Post-Holiday Tissue Paper Crafting

Now that the holiday season is behind us, here is one way to minimize the household waste from everyone's favourite part of the holidays — the gift giving!

Tissue paper is a lovely addition to any present, but has few uses after everything has been unwrapped. One reuse idea is to use it for a lovely family arts and crafts session! All you need are scissors and glue, some warm water, a cup, your leftover tissue paper, a sheet of wax paper, and a paintbrush or sponge to make amazing artwork.

Directions

1. Cut your wax paper a little larger than you'd like your tissue paper art to be.
2. Dissolve the glue in warm water (I find that a ratio of 1:2 works well) in your cup.
3. Cut up your tissue paper into small pieces, to be glued onto the wax paper (squares or rectangles are a good shape to start with).
4. Sponge some glue mixture onto the wax paper in the area that you'd like to start placing your tissue paper.
5. Place tissue paper pieces onto the glue spots in the arrangement you'd like. Feel free to layer!
6. Pat down the tissue paper with your sponge, and make sure that you soak them through with the mixture.

7. Leave your art to dry.

8. Trim the wax paper edges down to the size that you want.

9. VOILA! Take a step back and look at your beautiful art piece! You can frame it, or place it somewhere that it will have light shining through, for a stained-glass look.

For an extra "Wow" factor, you can cut out some aluminum foil for a focal point, or add some glitter while the glue is still drying.

Happy crafting!

-Mallory (Volunteer)

All photos provided by Mallory

Novmber Reuse-it Item: Disposable Cutlery

Plastic cutlery: what do you do with it after you've used it? Resist the urge to chuck it in the garbage! Wash and reuse as-is, or try one of the fantastic ideas that our blogger team has gathered from the web.

Mallory

A few years ago I stumbled upon a lampshade made of plastic spoons, and absolutely loved the idea. Here is a way to reuse something designed to be clearly "disposable", and change its purpose entirely so that you could put it up for display in your house. 

As a pineapple fanatic, I am ecstatic about this idea  and can't wait to try it myself! All you need is a mold (balloon, large jar, etc.), plastic disposable spoons, scissors, and a hot glue gun. Then you're good to go!

Nichole
If someone had told me they made a mirror out of hot glue and plastic spoons, this is definitely not what I would have pictured! I am crazy about these chrysanthemum mirrors, which you can paint any colour to suit your needs. I'm in love with the cherry red on white shown in the picture, but I'm envisioning a mirror like this in jewel tones over a bedside table or makeup vanity. You can get free instructions for this particular mirror on UsefulDIY.com, but I also found a wealth of great examples on Pinterest.

Siao

Sculptures don't necessarily need to be heavy or costly to display in your own home. Although the dragon featured by RuthAnn below is indeed intriguing, if you are more like me, there are simpler and still beautiful sculptures to try, such as this pear.

 

RuthAnn

Most of us probably don't have time or the patience to turn our excess plastic cutlery into exotic art such as this dragon, but what a showstopper!

 

One of my favourite uses for disposable cutlery is to reuse them as small garden stakes when I am planting my seedlings. I use the forks to hold the seed packets, and I often just write on the knives and spoons. 

-Reuse Centre Volunteers

A Reuse View on the 20th Annual Edmonton Art Walk

The Edmonton Art Walk is an absolutely beautiful idea. 4 km worth of art lining Whyte Avenue with side streets blocked off for even more vendors to share and display their creations to the world - or at least our small section of it! 

The walk spanned from 101 to 108 Street on Whyte Avenue from the Friday to Sunday on the weekend of July 11 this year. The weather was hot, and there were no shortage of shops to stop by for a cool drink while I perused the colourful exhibits all around. 

I decided that since we like to talk about up-cycling here at the Reuse Centre, the Edmonton Art Walk would probably be an amazing place to find great examples of ways to up-cycle old things into something shiny, artsy, and new. I am happy to report that I was definitely not disappointed!

