Raising a family is a lesson in handling STUFF–and, if you’re a parent, you’ve muttered to yourself more than once about how your family has way too much of it. We’re all familiar with the items we can recycle at the curbside or drop-off. What about everything else? Nearly everything else is recyclable. I think you’re going to be excited to hear about the things you can recycle right in your local community.

RecycleChicken, tells you where you can take anything and everything for recycling and reuse in your area. The site, searchable by item and zipcode, lists businesses and programs in your area that accept your beyond the curbside materials. Here is a listing of seasonal waste reduction suggestions.

• Pumpkins: A few ideas here. You could, of course, make pumpkin pie. You could feed the deer. You could add to yours or a neighbor’s compost pile. Roast the seeds or plant them for next year’s crop.
• Baby: Green Island Earth Friendly Goods in Traverse City is accepting used cloth diapers and cloth diaper systems. Call 231-933-8465  for accepting conditions.
• Vacuums & vacuum parts: Check with your local vacuum repair shop about what brands and conditions they accept. Most shops rebuild and sell used vacuums–a potential deal in itself.
• #3-#7 Plastics: Check in with Bay Area Recycling for Charities or American Waste.
• Garden Plastics: Bay Area Recycling accepts black (and other color) nursery pots, trays and plastic lawn edging. The Head Hen’s personal heroes!
• Dry Cleaning Hangers & Bags: Most drycleaners will take back their own or unprinted paper hangers as well as plastic dry cleaning bags. Call ahead to your favorite cleaner to check.
• Computers & Accessories (working or not): In the Traverse City area, some easy options include Goodwill and TC eWaste. In Emmet County, take to the Recycling Center on Pleasantview Rd.
• Other Electronics: In Traverse City area, take to TC eWaste. They take a wide array and even have drop boxes at Oryana Food Co-op. In Emmet–Pleasantview Rd. center.

To add your business or location to RecycleChicken’s recycling/reuse directory, use this easy “Get Listed” form.

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You may have a junk drawer full of them or you may have one in nearly every drawer of your house. Old key chains and key fobs from hobby collecting, trade shows, promotions, etc. eventually tend to create clutter. Here are a few create ideas on what to do with them:

1. Attach one that you can write on (those rubbery kind are good) to your camera or smart phone case with your contact information just in case you lose it.
2. Attach to zippers on bags, tents, children’s jackets, etc. as decorative zipper pulls
3. Attach to your child’s soft sided lunch bag to set it apart from similar.
4. Link together or just add to the end of a pull chain for lights, ceiling fans, etc.
5. Hook one to your suitcase to distinguish it from the others … making baggage claim a bit easier. How cool would you be with the Wolverine key chain below on your bag?
6. If appropriate, remove the chain and the ring and use a children’s toy … possibly a dollhouse miniature.
7. For businesses, hook your company’s promo key fob to laptop, projector cases, trade show banner cases, etc. to ID these items when in transport or at show staging areas.

   

   
   

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Wooly Bison bags are made from wool suiting as well as other wool clothing.  The bags are lined with cotton and straps and closures are aslo made form found or reclaimed items. 

These bags are all hand made in Seattle, WA and look really cool. 

Wooly Bison bags range in price from $14 to $145 and are available for sale online at their Etsy store.

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Cotton Monsters are made from 100% recycled clothing and linens to create one of a kind monsters. There are no patterns used so every monster is a little different. 

Some are quite creepy but the craftmanship is amazing. 

Jennifer Strunge is making these great monsters in her house in Maryland and they can be purchased from her shop at Etsy.

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Wenona Napolitano has many great ideas for reusing and repurposing old t-shirts.  RecycleChicken thinks that these crafts would be great for a teenager’s room or college dorm room.

Make a throw pillow

• Savvy Seams has a tutorial to turn a t-shirt into a zip off pillow cover to put over a form.

• Maiden Jane has a fancier tutorial for creating a pillow with the t-shirt and other fabric.

Create a Quilt

• Goosetracks offers free DIY t-shirt quilt instructions and if you’re a non-sewer they offer quilt making services as well.

Make a Scarf

Click Picture for link to instructions.

