Christmas DIYs and Recycling

Since I've been really committed to being green (whenever I can) and frugal,  I have sworn to not buy new Christmas decors nor buy gift wrappers.  I sworn to use our old Christmas decors and if they are not enough, take out my magic DIYer wand.  I sworn to use papers I already have for gift wrappers and make them look Christmas-y so then I won't have to buy gift wrappers. Sounds extreme?  A bit.  It's actually quite hard to resist the temptation of buying those super lovely Christmas decors and ornaments from the store whenever I see them... but I am so doing it! **patting my back**

I'll probably won't be able to complete decorating the house but with the close-to-none extra time I have, I'm just doing what I can.  And I am quite pleased about the whole effort so here I am showing 'em off.  You are warned:  there'll be stars everywhere!

Entrance hall.  Remember the wall decor I created using pistachio shells?  There they still are.  The paper snowflakes on the side are just paper cut outs using normal printing papers.  The mistletoes on the yellow and green vases are from the tree.  The stars are from a kraft and cereal boxes.

The plant/tree that I always thought to be mistletoe are just taken from the nearby park.  Thank you my fellow mommy bloggers and twitter buddies, I have learned something new..  It's not mistletoe, Spanish Pinay.  It's Holly!

Some more 3D stars this time out of magazine covers

and another set of 3D stars from cereal boxes

Yet another star from cereal box.  Candle (ok, with this one, I couldn't resist... I bought it. But for 2 euros, it was begging to climb my shopping cart and so I gave in). Decorative sand = expired baby cereal mix and glitters! That's a winner I tell you.  The gold small balls are from a broken old Christmas decors and finally, the pine cone I picked from one of our walks in the mountains one summer day

Parol (Fillipino Christmas lantern).  This was a necessity for me to make. 

Blame it on homesickness.  This parol is made out of barbeque sticks.  The cellophanes are store brought while the white tissue papers are recycled from the pictures frames I bought ages ago.  Stores would usually wrap fragile items with these type of paper tissues.  Yes, I also keep those. Holler if anyone wants a tutorial!

Gifts wrapped so far:  The brown papers from the dining chairs packaging we ordered online months ago.  The different ornaments used are:  magazine papers, some colored craft papers I already have, yarn, cupcake papers from a tin can of danish cookies and of course, glitters! I certainly think glitters is made for Christmas!

  

 I'll probably update this post if I am able to add some more Christmas decors at home for now, that's all the humble abode got.   I still need a Christmas wreath for the door.  Spell DIY and RECYCLE!

Disclaimer:  Don't be fooled by the neat pictures... the house mess is kicked off the camera radar ;-)

Recycled Nescafe Jar

Have I already mentioned that Pinterest is addicting? Man, it seriously is! I find myself pinterest-ing every.single.night. Once the little one starts to do her little snores, I'd take my mobile and put myself under the blanket and start browsing through the bazillion ideas one can find in the sweet addicting world of Pinterest.  Yes, it could be possible that I am losing sleep because of too much Pinterest-ing.

Anyhoo... as I was browsing and pinning, I found this work of a really artsy man named Eric Barclay.  One of his works is this:

Isn't this too adorable??? I tell you, the guy is full of creativity and talent!

And since this is about recycling (I've been very gung-ho about recycling but just couldn't find time) and by a very, very good chance, I have one empty Nescafe bottle lying around the house, I said I must try this! 

And here is the result of my wannabee-artist work.  I know, it's far (like oceans afar!) from Eric's work but hey, the colors I used are all I have at the time AND I swear, my hand wouldn't just stop from trembling while I was trying to paint the bottle.  I don't really know what I was so nervous about.  And that crackled effect near the whites... and what's going on with the white?  Looks like I used a liquid paper.  I tell you I did not.  I used a super old white paint marker... but I guess it's already super old, that's why.

 

 

But I am still happy with the outcome.  My striped cat turned out cute in its own unique style, yes?  Maybe I'd get better on the next ones.  Maybe I should also get nicer colors to use, yeah? I still have to think of what to store in it.  For now,  it holds small knick-knacks in the kitchen.  But it should find a better purpose.  Maybe nuts? Or Sugar perhaps?  What would you use a bottle like this for?

 

 

DIY: Stair Risers...

... made of what else... rolled magazine papers! Didn't I say I am really starting to develop some twitch because of this addiction?  Well yes,  I couldn't stop rolling.  I'm on a roll, y'all! (pun and rhyme intended).

So I we a stair and it has open risers.  Stair risers are the backing on each step of the stairs.  It's been a while since I've been wanting to install backings on our stair risers but guess what I really don't want to spend a fortune hiring some professional carpenters to do the work because here in Spain, it can get ridiculously expensive.  One reason I want our stairs to have backings is that we kind of use the space under it as a storage and it seeing the mess through the open risers can really become an eyesore. 

