Upcycling

 Upcycling is the art of reusing unwanted or broken items by converting them into something new or better. 

     I don’t know how many of you know this about me but I find it very difficult to throw stuff away that will end up in a dump. And even if I don’t upcycle it, I’m determined to, at least use it a few times before it goes, like all of those round Styrofoam bases from the frozen pizzas in England.  Just this week, Alex asked me if I had any of them around for an art project he was working on, but unfortunately, I had thrown them all out before coming to France. What a pitty!

     So today, I thought I would share with you, some of the projects I’ve made. Some have new materials but most of it are old things that I’ve had for a while and wanted to use up.  I often go through remnant bins for odd bits and ends that will help me use up my stuff.  Hopefully it will inspire you to try your hand at upcycling.

I wanted something that we could use on the floor when we ran out of couch and chair space so I found this material in a remnant bin along with the piping and the bits to make my own buttons.  I had two extra regular pillows that I sowed the edges together and jammed into the square shape.  It's not perfect but not bad for an idea that was in my head and the whole thing cost me less than £25 which was £20 less than I'd pay for an already made cushion.

 This is my current project. I'm trying to make a quilt from old jeans.  I've been collecting them for years. It's a wonderfully sentimental thing with my, Alex and Mauri's old jeans and a pair from Angela, my niece and our friend Danni.  Some of the extra bits that I will add later on are from an antique haberdashery in the Bretagne region of France.  I'll probably be at this one for a while.

 I made this pillow for my friend Deborah with some linen that I bought in Estonia and the wool panel on the front was my first attempt at felting that went all wrong. It's chemically treated so that it doesn't felt or shrink so I had this knitted rectangle that needed to be used.  I added some embroidered flowers and butterfly with DMC thread left over from my cross-stitching days.

 I, also, made this book/shopping bag for Deborah using the white material that I had lying around the house and bought a blue checkered tablecloth at a second hand store to complement. 

 So, this ball of wool from Estonia that I tried to felt was pretty big, and I decided to make this tea cozy for Mauri's new tea pot from Finland. The dark brown accents were from some other leftover yarn.

This small decorative bag was made for my friend Meenou.  I used some of the leftover linen and the white material from the other bag and finished it off with some ribbon leftover from another project and the lace from my wedding dress.  The reason I used that particular lace is that Meenou and her husband share the same wedding anniversary as Mauri and I and I thought it was fitting.