Here an artist used old pages as a background for her art.

A spare piece of wood as a painting canvas!

Distressed wood makes a great sign!

Paint is something that you can find at an Eco Station near you, free of charge!

Though it might be difficult to see, this artist used napkins as backgrounds for some of the houses in her artwork.

A great idea for holding art supplies (or flowers)!

Resin jewelry is a great way to use bits of things like lace, fabric, napkins, and fake flowers. And they're so stylish! 

Have an old skateboard kicking around the house? Turn it into art!

I thought this was also a pretty cool use of paint colour sample chips.

This interesting piece is made from up-cycled banisters, a pretty neat idea!

Wood on wood on wood art! I wish it could look so well planned if I tried this at home. But who knows, maybe it's my hidden talent. No way to know until you try!

This is one of my favourites. Pieces of fabric or napkins all glued together to make a beautiful background for this stunning piece. Every quilter knows that the scrap pieces pile up quickly and you can only use the scraps for a limited number of things. Now, here's another idea!

I thoroughly enjoyed myself at the Art Walk this year, and my only regret is that I didn't have enough time to see every art stall before the end of the day. The event is a brilliant way to showcase local artist talent, and a great family outing idea.

-Mallory (Volunteer)

Reusing in Edmonton: Green Window City Project

The Green Window City Project has brought Edmonton artists and business owners together to #rethinkjunk! How? With creative window installations made from reusable, but unwanted, materials. The event officially launched on April 18th with installations brightening several shop windows in Old Strathcona.

Green Window City Project organizer and Reuse Centre volunteer, Kelly Atkinson, may have "made up" the idea of the Green Window City project after getting involved in the Edmonton art scene and the Reuse Centre, but there was a lot of work involved in getting it off the ground. She had to create a dialogue with several Old Strathcona businesses and local artists to ensure their participation. Kelly also pitched her idea to the Awesome Edmonton Foundation and was awarded a small grant to help support the project.

She invited the Reuse Centre blogger team to participate in this recycled art initiative. We got together on Saturday, April 12 to help build an upcycled window installation to be displayed at Old Strathcona Books. Kelly’s vision for our installation was of large block letters, spelling out "WE ♥ YEG , one letter per window, and every letter covered in a different repurposed material from the Reuse Centre.

Finishing off the cardboard letters

So we cut the letters from cardboard then we all played Goldilocks for a few minutes as we browsed the shelves of the Centre for supplies. These shortbread tins are too big. These trophies are too heavy. These packing peanuts could be cool. But this Physics textbook and that smutty romance novel were just right. Back upstairs with our loot, we made a unanimous decision. The front of the block letters would be different, but the back of every letter would be covered in pages from some of the amusing books we found in the store. There were six letters to be decorated and six volunteers, so everyone chooses one. The "Y" was calling to me.

The G is ready! 

My "Y" ended up covered in bits and pieces from the Physics textbook, a Calculus textbook, a Windows '97 manual, a 2003 astrology guide for Aquarius, a directory of hydraulic motors, and choice sections from Blazing Vixen. Feeling impressed with myself, I started browsing the bounty we had brought upstairs for the perfect thing to decorate my letter.

Michelle working on the heart 

I covered my Y with large, multi-coloured, three-dimensional bows that look surprisingly fabulous glued closely together and covering every inch of cardboard. I had never been so proud of something I'd made by hand, and I don't think I'm the only one. Kelly's enthusiasm is so contagious, and we were all excited to be part of something so cool.

The final result, can you guess what we used to decorate the letters?

The installations officially launched on April 18th in Old Strathcona and will end on Sunday, April 27th. Event details can be found on the Green Window City website.  If the project is well-received, Kelly hopes to see Green Window City extend to other neighbourhoods. So show your support for this innovative recycled art project by stopping by this weekend to check out our installation and the 12 others in Old Strathcona!

- Nichole (Volunteer)