Recycling Ideas!

These are from my friends at Gingerwood. They know how to stretch a buck, using things that come into the house for crafting. If you know of a good recycling idea, share it with us. Email me!

From Patsy
I save netting from onion bags.I have used on lighthouse & Mermaid cards--can weave fuzzy green yarn through to resemble seaweed.

Jigsaw puzzle pieces can be painted over with PH Martin ink or similar ones...then while assembled stamp over ---really cool results.

The insides of lightbulb boxes are cool!

From Mrs. C.
I use old giftwrap to line envelopes.

From Diane B.
I saved all the Christmas catalogs and colorful ads from magazines and made Christmas Mosaic cards this year. I used the square punch to isolate images, then assembled them on cardstock, used Krylons to border them, and clear embossed the whole thing to make multicolored and multi-imaged tiles. I had hundreds of punched images to use, and was able to make a lot of cards.http://www.egreenfish.com/Christmas%20Mosaic1.jpg

From Marcia D.
Cutting up a calendar into envelopes to use for our birthday list cards.

From Catherine Mace
I use catalogs/phone book for gluing layers, etc., , then toss....nft

From Connie in MO
I use those free AOL (or other) CD's we get all the time for a pallate for my water markers that I use blender pens in or watercolor brushes, wipe up clean and use again.

From Ging
I use the wrapping paper that I got the gift in and use it as my background paper for my thank you card for the gift.
Snowflake punches also make good embellishments on most xmas paper so the cards are pretty easy. It's thoughtful too because it is part of the gift they gave YOU!

Author Unknown:
The insides of envelopes can be used for iris folding or background paper. There are lots of different patterns and colors are primarily blue, black, or brown. Envelopes from bank statements or bills are good sources.

From Rebecca:
I used a pile of Dove foil chocolate wrappers to cover plain brass brads like you get from an office supply store. It dressed them up, and I hated to waste the pretty foil. You can get about 6 brads with 1 wrapper. just tear or punch out a circle big enough to wrap over, arround and under the brad head. Being a heavier foil, it doesn't require an adhesive.