Plus, I've read that this is against Feng Shui.  Not that I am a big follower but I think it doesn't hurt to consider Feng Shui's teachings when it comes to home arrangement so long as the suggestions are practical.  Feng Shui said that stairs with open risers on stairs lose flow and energy.  Stairs play an important role for the enery in a home to move from one floor to the other... so if a stair has open risers, chances are the rooms upstairs will lose flow and energy. 

Learning this gave me more urgency to do something about our stairs but still didn't give me the stomach to spend significant ka-chings for the home improvement. 

So what did I came up with? You guessed right.  The rolled magazine papers!  It is still a work in progress but I am already liking the result.  It's gonna be a long project so I didn't want to wait until it's done before I post something about it.  Twitch, remember? Addiction? Excited? All that!

Ok, so here's a picture of how it's moving along. 

First try.  I made the two squared rolled magazine papers and just let them sit in-between the steps so it can take better form.

The first step is done!

On to the second...

So that's where I'm currently at.  On the second riser! How many steps does our stairs has? I don't want to think about it... I might lose the will to go on LOL.

Seriously though, I think this will have an awesome output.  Not to mention that it'll cost me practically almost nothing.  The only materials that really has a cost on doin this are the glue and the paint.  The paint was bought for 5 euros (on sale!) way back January I think.  It was bought thinking it will have some use one day... now is the time ;-)

A blog-friend asked me the possibility (hello Sey!) of using rolled magazine papers for a book shelf... now that's a bigger and more challenging project! But I don't think it'll be impossible.  I just need to have an idea on how the pieces can be put together and make sure they'll not fall off :-D

What else can you possible think rolled magazine papers can be made into?  Let's see at what Amazon can give us as an idea...

Recycled Magazine Mirror

Recycled Paper Spirals Bamboo Bowl

Recycled Magazine 6-Bottle Wine Rack

DIY: Rolled Magazine Paper Project - Behind The Scene

I’ve promised long ago that I will post a tutorial on the garbage bin, magazine rack and spice drawer I’ve made out of rolled magazine papers.  But I was kind of stumped on where to start as they are 3 different things and didn’t know which of this three I’d make a tutorial first.  So I decided on just putting here the basic concept of using rolled magazine papers to make A LOT of things because this is what's really important.  Knowing these basic concepts, can lead you to be able to make  A LOT of different things out of rolled magazine papers. Yes, you can do A LOT  of things using rolled magazine papers.  You are only limited by your imagination!

So let’s start with the basic concepts.

First is of course collecting old magazines.  I try to strip each page (or 10 at the same time) out.  I do not cut it from the binded side as I want to maximize the page that can be used.  Sometimes, depending on how the magazine is binded, there is no other choice but to cut it.  Anyways, I then fold the pages in half and cut. The size of the magazine does not really matter.  I try not to be picky with the type of magazine because I want to be able to recycle as much magazines as I can.  

Ok, so now, you have cut magazines.  Next is to start rolling the magazine pages into a tube-like shapes.   I tried to check out the internet on tutorial for this as I thought, surely, I am not the only one who thought about recycling magazines by rolling them.  This way, it may be easier for me to refer to this sites than recreating the steps to take pics, etc.  I wasn’t surprised really to find thousands of other people who are into this as well.  Their procedures are not very far from what I do but there are slight differences.   Like the way I roll the magazine pages.  I use a plastic rod where I honestly have no recollection what it was for.  I just found it one day lying on our floor and was about to throw it but then thought maybe one day, I would need it.  I am a pack-rat like that.  Other people do this by just folding the magazine paper from the long side.  I find this more time consuming. 

The plastic rod.  It's about 7mm in diameter.

I believe you can also use a long, thin pencil or whatever that has this shape.  The diameter of the rolled magazine paper will of course depend on the thickness of the “rod” that you will be using.  Here’s a short video on how I do it.

First you put the rod on the lower left corner of the paper in a slanting position. Then you start rolling until all the paper is rolled into the rod then you pull out the rod.  This is the part that is a bit difficult for me to explain so I made the video above… I hope it helps J

Another advantage of using the rod to make magazine strips is that the ends

After making TONS (as in gazillion of them, depends on what you want to do) of these rolled magazines (at this point, I will call them rolled magazine paper strips), we can already start with the next step. You don’t actually have to make a gazillion of them before rolling them into circular or squared shapes, etc… you can alternate the steps – it all depends on whatever is more convenient for you.

Now the next step is to roll these rolled magazine paper strips into whatever shape you like.  I’ve done circular (solid and a with a hole in the middle) and square.  The concept is just the same…  You will be the primary responsible on how it will take shape. Just like a potmaker on his pots.  So  let’s do the solid circular one as for me, this is the most basic of 'em all.   See the video below.

