Recycle, eh

If you want to start a business based on recycling materials but not sure how to start, read how Zoe Foster started her own business. Zoe established her successful business designing and making bags from recycled fabric and remnants she finds at car boot sales and charity shops around her home in Ludlow, England. 

Photo http/www.mirror.co.uk/.

Etsy is a place you can go for inspiration. The last time I looked, there were over 140,000 items made from recycled materials. Here are my three fav sellers who recycle material or items to sell on Etsy.

Plastic Bag Bangles

GarbageofEdenDesign makes bangles were each made from two plastic bags collected from friends, family, and plastic bag returns in the New York City area.

Sap Bucket Recycling

Hindsvik is the Etsy site of a Canadian couple who sell 'junk'.  Their photos of their items are amazing and are probably the reason they are so successful. These two canny Canucks prove you don’t have to make or design stuff to sell green. You can sell stuff you already have but don’t need anymore or that you 'find' in your travels.

Yoghurt Lid Foil Necklace

Grellpastell has created an amazing necklace made entirely of rolled, coloured aluminum yoghurt lid foil. Talk about being enterprising! You rock, girl!

So, you see, you can make and sell just about anything. Recycling is a great way to get started if you are lacking the other green stuff ($$), it helps keep your costs down, develops your creativity, and keeps the landfills empty. Win-win.

What can you make, create, invent and sell today!

All photos from sellers' Etsy shops.

Every time I buy a new sweater or blouse, there always seems to be a little plastic bag with a button or two inside. A great idea but I've never actually had to use these buttons. Besides, I almost always forget where I put the little package. So instead of throwing the buttons into a drawer to be forgotten, I figured that they can be recycled into cute cards. If you have a bit of material or interesting paper on hand, you can create a one-of-a-kind card that anyone would be happy to receive.

If you're lucky enough to have a stash of buttons, here are a three more ways to recycle them into something special.

RECYCLE BUTTONS INTO JEWELRY

Make Button Earrings. If you only have a couple of buttons that are too pretty to toss out, why not make yourself a pair of earrings. All you need are two identical buttons and you're off.

Make a Button Necklace. If you have a stash of earrings, Martha Stewart has instructions for making a really beautiful necklace. 

Make a Button Bracelet. It's easy to create a one-ofa-kind bracelet from your buttons. Here's how:

1. Cut elasticized cord long enough to wrap around the wrist twice. 
2. To make a standard-button bracelet, thread elastic through from back to front and then to the back again (see above). 
3. For four-hole buttons, thread elastic diagonally through two holes on opposite corners. 
4. For a shank-button bracelet, thread elastic through shanks, turning every other button upside down to overlap. 
5. Once you've strung on enough buttons to reach around the wrist, thread both ends of elastic and tie off. 
6. Trim excess elastic.

At a recent impromptu workshop I handed participants some magazines and told them to go for it. What resulted was interesting, especially, the paper beads. I doubt if I have the patience to create something as intricate but don't they look gorgeous as a necklace. Making paper beads takes patience and loads of time but it costs nothing as you can recycle junk mail, magazines, comics, and gift wrap this way.

When a friend asked me to help her figure out how to recycle her boxes of jewelry, I thought she might be interested in selling her baubles on Ebay or through Etsy where even broken bits can be sold for 'parts'. But after a chat with an elderly neighbour, I discovered that there are lots of ways to recycle, reuse, and repurpose unused jewelry. 

My friend has an astonishing number of  rings that, although not valuable, she is eager to keep even though she rarely wears any of them. I came up with a way to transform them into a brooch and now she can wear all of the rings (or at least a good number) at once. To create the ring brooch, I found a scarf brooch that was used to hold a neck scarf in place. It had a space in it where you pulled through the scarf. It was like a fancy safety pin. To turn it into a new piece of jewelry, I only had to slip on the rings and then close it to keep them from falling out. 

I also found a way to recycle her plain silver chain necklaces with her unused charm bracelets by just joining them together. Once I showed her the possibilities, she was able to come up with even more ideas. Now she's got new array of jewelry that she can actually wear or give away as gifts.

A friend recently asked me if there was an easy way to recycle plastic grocery and bread bags into bracelets and bangles. She spotted some very sophisticated ones (see above) created by Stephanie Huffaker and sold on an Etsy site (Garden of Eden Designs) but wanted an easier method to show her daughter how to make them. The ones at Garden of Eden's site are very beautiful and probably took a lot of time and patience to create. Since I have neither, here's my own version.

I seem to recall posting info about these in an earlier blog but I can't find it so here's how to make these bangles.

1. Take a plastic bottle and cut out a 2 to 3 inch band. Cut a one side of the band open. (This makes it easier to put the bangle on.) Set it aside.

2. Cut your plastic bag into 2 to 3 inch wide strips.

3. Start winding the bag strips around the plastic band until it is completely covered (make sure the windings are tight).

4. When you come to the end of the plastic strip, add a little glue to it and tuck under the previous wind. And that's my version on how to upcycle plastic bags into bangles!

I'm an Etsy shopkeeper and I am constantly blown away by what some of my fellow sellers make. Jen of BottleCapjen creates the neatest jewelry from bottle caps of all things. I often see bottle caps discarded, squished on the streets where I live but it would never have occurred to me that you could recycle them as jewelry! Here is one of her brilliant ideas--a bracelet made from Coke bottle caps.

Now, who says you can't make something from nothing. Visit Jen's Etsy store to see more of her wonderful work.