by jennae on August 30, 2010

I have seen my fair share of things made from recycled vinyl records. Bowls, clocks, mirrors, coasters — if it’s made from a record, I’ve probably seen it. The common thread between all of them is that they all still look like records. That’s great if you’re buying them for nostalgia’s sake, to help you remember what music sounded like on a record player or in memory of days past. But these clocks from etsy seller Kailey Hawthorn of Studio K are a far cry from their humble beginnings.
by jennae on August 17, 2010

As creative as I like to think I am, I’m nowhere near THIS creative. Seriously, whenever I come across old cassettes, the only thoughts that come up are memories of when they were bought or recorded. I distinctly remember shushing people who came in my room when I was trying to record music from my favorite radio station onto cassettes. These days though, we no longer own a cassette player, nor do we know how to recycle the ones we find. And I, like most people, still defer to traditional recycling methods. Ie. The recycling bin. God bless the people who find grander uses for everyday objects. Artist Erika Iris Simmons is one of those people.
by jennae on July 28, 2010

I will readily admit that I totally suck when it comes to creative upcycling. I can easily imagine a glass jar being used as a container for small items or a flower vase, but it is hard for me to see past its jar-shaped form to imagine it as anything else. That’s true for just about any other material I put in the recycling bin. I can imagine furniture with a new finish, but I can’t reimagine a cereal box as a magazine holder — at least not on my own. So when I find truly creative upcycling projects, I am happy to feature them. This wall art from etsy seller creationsbyingrid1 certainly qualifies.
by jennae on June 8, 2010

For the past week or so, I’ve been floating somewhere between tired and exhausted, and feeling more than a little uninspired. My stepsons are here for the summer, so we’ve instantly gone from a household of 3 to a home for 6. That’s taken its fair share of juggling, and I definitely needed a little pick-me-up. Enter these fabulous prints from Daisy Janie, with quotes just pretty and aggressive enough to smack me into feeling like myself again.
My favorite of the bunch? “Why Push the Envelope When You Can Shove It the Hell Through?” Check out these others:
by jennae on April 30, 2010

There are a lot of small, random non-recyclable materials that I tend to collect, hoping that one day I’ll have a spark of creativity and figure out what to do with them. For a while, it was toilet paper rolls, and now it’s bottle caps. I can’t tell you how many of these I have accumulated, because the local recycling center will take the bottles, but not the caps. Thank goodness there are a lot of people out there with more ingenuity than I have!