Ribbons dispenser

A great way to store, organize and upcycle!

Upcycling wine barrels into bottle holder

Clever...

Giving a new life to an old chair is also upcycling, No?
I found this chair in the street few month ago, and for years, I wanted to give a try to reupholstering. I thought that this chair was the perfect occasion to start.

Before

Before

I found some fabric I like at a local store for $50, but I also had to understand how this chair was made, including the buttons on the backseat and all the tacks surrounding the fabric, and also few tricks I didn't know about but you learn them while you remove the old fabric.
I bought an upholstering hammer (thinner than regular hammer) and a tack remover, I also bought a cheap piece of fabric to mess with it before using the expensive and final fabric.

 

Done....

It's a pretty fast description I must admit, if you have question, I'll be happy to answer. Reupholstering was fun, I'll try again if I find the right chair.

An upcycled chair

This chair, that could also be a bench, is made of recycled wood blinds that have been wrapped around a reconstituted wood frame. Using a jigsaw, it's pretty easy to give the shape you would like. You'll have to keep at least 3 identical shapes for a bench and 2 for a chair. It's made by an argentinian design company: Gruba Design Studio.

Based on the same technique: The coffee Table

Buzz lightyear costume for halloween made of UPS and Fedex envelopes

These enveloppes are both really flexible and indestructible, like buzz... So I thought it might give me good results. This is few pictures showing some critical steps in the making of the chest and the wings, I used cardboard and foam for the wings, to give some volume
. The tips of the wings are insulation foam that I painted, same thing around the neck.

The neck, just cardboard I gave a round shape to.

Attaching the enveloppe around the neck using staples.

At this stage, you have to make sure that your child can fit his head through... it's essential!

Almost-done chest before spray painting

Legs, arms and chest.

You might see that I tapes a flat key chain light on one arm, so buzz can still use his laser!

The wings

Wrapping the wings with the envelopes

The other side (each side has a different sponsor....)

To give a great touch to your design, you will have to draw all the space ranger logo on your computer and stick it to the costume with a glue gun.

One of the logo I made....

If you need some of these drawing, drop me a comment and I'll be happy to send you a JPG copy a my drawings.

After doing this project, you'll never look at these envelopes the same way.... Oh and by the way, daddy had fun making it, but his son had a blast wearing it.

PVC pipe spider for Halloween

PVC spider with pumpkin

PVC spider with trash bags, having lunch...

A fun project to work on, you just need to get 90 degres pvc pipes, the pipes and the pumpkins. If you have to buy everything, it's a $30 project, but you might have some of these pipes in your basement....

An other recyclable bed

found on littlefashiongallery.com

I would not recommend making a crib from a cardboard, just for safety reason.
But the bed looks doable, buying it would be silly, can you believe they are selling the bed for $250?!

Making a wallet out of juice carton

The cap keeps the wallet closed. That's clever.

Full tutorial and video on familyfun.go.com website.

Playing cards upcycled into a lampshade

Nick Sayers made this out of 270 cards... Apparently he loves making spheres.

Train tickets

No tutorial is available but it inspired me, and I'll post a tutorial on something less complicated but similar as soon as I can give it a try.

Iphone/Ipod stand

After I made an Ipad holder with chopsticks or with a coffee cup sleeve , this is probably the easiest way to upcycle something into a stand: using your old tape cases. The most difficult maybe, is to find one...

For your ipad, you can also use a business card holder as shown below, cheap and efficient!

As a reminder of my old projects :

For as tutorial you can click here

For a tutorial click here

Upcycling furniture into kids toys

It's really amazing what you can do with a night stand or an old TV furniture! I'll think twice before trashing my own furniture now.

Bed made from upcycled pallets!

I'm torn between buying a fancy bed for my son or trying this cute upcycling! My only problem is that it's time consuming, but so much fun to make. Also, don;t forget that the pallet needs to be sanded properly to avoid your little one from getting splinters.

For a tutorial, click here

Upcycling crates

From Thea's Mania

I posted few months ago some wine crates upcycling, this is one colorful way of upcycling crates. I like the picture and the idea.

Upcycling bottle cap to make art

Once in a while, I post upcycling that is art-related. This self portrait is from artist Mary Ellen Croteau made with plastic bottle caps. By nesting the caps she achieved a much deeper color palette. Start saving caps if you want to try!!!

Upcycling a dryer duct into a pumpkin

An easy project if you have left over dryer duct somewhere in your basement, a tutorial is available here, but I'm sure you could figure it out without a tutorial.

Upcycling a seat belt

From uncommongoods

Another fun idea to make yourself for cheap or you can pay $24 if you are lazy. You can also use buckle from old child seat.

Making a rocket launcher with PVC pipes

The final Rocket Launcher

Kids love it

I must admit, this project is a bit more than just upcycling PVC pipes like you saw in a previous post, but it makes something really entertaining... A Rocket Launcher !
This kind of rocket launcher already exists on the market and  I wanted to share with you a "toy" that my son really enjoyed making and playing with. We made it for it's B-day party and kids loved it.

Why kids love it?
First they have to learn how to make the rocket out of paper, and then they can launch them by pressing a button, like the real stuff!! The tutorial show that you can also use a manual valve, but it's to hard for a 4 year old to activate.

Making the rocket launcher looks complicated but don't be fooled, it's not tricky as long as you get the right stuff!

What you need:
The Material: PVC pipes, pvc cement, electric valve, a switch and a 9v battery to activate the valve, a tire valve.

The valve described here is a manual one (ball valve)

And an electric sprinkler valve to make the launching more dramatic.

Sprinkler valve

The switch (made with PVC pipe)

By connecting the 2 wires of the sprinkler valve to a 9v battery, you activate the valve that will release the pressure from your pipes


The tools: A drill, a PVC pipes saw, a bike pump to put pressure in the launcher.

PVC pipe saw

How to make it:

It's just like a lego game, nothing difficult when you have all the right pipes to fit. You just have to glue them together, the valve is just screwed not glued.

The length of the pipes don't have to be exactly the same.

The tricky part is to insert the tire valve (from where you will inject air with the bike pump), you'll have to use a drill to make a hole big enough for the valve to fit, so you'll have to be careful to make the right size hole.

How to use the Rocket Launcher?
To fully enjoy it, you'll have to make the rockets. They are safe, since they are made of paper, but I recommend parents to supervise the kids anyway.

How to make the rocket:
To make the rocket you need a piece of regular paper for the body, 3 fins made of cardboard, and a piece of foam or paper tissus to make the tip of the rocket. Nothing fancy, but this rocket can go very high (100-200 feet high). Don't go too high with pressure (20-30 psi), you can control the pressure by looking at your pump manometer.

   

The pvc pipe is used to give the perfect shape to the rocket

                                  

The Launcher in action: