Recycling Crafts

[cajungirl]

Well, no one has posted in this forum in the last 20 days, so I shall get it started. Any one out there interested in recyled crafts please respond. I am an activities director in a nursing home and am always looking for inexpensive crafts to do. We are a non-profit home and do not have a big budget. I am open to any and all suggestions. I LOVE to craft. Especially if it can be used from recycled items. I have 4 books titled "Trash to Treasure" Any one familiar with them? They are usually too involved for my residents to understand. Right now we are working on christmas gifts for them to give to their family members. They tend to give up easily if it is too involved. We painted clothes pins, put jewels on them and glued a piece of magnetic tape to the back to use for ice box note holders. We've made flowers using coffee filters, dyed them and put them on the tables for our monthly birthday parties. They sure enjoyed the compliments that were received.
Hope to hear from others. God bless you all.

[CAFE]

I will try and help here. I love crafts also, and try and come up with ideas from time to time. As our grandkids were growing up, I always tried to make little things with them.

1. Paint (I call them "tongue depressers") they come in a box in the craft dept. I glue (or buy) eyes for on them. They make cute book marks. There is alot of different things you can do with them.

2. Cover an empty kleenex box with wrapping paper, or fabric and stuff with plastic grocery bags. These are handy.

3. If you can get ahold of advertising magnets (like from a pharmacy, Pizza places, etc.) or buy sheets of magnet, that you can cut up. Glue family pictures on them, cut the pictures to fix the magnets.

4. I have bought sheets of magnet, then glued "stickers" on them and cut out. They make cute magnets also.

Hope this helps. If you don't understand any of this let me know.

[CAFE]

Oh I forgot here is another one.

Take an empty jar (like mayo jars) and fill with mixed soup beans from the grocery. Then cut a square about 5", depending on opening of jar, and place over the top. Put a rubber band over to hold it to the jar. Then tie a pretty ribbon over the rubber band (to hide it). You can glue a little flower on the bow or a button..whatever they want. These make up really cute.

Let me know if this is what you are looking for, and I will send more ideas. Happy crafting.

[vcwins]

I really like the idea about putting stickers on old business magnets! I did that right after reading this post. Thanks for the great ideas!
VC

[Sarah88]

Hi there!
Yes, I am familiar with the trash to treasure books and I love them! I teach 3, 4, and 5 years old at a Head Start. Since teachers don't get much money to work with, I am always looking for ways to recycle what I or someone I know might have. For halloween we are turning the little plastic cups that come filled with crystal light drink mix into spiders. The children will paint them black then attach beady eyes and yarn legs. We are also making jack-o-lantern votives from baby food jars. The kids have decopaged orange tissue on the jars, next they will be drawing on the faces, and then I will insert the votive candle. We will be giving these as gifts. Decopage is always great because you can do it on so many different surfaces. If you thin down white glue it works just as well as the fancy mod-podge and such. I have decopaged onto tin cans and made vases. For Christmas you can glue popsicle sticks together to form a "Charlie Brown" tree. Just trim down each layer so that you have a nice triangle shape. Paint them green and then decorate with old buttons or sequins. You can also glue old spools together into a tree shape and do the same sort of thing. What about getting a few cheap strands of lights and some scrap material. Cut the material into strips and then let the residents tie the strips onto the string of lights. It is a real neat country look that sells for big bucks at craft shows. If you did it with holiday fabric, maybe you could hang it up in the home. That would give them a chance to admire something they made.
I know I have lots more that I can share with you, but this is all that I can think of for now!

[secamom]

Hi
I love crafts. I get to go see a live show of the Carol Devall in Nov. she does crafts on HGTV...Here is an idea:

I posted this to the jar web also: I take baby jars and a stuff bear med size and cut the arms, head, legs off and glue to the jar which then become the tummy fill with candy of your likes..before you place the head on the lid you can add a collar of material add bows also small bunches of flowers to the paws. They don't cost much at all I find the bears (sometimes bunnys at Wal mart or most thrift stores)

I saw this and made one and it is ssooo cute: My child is overwelmed with stuff animals so I took one and unseam the back took the stuffing out added a pocket liner(from old jeans just sew it inside) added a velcro or snap closing then added some straps by the back of the ears and presto! a stuff animal purse everyone loves them and her stuff animals have a new purpose in life.

You can go to a t shirt place and buy bulk and they can decorate them for families: tye dye, fabric paints or pens hope this helps if they can not draw they can trace a picture on them and then paint. You can find some cute craft kits from Oriental trading too.
Happy Crafting

[KarenP]

I worked in a Psych. Hosp. for 35 yrs. & lots of times we tried to occupy some of the time our residents had. Around the holidays we would try to get them involved in the spirit of giving. With many of them having short attention spans, some lacked coordination, or could not follow long directions, we kept many projects short & simple. Most of all ,CHEAP! One year ,for the women in the family, we glued pin backs on animal crackers, varnish them or spray clear glaze on them (2 or 3 coats) Some of them were painted first but most weren't. They looked really cute!
The same thing can be done for men but with tie tacks glued on the back. These can be purchesed cheaply at your local craft store. Do be sure to use a good quality glue so it will hold well. If the pins keep coming off, it will cost more in cheap glue, to keep glueing back on! You could use any type of cookie or cracker,but the animal crackers had personality!!
Good luck
KarenP.

[momoftwo]

I myself have been looking for more ideas for 'cheep' crafts. My son is in pre-school now and they are always looking for new ideas. I have found a new web site that seem's pritty cool to check out. www.kidsdomain.com
This is for kids, so the attention span of the elderly people that you work with should be ok for these projects. Hope this helps. I have found several things here for my son's class.

[quest_for_a_name]

here is an idea that my grandfather did in a retirement home. They got old greeting cards (you can get the families to bring these in no one knows what to do with old greeting cards) they used a glss or cup and cut circles in the greeting cards, then they placed the cut out circles into a rectangle shape about the size of a place mat for your table. then they got lamenting sheets and lamented the cut out circles on both sides. Now they have a unique placemat to give friends and family members. let me know how it turns out.

[momoftwo]

quest_for_a_name ~ You just reminded me about the old cards. I use my old x-mas cards that I received as name tags for the following years gifts. I just co-ordinate the cards with the wrapping paper that I have. Or I'll use a brown or solid color paper for wrapping. Good way to recycle.