of which I've never seen him actually wear.  So after a lot of prodding and a little help, we finally went through his collection.  We saved some special ones for a Tshirt quilt and any that were stained or too thread bare to be donated to the thrift store became new recycle material for me.

I've had this project in mind for a while now.  A friend of mine here on the Island makes absolutely gorgeous rugs from old bed sheets.  When I was visiting one day, I noticed that she was using the same crochet hook that I use for my mesh bags to hook the rugs and my imagination started working on what other items could be recycled into rugs and I settled on Tshirts but the same concept could be used with lots of materials.


These little 2-3 foot area rugs are great for bathroom mats or as a desk rug in front of the computer chair.  It would be easy to adapt this for larger area rugs as well.  I think the best thing about this project is how quickly they come together, making it a great project for a quick but thoughtful handmade gift. 


Ok, so here's how you can make your own recycled Tshirt rug.  You will need:

• 6 to 9 old tshirts.  Use plain tshirts or those with little printing
• Sharp scissors
• 1 size Q crochet hook
• 3 to 4 hours to spare

Lay your Tshirt out on a flat work surface.  Fold it in half sleeve to sleeve.

Cut a straight line across the Tshirt from armpit to the fold.

Cut another straight line across the hem of Tshirt.

Save the sleeve area for a future project and dispose of the hem line.  Now you're left with a folded tube.  Fold it again from edge to edge, but not quite in half.  You can see in this photo I've left about an inch at the top edge. 

Using sharp scissors, begin cutting 1/2-3/4" strips in your Tshirt tube, but don't cut it completely through.  Stop before cutting through last inch like this:

Continue cutting until you've cut the whole tube of the Tshirt.

Open the tube up.  You will see it's still connected at 2 of the folds.  Starting on 1 side you will cut one end and begin to unravel it into 1 long strip.  At the folds, on one side cut straight across, and then at the next fold you'll cut it at an angle to make 1 continuous strip.

When finished cutting, you should have 1 long strip of fabric like this:

Starting on one end of your strip, begin stretching the fabric.  It will form itself into a tube as you do and your finished yarn will look something like this:

You're Tshirt yarn is now ready to use in any crochet pattern.  Roll it up into a ball and start on your next Tshirt:

To make rug:

Choose yarn ball for your center color.  Using your Q crochet hook, chain 4.  Connect to first loop in chain with a slip stitch.  This will form a ring of stitches.

Single crochet 8 stitches through the center of your ring.  Slip stitch the 8th stitch to your first stitch.  Now you have your first round.

Chain 1 then Single crochet through the first stitch from the last row.  Single crochet 2 stitches through the second stitch of your last row.  Continue around this row with every other stitch getting 1 single crochet and evey second stitch getting 2 single crochets.  When you've worked all the way around, slip stitch the last stitch into the first stitch.  You've completed your second round.

Chain 1 then single crochet 1 in the first stitch of the second round, single crochet in the second stitch then single crochet 2 stitches in the 3rd stitch of the last round.  Repeat around the row.  When you get to the last stitch in the row, slip stitch to the first stitch completing your round.

Chain 1 then single crochet in the first 4 stitches with 2 single crochets in the 5th stitch.  Continue this all the way around and slip stitch the last stitch in this row to the first stitch. 

Chain 1 then single crochet in the first 9 stitches.  In the 10th stitch put 2 single crochets.  Continue this pattern all the way around to then slip stitch to connect last stitch to the first stitch.

Chain 1 and continue the pattern from the last round.  Keep going until the rug is the size you want.  Knot the end and work in the tails.

At any time, change colors or add on tshirt yarn by simply tying a square knot to connect the 2 ends.  Leave the tails and either clip or weave into your work at the end.

That's it!  So easy and so pretty too.  Here's the first 3 rugs that I've made

There's still plenty of time to make these as your christmas gifts, so get in your closets and pull out all those old Tshirts that you never wear.  Your handmade rug could be a double gift, by recycling you are giving a gift for your friend and for the planet. 

*****UPDATE: 1/24/10******

So what do you do with those sleeves and Tshirt Tops?  Find out how to make reusable produce bags and stop collecting needless plastic bag waste!  To find out how, check out Kristy's post over to Textiles4You