Upcycling Crayons

We had to find a gift for our son's teachers at day care, and decided to go for a frame with their initials made with crayons. We used super glue and a razor blade to cut the pieces, an easy project and teacher were happy to get something else than flowers and chocolates :-) you can also buy the letter from Etsy.

Upcycling light bulbs into planters

These bulbs will be more and more difficult to find, but they make wonderful miniature green house!

Found here

upcycling and art

Once in a while I like to post some artist who are doing amazing job upcycling their own way items that would go to the recycling bin.
Here is Eric Barclay, an illustrator, who's inspired by the graphic design from the 50s and 60s, you can see illustrations on his blog.
And this is what he does with containers:

upcycling a boat...

....into a suspended bed.

You'll just need enough space, a high ceiling and .... a nice looking boat.

Cable drawings

from here

Using a cable with cable attachments to re-create a frame or something else on the wall. Wonderful idea!
I would hang a simple mirror in the middle maybe or maybe not.

Simple but really useful: just one rubber band

Happy to be back from the summer break...

Pringles want us to upcyle their cans

If you buy 4 cans of Pringles in the US or 3 cans in the UK, France and spain (I did not check all the countries but it looks like it's everywhere you can buy Pringles), Pringles will send you a free speaker by mail. The speaker fits the can and the can is used to amplify the bass. The speaker can be use with any portable device that has a 3.5mm jack such as Ipod.
Pringles not only wants to show the "upcyclable potential" of their cans but most of all, they have a great marketing idea by extending the life of their packaging.

Improving the cheap sound

Brett Butterworth from Sound and vision decided to improve the sound quality by stuffing the can with recycled denim insulation or fiberglass insulation the same way acoustic suspension speakers are made, and it works! He got rid off the bad vibrations from the can with a much tighter and better defined sound.

Pringles cans can be upcycled in many other different ways, but this will be an other post....

Upcycling wooden cable reel

Creativity has no limit:

Wooden rocking chair

The classic table that kids could use:

from Curbly

Or a more sophisticated bookcase-coffee table:

My favorite: A computer work station for two, made by Tivesy

Lamp made with plastic bottle caps

The caps are hand-sewn with transparent nylon.

The way the caps are attached together gives a lot of flexibility to the shape you can create.

More details on the retrain website

Upcycling vinyl gutters into bookshelves

A great idea when you have gutters left over.

And you'll get a great tutorial if you go on sunshine on the inside website.

When Ikea uses upcycling in their ads

Not sure Ikea is delivering the right message in this ad, I seriously prefer this upcycled shelf to some from their catalog.

Happy 4th of July!!!!!!

Kitchen set made of cardboard

A lot of creativity!

Found here

Upcycling little wood baskets

We collect a lot of these little baskets and did not know what to do with it. This cute garland might end up outside on our deck.

Upcycling an old piano

An upcycling that I would never have thought of. You'll need space on your wall...

Found on bookshelfporn.com

Upcycling a tennis ball

The most famous upcycling of a tennis ball is covering the trailer hitch ball. This is an other upcycling, a holder.

Found here

Computer station and Lounge chair upcycled from a Vespa

I'm wondering if it's comfortable and functional?...

On the other side, this one looks much more comfy.

Found here

upcycling coffe can into bird feeder

Few days ago I found this nice-looking can in the recycling bin and I could not resist to extent its life by finding a good use for it.

For one side, I used a can opener and folded it. For the other side I just cut the edge of the plastic lid and folded it the same way. then, you just have to fill the can with seeds and wait...

Hanging glass bottle on a wall

From Etsy

This way of hanging bottles reminded me of an old post (you can see by clicking here) with a tutorial to make torch from wine bottles:

A nice clean way to hang the bottles.

Barrel Seat

I just found this on Garden Trading.
Around $260 in store. It could be free if you have an old barrel somewhere and metal snips to cut it. I'm just wondering how to get dull edges. You might have to use clear tubing all along the edge.