I thought of narrating the step but I am way too shy haha.  I actually hate hearing my voice on recording so… no, not this time :-D  Also please forgive me for the quality of the video. I do not have enough lighting and I didn’t have time to properly set up… I’m a first timer ;-)

Ok…  moving on.  So you just add more rolled magazine paper strips until you got the right size you are looking for. Now, to have a hole in the middle of your circular rolled magazine piece, you can just use a small bottle or whatever cylindrical object to wrap the rolled magazine paper strips… then you just take it out once you got the right size of the rolled magazine piece.  Or, you can just roll it leaving a small space (by wrapping it first on your thumb).  It doesn't have to be a perfect circle.  This project is very forgiving of imperfections... in fact, it can even give more uniqueness to the finished product.

Another way is to shape the rolled magazine paper into square.  I do this to make something that is square or rectangular in shape like a box or a chest (this is my upcoming project) perhaps J .  As I've said, the posibilities are endless (somewhat). 

So let’s say we now have a number of these rolled magazine pieces.  The next step is to put them together to construct something useful or decorative.   The process I do depends on the use of the end-product.  For instance,  with the magazine rack, since I want it to be sturdy and not break out if I try to push more magazines in it, I tied each piece with a nylon string.  I use a big needle to poke the nylon thred in the sides of the pieces and just tie it really tight.  Maybe next time, I can make a video for this.  The other way is just use hot glue.  This is what is mentioned from most of the tutorials I see.  For a garbage bin, hot glue should be enough.  You just try to put the pieces together and hot glue the sides that will touch the other pieces.  It’s simple really. 

I’ll try to make another tutorial that will focus on constructing these pieces together to actually form a real object that is useful or decorative J  as a tease, here’s my latest project:

This baby is about 65cm tall now.

DIY: Rolled Magazine Pages Part 2

So here's what I have promised.

I'm really excited to share this because I reeeeeaaaallllly loved the output. As an introduction, I like to show this picture:

Pay attention to the spice rack on the sides of the microwave. Yes, that black poor little square thing in the middle is a microwave oven.  The books on top are small recipe books.  Placed in there to also fill in the space.

When we moved in to our own place, this area of the kitchen is empty.  Microwave oven is not included in the kitchen when it was turned over to us.  Our old microwave is too small for the this particular spot and thus, it looked awful.  Hubby told me we'll have to buy a new one.  I gasped and huffed and puffed and eyes wide open (wider than they are already are), I gave him a big resonating NOOOO! There is no way we are changing a fully functioning microwave oven just because it doesn't look good (read: too small) in its space.

I told him I'll do something to fill in those gaps.  So long story short, I made those spice racks that are custom-fit on the sides of the microwave to fill in the space.  They are just made out of hard cardboard recycled from boxes I took from the street along my walks (like a crazy lady).  Then the outside is covered with cork (the one basically used for corkboards) and the sides are decorated by none other than pasta! They are chipping away now by the way so it's actually time to replenish or change them :)

While I can say it can pass as a clever idea, it's not all good because since the spice rack is directly above the oven, sometimes the heat can go up and harm the spices.  Not all of them are affected though but once, I had a cheese powder tucked in one of the holes of this spice rack (the one that is nearest the oven I suppose) and over time, it has hardened and became unusable.  Plus, the hole for each spice is customed according to the bottle so when I had to replenish the spice, sometimes I'd get a different brand and thus, different bottle size - result: the hole that was created for the old spice may become too small or too big for the new one.  Lastly, the number of spices it can hold is just not enough.

This introduction is getting longer than I have planned.... ok... so comes in this problem.  We love spices and we have a good number of them which obviously, do not fit these two spice racks.  So they are practically all over my kitchen. And everytime I need to use one of them... ahh, it's a jungle out there.

Then I got inspired by Stay at Home-ista.  She's very clever on home organization and I am just the complete opposite.  For a whole day, I drooled over her spice drawer:

This picture is taken straight from her blog with her permission of course!

 

and I wondered how it was done.  I can see through the spaces in between that those elevated whatchamacallit is made of wood.  I am no carpenter and definitely haven't tried my skill on cutting wood... so I just let out an exasperation.  There is no way,  I can do this!  Then I had the light bulb moment!

Rolled magazine pages! It may work... so I started rolling magazine pages once again and with much patience, the whole plan started to materialize.

These are the magazine papers rolled into strips.

Applying the same concept I did for the garbage bin and magazine rack, I came up with this:

They are like elevated slanted platforms piled on top of each other by their foot.

It fit nicely on the kitchen drawer I chose to dedicate for spices.

It wasn't a one sitting or an overnight thing though. It required patience, waiting and finger-cramp-provoking activity but ALL is worth it.  The result is really beautiful (according to my beauty catergory).

So, behold!

I even got an extra space for some of my baking thingies.

I would love to share the how-to of this project but that should be on a different post as it may be a really long post.  I might also need to put short videos of the step as they are kind of difficult to describe just by words. I'm not making it sound complicated it's just that sometimes my english words are not enough to express my thoughts  ;-)

Anyone who is interested to learn on how to do this, just holler!