Decorate Your Walls

Click picture for link to instructions.

This would be really great for a dorm room or college apartment.

So, now that you have a little inspiration. Start digging around in that t-shirt drawer and get to work.

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Natasha’s Babydoll Coat Rack

To create this cool/creepy coat rack you will need a few things.  These are listed below.

• Soft body doll with hard plastic hands and feet (they will have a backing on them)

• Piece of wood, about 2 feet long

• 12 screws

• Heavy duty keyhole hangers

• Drywall anchors and screws

• GE Silicone II household glue

• Pen or pencil

• Sand paper

• Paint

• Drill

• Screwdriver

• X-acto knife with chisel like blade (#17)

Now that you have collected all of your materials, Natasha says this is how you put it all together.

1. Dismember your doll

2. Arrange hands and feet on board in an order you like. Space them evenly apart, marking their positions with a pen or pencil. Set limbs aside.

3. Drill 3 holes per limb. I counter sank the holes so the board would lie flat against the wall. Make sure your holes will not come too close to the edge of the limb, because the screw make poke out of the side of a hand or foot.

4. Position keyhole hanger and mark the spot. Chisel out the wood until the hanger fits snugly and until the drywall screws’ heads fit.

5. Sand your wood a little and paint it. Let dry.

6. Put some glue on limbs. Screw them on. Let dry.

7. Put anchors and screws in your wall and hang up your new coat rack. Hang up your coats and jackets.

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The beginning of the school year is a fun time to think about recycling and reuse. Maybe one of the most fun things about this time of year, is resale shopping.

Don’t dismiss resale as a great option for back to school.  There are some very nice resale shops throughout northern Michigan, some specializing in children’s clothing and some even specializing in teen wear.  Check out Top Drawer Exchange for great teen clothing options in Traverse City. My own teen daughter loves this store. They carry a fresh and stylish selection of teen clothing, shoes and other accessories. Also a great spot for hip teen fashions, check out Zany Consignment in Traverse City and R3 Clothing Exchange Co. in Petoskey. For the smaller ones, any of the family resale and thrift stores are now stocking their racks with back-to-school bargains.  Try Children’s Orchard in Traverse City, New Hope’s new location on Garfield Ave. in Traverse City and Those Bloomin Kids and Grown Ups in Petoskey. Happy bargain hunting! Who doesn’t like to save some money?!

When I was in school, and being the creative type, one of my favorite activities for the beginning of the school year, was to make book covers for all of my text books. There are many materials you can use for book covers, from old wallpaper samples to fabric. But, my all-time-favorite was the brown paper bag version. This allowed me to decorate the cover. The paper bag covers are also surprisingly rugged.

Terri Mauro shows you how to do it:

1. Cut open a brown paper shopping bag. Remove the flap formed by the bottom of the bag so that you have one   large  sheet of brown paper.
2. Place the book in the center of the paper.
3. Wrap the paper up across the bottom of the book and make a crease along the bottom cover.
4. Repeat Step 3 for the top of the book.
5. Remove the book from the paper.
6. Fold the paper up at the bottom crease and down at the top crease. You should have a strip of paper big enough to cover the book from top to bottom.
7. Place the book back in the center of the paper. Wrap the paper across the front of the book from left to right and adjust the book position until the two ends of the paper are even.
8. Fold the overlap around the front cover of the book and make a crease. Then insert the front cover of the book into the slot created by the paper folded over at the top and the bottom. Slide the paper down over the book until you hit the crease.
9. Repeat Step 8 for the back cover of the book.
10. If the cover fits snugly, you can stop at this point. If it seems a little loose or the top and bottom folds are not lying flat, you can use small pieces of tape to pull the front and the inside flap together a little more securely.

Also, here are a couple important tips:

1. Do not tape the paper cover to the actual cover of the book; the paper cover will move a little when the book opens, and you could damage the book cover.
2. If your child likes and the teacher allows, decorate the cover with drawings or stickers.

If blank journals are on your back-to-school supply list, consider making your own. Cereal boxes make fun and interesting covers and you can fill them with your choice of paper type. Try maybe blank pages, lined or grid paper.  Even if you don’t use one for school, you can make small versions for yourself to keep in your purse. This first pic below displays some journals crafted by Crafterella.  Following that, you can visit the long thread blog for a detailed how-to on making box cover journals.

