Upcycling

Hello everybody! Welcome to or back to Guiding at Home. Today I wanted to give you some ideas to start a journey of reuse and repurposing. Upcycling is prominent in everyday lives and some of us do it everyday without thinking about it. It is the simple act of taking an unwanted product and turning it into something new. You get something new out of it whilst helping the environment because if you had just thrown away it would have littered the planet waiting to degrade.

Upcycling can be as simple or complex as you like. Let's start simple with the mountain of empty cereal boxes in your recycling. There is so many things you can do with all that cardboard but my favourite thing to do is make magazine holders. They are great storage spaces for your school books or notebooks and you can add a lick of paint or rap it in fabric to add some colour. 

Next to add to your desk how about upcycling a tin can to make a pencil pot. Just clean the insides and take of the label and you have a pot to hold all your stationery. You can decorate it with paper and card. Make sure you are careful of the sharp edges.

Continuing lets see what we can do to help wildlife with our upcycling. With a lot of common waste products you can make loads of birdfeeders, let's take an empty milk jug or large bottle for example. You want to take your jug or bottle and cut holes in the side, these will be the windows for the birds to go in so make sure you make them big enough. You then need to poke holes in the top area so you can add string in to hang the feeder in the garden. All that is left to do is fill the bottom with feeder and your little friends will start coming for breakfast! You can decorate the jug or bottle to make it pretty if you want to. 

Finally into the wardrobe we go, I'm sure loads of you store old t-shirts that no longer fit (I know I do) but why not transform them into something new? This is a bit more complicated but I'm sure you can all do it. We are going to transform them into tote bags. First of all turn your t-shirt inside out. Then along the bottom sew a line, this will be the bottom of the bag. For a no sew option cut strips along the bottom then tie them together. Next you need handles so cut the sleeves of the t-shirt off and where the head hole is cut a U shape. Turn it back the right way round and tada you have a new tote bag!

These are just a few ideas but there are so many more, I've saved a few on the Guiding at Home Pinterest if you want to take a look - https://www.pinterest.co.uk/guidingathome/upcylcing/

If you have been reading my blogs this may come as no surprise but guess what there is a badge on upcycling so why not take a look and see if you can complete it.

Please comment what you have made, I would love to hear what you have been getting upto.

Thank you for reading and make sure you keep safe and keep on Guiding!