Do you like crafting and treating the planet well? Earth Day is right around the corner, so we want to inspire you to reuse, reduce, and recycle with your crafts! We have so many craft materials waiting around the house just waiting to be discovered. Let your creativity take over by focusing on using materials you already have in your home. If you’re a crafter like us, you probably have fabric scraps, bits of yarn, half-empty tubes of paint, and more than you know what to do with. Let’s dig into your stash — and your everyday items around the home — and make something truly fun, and help out the planet in the process. 

1. Upcycle your used candle jars 

Perhaps you're a candle hoarder, like me, or just the occasional candle enjoyer. Lots of candles come in beautiful jars, or plain old mason jars, and are free for use after you’ve burnt your candle down to the end. They can be tough to clean and get old wax out of, but it’s worth the hassle! Just pop your candle jar in the freezer overnight. The next day, the frozen wax will be much easier to break apart and remove with a knife. Once you empty out the jar of wax and clean it with soap and water, you’re all ready to use it! You can decorate the jars by painting or even using decoupage. You can also pour new candles in the jars, use them as pencil holders, or a silly swear jar. I also love putting my favorite stickers on them as decoration. 

2. Upcycle your old t-shirts 

We accumulate a lot of t-shirts over our lifetime. Some are our go-to basics or special graphic band tees, but others are just random free shirts from college, or an ugly color, or a t-shirt with the name of the company on it that laid us off (yuck). So, what to do with all these unwanted t-shirts? T-shirt material is actually one of the most common clothing waste items that ends up unused and in dumpsters. Reusing t-shirt material is a great way to keep it out of landfills, so we’ve come up with some craft ideas for your old and unloved t-shirts. Our favorite method is to make t-shirt yarn for knitting, crochet, or weaving. You can create t-shirt yarn by cutting rings of t-shirt material in a spiral. One of our favorite t-shirt yarn projects is making a crochet tote! If sewing is more your jam, you can cut the t-shirts up and sew them into rags or dish clothes, or use them as the base of embroidered wall art. T-shirt material can serve as a great low-cost option for practicing your craft!

3. Upcycle your plastic bags 

Plastic bags are pretty ubiquitous. We all know how wasteful they are, but we’ve all accumulated a ton. I know I have a large stash of plastic bags in my house that I use as trash bags, among other things. But, what about using them in our crafting? One option is to make plastic yarn, or plarn as it’s commonly know. Plarn is pretty straightforward to make and there’s a lot of ways to make it out of plastic bags. Once you’ve got your plarn, there’s so much you can do! We love the idea of crocheting a tote bag out of plarn made from plastic grocery bags. We really love this tote bag pattern from Repeat Crafter Me. If crochet isn't your style, you can also weave your plarn on a loom or braid it into thicker rope for macrame. Options abound! 

Tote bag photo from Repeat Crafter Me.

4. Upcycle empty mint tins 

Mint tins are perfect for organization and other creative uses! Use empty mint tins to make mini first aid kits, mini crafting kits, or storage for random items like rubber-bands, tacks, or business cards. As a knitter and crocheter, I personally like using my mint tins to hold stitch markers and tapestry needles. The organizational options are endless! To make re-using mint tins extra fun, you can decorate them to your liking. You can decorate the outside of mint tins with paint or decoupage, or label them with a label maker or sticker if you want to use them for organization. You can also cover them with fabric (a great use for any scrap fabric in the house), yarn, or ribbon. Using a hot glue gun for yarn and ribbon is the key to getting these smaller decorations to stick! We also love how Mama Maker decorates her mint tins with washi tape and paint. See how she does it here! 

Mint tin photo from Maker Mama.

5. Upcycle swimming pool noodles

Now, swimming pool noodles as home decor is a pretty wild idea at first glance. But recently, there’s been an explosion of creative reuses of pool noodles into beautiful (and we do mean beautiful!) home decor. You can use pool noodles to decorate mirrors, make headboards, or even lumbar support cushions. The trick here is the bend the pool noodle or cut it up into a specific shape, and then cover it with the fabric of your choice! Just remember, the idea here is to upcycle what you already have, not buy anything new. If you don’t have enough pool noodles for your project (I only had one growing up), it might be nice to check your local recycling center or Goodwill to see if they have any pool noodles you can use! We really like the pool noodle headboard by Bridgette Whitney. Take a look and get inspired!

Pool noodle headboard photo from Bridgette Whitney.

6. Upcycle your old sweaters

Do you have any old sweaters lying around that you no longer wear? Or maybe you have some with holes and rips you don't know what to do with. Good news -- there are a lot of upcycling opportunities when it comes to sweaters! One option is to unravel old sweaters and use the yarn for new projects. We found this great guide to unraveling sweaters and treating the yarn before reuse from Tin Can Knits. If knitting or crochet aren’t for you, you can also cut out pieces of the sweater and sew them together to create new clothes — hats, mittens, headbands, and scarves are usually the easiest to make. You can usually make multiple smaller pieces out of one sweater too -- how exciting!

7. Upcycle magazines and newspapers

If you're subscribed to a couple weekly magazines, you know how quickly they can pile up! Once you've read them, a good portion often end up in the recycling bin to make space for the new ones coming in. Instead of tossing your magazines, newspapers, and other paper pieces in the recycling, why not use them as craft materials? There's a lot you can do with paper, but two of our favorites are collage and decoupage. We've discussed decoupage earlier in this blog, but making collage art pieces out of magazines can be wonderful on it's own! To create beautiful collages, all you'll need is a base piece of thick paper, your magazines, scissors, and glue. If you aren't feeling collage, you can also explore origami and paper quilling. 

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We hope we've inspired you to dive into crafty upcycling! Let us know if you try any of these idea -- we always love seeing pictures of crafts made by our readers and customers. And if you want to try your hand at paper crafting with us, we do collage and decoupage in our Open Studio, which you can walk-in at any time and do with us! 

Until next time, keep crafting!