Reuse-It Featured Item - Cables

Old computer and phone cords can be a nuisance, cluttering up storage bins and becoming a tangled mess with old electronics. These annoying cables can actually be used to create beautiful and useful items around the house. Here our some examples of unique and practical ways to reuse and repurpose old computer and electronics cables.

Sarah

With the wide variety of colours, thicknesses, and even patterns that electrical cables have, they make a great material for any kind of yarn or string-based art. A crocheted wall hanging made entirely out of used wires from old telephone and electronics cords would be amazing!

Mallory

While there are many ways to up-cycle cables, this idea posted on makezine.com is my favourite. You can see from the supplies list that there is nothing that you would need that you wouldn't be able to find at any craft store!

Supplies:

* Epoxy resin, clear formula for crafting or jewelry-making

* Cables

* Mold release and conditioner

Tools:

* Resin mixing cups, stir sticks, and brushes set

* Nail file with shine and buff surfaces or ultra-fine sandpaper

* Kraft paper or newspaper to protect your worktable

* Masking tape

* Extra straight pin or toothpick to position the items in the resin

Tamara

Although it might take a bit of time, the end result looks super cool: DIY coasters out of old cables.

These are two good websites with instructions that look relatively straightforward to follow. Both of them involve using a piece of strong tape to stick on the start of your coil, and then continue wrapping around.

1. Mother Jones, uses materials that most people will likely have at home already.

2. Sierra Club 

This tutorial explains how to braid the colorful strands found inside a piece of cable for a unique presentation. I like the ironing described at the end. This is a smart way to prevent the coaster from coming apart.

Ellen

When your rat’s nest of cables gets packed up and moved to three different addresses all while modem, firewire, and telephone technology advances by several generations, it’s time to let go of the mess. I decided to make some jewelry with my embarrassingly large stash of unused wires.

I picked the oldest looking cable in my stash and cut each end, then sliced into the plastic coating and ripped it off. I was left with four sets of two wires wound around each other: red, blue, green, and grey.

Next, I tediously unwound the sets of wires. This took a long time and flirted with the line between peacefully therapeutic and utterly maddening. I folded the eight kinky wires in half and used just a few of the wires to wrap around the neck and make a knot. Then I simply started wrapping wires around the group. I alternated between wrapping one at a time and two at a time for a different effect. 

When my piece reached the desired length for a necklace, I used one wire to tie a few knots at the end. I used the longest piece of wire to create a makeshift bar to slip into the loop. It works, but I may replace the bar with a bead which would be sturdier.

I’m calling this craft the "Blast from the Past" upcycled necklace because not only is it retro looking but it also invoked memories of campground friendship bracelets as a child. Playful, unique, and thrifty, my kind of jewelry!

Image Source: Ellen

Vanessa

This cute basket is made of coloured cables that were destined for the Eco Station. You can use the basket for pretty much anything, keys, jewelry, or even spare change. For details on how to make your own, visit atomicshrimp.com.

Share your thoughts on ways to reuse cables in the comments section.

Halloween Tutorials - Mini Spell Book

Add a little touch of Halloween or straight up bibliophile glamour to your fall outfit with these recycled spell books, even the smallest amount of paper, card and leather can make one of these. So why not make a few and wear them all together?

What you'll need:

• Small piece of scrap leather, the more wrinkled and aged the better
• Small scrap of cardboard (hard back of a notebook would do fine)
• 1 piece of letter-sized printer paper
• Scrap of decorative paper
• 1 O ring
• Gold Sharpie pen (permanent marker)
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun
• Bull dog clip/bag clip
• Needle (to punch a hole)
• Yellow pages (to lean on)

1. Take one piece of printer paper (A4 if you're in the UK) cut it into 1 inch slices along the width of the paper. Divide the paper up into 5 smaller pieces which should measure roughly 1& 3/4 inches across. I used N.American letter-sized paper which I know is different to A4 so you'll have to play around with the sizes. Make a big pile of these rectangles then fold them in half and squeeze them with a bag clip/bulldog clip. All of the folded 'spines' should be facing the same side and that side should be poking out of the clip.

2. From the cardboard cut 2 rectangles, 7/8ths of an inch by 1 1/4 inches, these will be the front and back of the book, the spine should measure roughly 5/8ths by 1 1/4 inches.

3. Then tape them across the back leaving a hair's gap between the separate pieces, painters tape would be best but I used what I had.

4. If you left enough gap you should be able to fold the cardboard into a book shape.

5. Taking a scrap of decorative paper, draw around the book cover, depending on how large a gap you left the measurement for this will vary. Add double sided tape to the decorative paper and stick to the book cover, either side is fine.

6. Fold the book to give you a less flat book cover.

7. With a hot glue gun stick the wedge of papers folded 'spine' side down into the centre of the book cover, don't be scared to use a great big glob of hot glue, more is more in this case. Push down gently to make sure all the pages adhere nicely.

8. Give it a little squish if you want your book to sit more closed, don't if you want an open looking book.

9. With hot glue again take a scrap of leather and stick the outside of the book cover to it, you can trim round it once it's stuck, don't worry too much about the leather looking rough or feathered at the edges, it's meant to look old right?

10. Now for the fun bit, I used a Sharpie in gold with a fine tip and made a rough edge of gold around the outside of the book cover then smudged it with my finger to age it a little.

11. To give the spine more definition take the gold pen make a rough line and smudge it gently then add some small gold dots, smudging again if it looks too crisp. These books are teeny tiny so I was unable to add a legible title or writing to it. Instead, I made tiny dots of varying heights and smudged them. I just thought about where any text would be and put the dots there. In the pic below I gave the book yellowed pages by just scribbling along the book edges with a gold pen.

12. Punch a hole through the cover preferably with a needle and leaning on a yellow pages, making sure you also go through the cardboard (take it easy, I missed first time eek), add an O ring then put one or two on a chain, and wear them.

Have fun wearing your new necklace!

- Emma (Volunteer)