Upcycling

How Upcycling Projects Gave Me a New Beginning

Here’s to a New Beginning

To start over and find a new beginning is always difficult. Although nothing has really changed between December 31 and January 1, this new year has already had it’s ups and downs. One minute is great and just as I start skipping along whistling my favorite tuneย  someone runs into me with scalding hot coffee, metaphorically. My job has been a little rocky with the need to constantly be learning something new, and other side project didn’t go as well as I had hoped.

But you know what gets me through it? The idea that something ordinary, discarded, unwanted, even ugly can change into something beautiful or useful or both.

How Upcycling Gave Me a New Beginning


New Beginnings All Around

We see it all the time in nature with butterflies, the different seasons where trees are losing their leaves, go to sleep and then wake up refreshed and flourishing, or a seed germinating to make a beautiful flower or something yummy to eat.

I think that’s why I find upcycling projects to be such a fascinating thing for me. I guess because if an ol’ pop bottle can have a new beginning as something as beautiful as this hummingbird feeder then maybe someday I, someone ordinary, unfinished, inadequate, will find my purpose that brings fulfillment in my life and makes me feel useful.

(At the beginning of this post, I was feeling quite down, pessimistic, confused and frustrated, but I still felt hopeful as I wrote the rest of this post. Because like I said, if someone can take care of a discarded pop bottle, then surely I will find a purpose too. It has been on my mind until this past Sunday when I randomly went to a new church service and they played this song. It validated the hope I still felt as finished this post.)

Finding a new beginning in upcycling projects for the home

Take this orange fruit netting. Do you see a use outside it’s original purpose of holding these oranges? Although it’s not as bad as plastic bags that blow away so freely, this orange fruit bag net does still cause problems for wildlife. They might try to eat it or get tangled up in it. Fruit net bags can cause problems for the environment and animals, but they can be repurposed. Click to find out more!

Oranges are super easy for me to grab on the way to work, so I tend to buy a lot, but I have never been comfortable with throwing these nets away. Another problem, we don’t have a dish washer and sometimes even with the scratchier sponge, which we don’t always have anyway because we go through them so fast. We just can’t get our pans clean.

I spent 10 minutes trying to get this plan clean. Find out how I did it!

I spent like 10 minutes trying to get that clean and it wasn’t even budging. Then I saw an empty net just sitting there and I grabbed it out of desperation. It worked like a charm. It still took a few minutes, but I haven’t seen it that clean in months.

Ever have burnt food impossible to get off your pans? Find out my secret to getting clean dishes every time without a dishwasher.

Before, that little net had a very temporary use, but now it has a new beginning that will extend its use many times over. Learn how to make these orange net scrubbies here.

scrubbie-01

 

What about these boxes?

Do you see potential for these boxes outside the landfill, never to be used again? Click for inspiration.

Obviously someone didn’t see enough use in them to throw them in the recycling bin, not even 20 feet from that dumpster. Other than metal, cardboard is one of the best recycling markets. Recycling would give it a new life and that could help a local business owner striving to make the city cleaner, but nope, that particular person didn’t even see enough potential to take the time to throw it in the bin. What do you think? Do you see a new beginning for it?

Did you know this is made with a diaper box? How Cute!

I found this upcycled project using diaper boxes, but these projects could have easily been used. I thought it was the cutest thing and if you’re interested in making it, check out this post.

What about light bulbs. Light bulbs are a pretty practical thing and they last for quite some time, but a new beginning could extend their life more. How can you say no to these cuties??? Learn how to make upcycled ornaments and spread the holiday cheer!

Upcycled Lightbulb Penguins
Need an idea for a homemade gift? These penguin and snowmen are made from used light bulbs. You can decorate them with extra scrap yarn or fabric.

Upcycling Plastic Bags

I think my favorite thing to give new beginnings to are plastic bags. America use 150 billion plastic bags, which equals 150 million gallons of gas just blowing around our planet or wasting away in the landfills.

They cause problems for everyone. For the grocer that charges you extra to compensate for their cost. You, as they fill every nook and cranny in your house until you remember to throw them out or take them back to the store to be recycled. The recycler because they clog machines and are extremely expensive to recycle. And the environment as they choke animals and get stuck on every tree. The only exception is the industry that makes a killing off destroying the environment. Occasionally, I will bring some home because I need something to put the used cat litter in, but other than that I try not to use them.

Normally, I saw plastic bags as a nuisance. But now instead of being annoyed, I pick them up, dust them off and take them home because even if someone else doesn’t care, I do. I see a new beginning for them.

Although many people tried to teach me to crochet over the years, it wasn’t until my grandmother gave me this beautiful bag made from crocheted plastic bags that I finally got the motivation to keep trying until I got it.

plarn crocheted bag

It is extremely sturdy and I have since learned to adapt the use of plarn for other projects and sometimes add colored yarn to add a little extra texture and color to them.

Check out this post to learn to make plarn.

Change is hard, but as I look back on my life, I can see when things ended it’s because something great was about to start. And when I get down, I just binge on pinning upcycling projects and it just makes me feel so much better! I hope you found encouragement in this post. I wrote as part of a collaborative post, so if you interested, click on the pictures below to see what my group members wrote about.

10649476_10153863428941323_8902713386971979931_n

734884_10153848539227065_7898950137464875627_n

happylshDon’t forget to pin for later!

Starting over with a new beginning is always difficult. Check out my story and how upcycling projects helped me see things in a new light.

Save

Save




21 thoughts on “How Upcycling Projects Gave Me a New Beginning

  1. Such a neat trick with the oranges net! I actually have a pan that is starting to look like yours did. We buy oranges every so often so I will definitely need to remember this since we ran out of scrub pads and keep forgetting to buy more. Thanks!

    1. Yes, it took me sooooo long and a ton of patience but now its just so much fun. I really recommend finding a youtube video project and just watching it over and over until you get each part down. Watch it as many times as you need! Thank you for stopping by!

  2. Those were some really neat recycling ideas. Not not good at things like that, but I wish I could connect with someone local who is so I could share. It’s hard to even Freecycle a lot of useful things here. The garden does get my eggshells and coffee grounds, and I do compost. We use our recycling cans when we can’t find a way to reuse something. I try to give a lot to the thrift stores, but I still can’t even make a dent. We are still dealing with the estates of both our moms.

    1. Thank you for your comment! It’s not about doing everything, its just about doing something and you definitely have that covered. Thank you so much for caring enough to go the extra step to take things to the thrift store and all the extra things you do. ๐Ÿ™‚

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.