With books covered and journals crafted, you’ll need a good book bag. For that, check out PriorLIFE bags made from reclaimed billboard materials. These are locally made in northern Michigan and come in a variety of bright beautiful styles from totes to laptop sleeves to zippered pencil pouches.  www.priorlife.com

Then, let’s look at reducing our waste once school is started. One great way is of course to pack your own lunch. When packing lunch, consider the packaging. Try the stylin’ reusable lunch wraps Eco Lunch Gear. Eco Lunch gear is a company started by a northern Michigan mom. Her designs are fun and undeniably usable. My kids think they’re cool and vy for who gets to use the few pieces that we have on hand.

If you’re sorting out old crayons and making room for new, you can send your old ones to Crazy Crayons to be recycled into new fun molded crayon shapes. Crazy Crayons is an at-home-mom business out of Wisconsin. www.crazycrayons.com

If you’re looking for a fundraiser for your school this year, check out one of these two ideas. The first is TerraCycle.net, a program where your school can earn money by collecting common items such as juice boxes, snack bar and cookie wrappers for recycling. The school earns a few cents for each item collected. Check out the website. There is an easy sign-up process.

Then, your school may have fun hosting a recycled art fair/auction during the school year. This really gets the creative juices flowing and could be combined with curriculum units focusing on natural resources and waste reduction.

Good Luck putting these ideas to good use.

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Have you ever wondered what you can do with all that dryer lint that accumulates after you do your laundry?

Here’s how you can use lint to make paper.

l

Materials you will need:
Lint
Warm water
Wood frames (you can use two wood picture frames) or cardboard
Window screening
Scissors to cut the screening
Staple gun or hammer and nails
Tub
Blender
Fabric

Step 1

First Soak the Lint

Step 2

Make the Deckle and the Mold

Step 3

Blending the Lint

Step 4

Pour the Mush in a Tub

Step 5

Sifting

Step 6

Off the Mold and onto the Fabric

Step 7

Last Step

Thanks to Instructables for the great info on repurposing dryer lint.

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Turn pretty pie-filling cans into a piece of folk art that doubles as a cooking utensil holder. Bolt three eye-catching blueberry cans to a wooden cutting board with a frame hanger on the back. Display your clever work on the wall near the stove.

No matter how hard you try to keep drawers from collecting junk, they seem to be the vortex of miscellany. Get control over the odds and ends by cleaning a dozen tuna cans and nestling them into a drawer. Each little compartment can store thumbtacks, rubber bands, clips or twist ties. Junk drawer no more!

Corral the clutter in the kids’ room with magnetic tin cans. Hot-glue heavy-duty magnets to 10 soup cans and stick them to a steel cookie sheet. Hang it within kids’ reach using a plate hanger. Use the cups to hold crayons, chalk, markers and even small toys. Label the cans for easy clean-up.

Organize your accessories with a scarf display made of sleek silver cans. Arrange seven soup cans to create a tight circle with one can in the center. Tightly wrap a long sash around the bundle of cans, secure it with a knot at the top, then hang your new organizer on the wall. Each cubby stores a colorful scarf and adds stylish organization to your closet.

Keep the weeds out of the seeds by organizing your potting bench with bright vegetable cans. Choose a brand with gorgeous graphics of tomatoes, corn and green beans, or whatever you plan to plant. A clean-edge can opener creates nicely fitting lids, too, so your seeds will stay high and dry.

Thanks for the great ideas HGTV

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Recycled crayons in the shape of fortune cookies make coloring fun.  Creativity creates happiness from within. Good fortune comes to those who take care of the earth. Lucky for you that you have found these wonderful crayons made from recycled, non-toxic crayons. Perfect for creativity and friendly to the environment.
One package comes with pink, red, orange, yellow, light green, green, light blue, blue, purple, gray, brown and black crayons.  Each crayon has a fortune attached and all are packaged in a reusable take out box.

Such a cute idea. Children and adults alike will love these innovative recycled crayons.

These crayons are available for purchase from Etsy.

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