Recycled funnel

I buy a lot of things in bulk and often have trouble putting the contents into bottles. This recycled milk funnel is fantastic and has saved me from a lot of wastage.

I cut of the top part of a 2 litre milk jug and wash it.

When inverted, this make an easy funnel. You can even use it to fill small bottle. Just make sure that the mouth size of the bottle is the same size or bigger that your milk jug.

 

Recycled wrapping

A while ago I uploaded a post about recycling milk cartons -https://lifemadehappy.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/recycling-milk-cartons/

This is another quick way to decorate a milk carton. A friend of mine will be going on a trip soon, so I used a map that I had on-hand to wrap up a clean carton that had been cut to size (I cut off the top of the carton).

I used some blue ribbon on the inside, to hide the unevenness in my wrapping on the inside. Next I punched some holes for the handle.

 

 

I used some gift tissue paper to line the carton on the inside and then put her present in it. The carton has now been recycled into a gift bag.

 

 

 

These cartons would also serve well as goody bag containers.

Happy Recycling! I would love to hear your recycling ideas as well.

Recycling Milk cartons

I was given the fun task of decorating milk cartons for our Earth day celebration at my neighbourhood community centre.

It is such a great idea to use these cartons as containers to present gifts in, as you can turn something ordinary and easily available into something quite pretty.

 

The cartons were cut in half diagonally. Using decorative paper and tacky glue, I stuck on paper and decorated the cartons with things I had .

This one is my favourite, as it is truly decorated with recycled items. The milk carton was cut into half. I covered it with corrugated paper that I received in a parcel.  The red paper band, was from a box of chocolate and the flowers came from recycled cards. I punched a hole on either sides of the carton and tied a ribbon across as a handle for my little bag.

 

I think that recycling milk cartons are really a great thing and the cartons have been saved from the garbage dump for now.

Happy Earth day!

Foam bench

My mom wanted to get rid of a crib mattress that my kids used  when we stayed over at her place. Unfortunately thrift stores do not accept mattresses and it looked like the fate of the mattress was the dump.  I brought the mattress home, hoping to find another use for it, before taking it to the garbage dump.

Since this was a foam mattress, I could actually cut it up. So I decided that I would make it fit over my son’s streamer trunk toy box and create a little more seating area in his room, by making a foam bench.

First of all I removed the mattress cover, which was made of some water proof type material. I cut up the cover into two big pieces, so that when we go to the park or to the beach, we have some extra mats.

Next using a kitchen knife, I cut the foam to size. I had a piece of camouflage material that did not get used for my son’s last birthday party, so I used it to cover the piece of foam. Other items that are needed are a staple gun and a piece of hard cardboard (from a box) or a piece of foam core for the bottom of the foam. I used a piece of foam core.

I wrapped up the foam, just like wrapping a present.  Instead of using sticky tape, I used my staple gun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am quite happy that I saved the mattress and the mattress cover from the dump (at least for now). And my son was quite excited about the new addition to his room.

Recycled shopping bags- as gift bags

Gift bags are a great invention. They are a wonderful way to present someone with a gift, and the bags are usually sturdy enough to be reused.

I had some shopping bags that were made from recycled materials and I thought it would  be great to recycle and reuse them again. Yesterday, I spent a delightful hour with my daughter decorating bags to be used as goody bags for her birthday party.

These are the bags that we started with.

We used paper, ribbons, stickers and buttons that we had at home to decorate the bags. As we are going to use these bags for the same event, we wanted the bags to have the same look, but at the same time be slightly different for each child.  This project was certainly a great way to use what we had at home to make something plain look a little prettier.