DIY Recycled Ornaments from "Michele Made Me"

Check out these pretty plastic bottle ornaments from Michele Made Me, along with instructions to make them yourself!

She also has another tutorial to make these adorable little greenhouse ornaments from recycled plastic.  Love them!  Plus, who doesn't want to gaze into a tropical little greenhouse when there are inches of snow on the ground? Her ornament tutorials appear to be an ongoing series...can't wait to see what she comes up with next!  Thanks, Michele!!

Happy new year!

Happy new year!! I hope you had a wonderful holiday. I thought I'd share a few fun green things that I came across during my own holiday celebrations...

The first is a fun green DIY project idea, and a gift that we received from my aunt. She took a recycled wine bottle, stuffed it full of lights, and topped it off with some foliage and grapes, attached with some green floral tape:

It is such a simple idea and really dresses up your table or buffet nicely for parties, etc!

I also got a few gifts that were wrapped in an eco friendly way. I did not snap photos of them but here are some...

1) A stack of books for my little boy were tied together with a home made fleece scarf (from the same friend who had the great recycled birthday party invites in a previous post). Simply cut a strip of fleece, and then cut some fringes on the ends and you have a cozy, no-sewing-involved scarf!

2) A metal bucket filled with goodies (also for my little guy)...a great way to package gifts, and the bucket can be used for toy storage, sandcastles, or in my little boy's case, a drum!

3) A storage bin full of goodies. The past few years my mom has given each of us "kids" a nice storage bin, with all of our gifts inside. It saves a lot of paper over wrapping such a large box, and who can't use a storage bin?!

Those were just a few interesting ideas I got from my creative friends and family...I'd love to hear if any of you came across any new green holiday ideas this year!

I of course enjoyed giving a few green and home made gifts this year, from hand made soaps to vases out of old plates with sentimental meaning, to hand crocheted stuffed toys, and of course, some Junk Mail Gems jewelry!

Use Old Photos & Canning Lids to Capture Holiday Memories!

Here's another fun DIY Christmas decoration idea that my mom came up with. This has been hanging up in my parents' house for as long as I can remember. She used some old canning lids, felt, and ribbon to capture and display past Christmas memories.




Note that the bottom photo you see here is me and my brother & sister with our new Glow Worms by the Christmas tree. Good times...good times...

If you're not a canner yourself, ask around. You may have some friends or relatives that do canning who might have some lids for you to recycle. Use a circle template (or make one out of scrap cardboard) to make it easy to draw circles on old photos and cut them out to fit the lids. Cut out the photos and glue to the lids. My mom also put some tiny garland trim around the lids, but you could also use glitter, or whatever else you have around.

Cut out your felt pieces to be larger than the diameter of the lids. My mom cut them in a wavy pattern. You could do this, or make them smooth, or use pinking shears for a zig-zag. Line them up and glue the ribbon to the felt, making sure to leave a loop at the top to hang. Then, center your photo lids on the felt and glue down!



My mom also put a "Christmas Past" title on top, and added the year to each photo. If you're a young family just starting to create your holiday memories, leave some extra ribbon and add a new one each year!

This is something that you could really do with any holiday photos as a decoration...Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc. Just change the colors of the felt and ribbon to match the season! Sure makes a great decoration to hand on a narrow wall space or post, too!



Hey Mom, got any more of those lids around the house? If so, I'll take 'em! :-)