Recycled Christmas art

Christmas is truly my favourite time of the year. The lights, Christmas trees, decorating the house, time spent with family, eating, school concerts, more eating and all the magical events that go together with the season makes this truly the most wonderful time of the year for me.

With decorating, comes an opportunity to make some Christmas crafts. This year, I needed to add some decorations to the mantle in my family room and I was waiting for inspiration to hit. It came when I was at my local craft store- I could paint some festive quotes. My next question was what would my canvas be? I do love to make my craft out of recycled materials and I was running down a list of things that I had at home, when I realized that I had some boxes to get rid of. I cut up the box to make my canvas. In fact, I feel that painting on the boxes gave this artwork a more rustic feel.

I used the last of some ribbon that I bought over 10 years ago to finish off the project. I certainly feel merry and bright when I look at my new artwork. It brings me comfort and joy!

 

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Repurposed=Organization

Last week, my goal was to reorganize my hall entryway unit. I was quite pleased with myself for up-cycling some items around the house and turning them into organizational units.

I felt like I needed a small tray to put some key in. One of the items that I wanted to get rid of was an old glasses case that was coming apart. “Eureka!” I thought. I could re-purpose the case into a little tray. It was easy enough. I removed all the covering on the case to find that the body of the case was made of metal. I pried the two sections of the case to come apart with some plyers. Then, I cut out the insoles of my running shoes (new insoles, that I never will use since I have orthotics, also wanted to get rid of this) to  provide some cushioning for the metal case. Lastly, I cut out a piece of paper and pushed it down on the insoles, providing my new trays with a pretty finish. No glue, no fuss, no muss. I can change the paper out when it starts to look uninspiring.

The other thing that I used was plastic salad containers to house all the bits and bobs in my drawer. I glued on paper to the bottom side of the lid and lined the container with a matching piece of paper.

Both my organizational  items were quite stress free to make. The part I like best, is challenging myself to think of a new way to use an item that I might not want anymore.