Recycled Project Round-up

I try to keep this blog to mostly crochet (or crochet adjacent) projects, but sometimes I can't help myself, I have to post non-crochet stuff because it's just too awesome.

I've spent the last week fully immersed in recycling creativity, and while I love the projects that I came up with, there are a ton of projects that other people have made that are so awesome they needed to be shared.  There's been such a cool vibe around here this week, I knew you guys would be into it!

I loved these recycled cereal box projects over at One Good Thing by Jillee.  I especially loved the pencil box project, since I think it would just make the coolest hook case.  I want to make a bunch of them!!!

This reusable lunch container is made out of a gallon milk jug!  How rad is that?!  I am so completely in love with this project!  You can check it out over at Spoonful.

This one is for my beautiful friend Teeni!  I loved what Kate over at Zmombie did when she discovered that her K-Cups weren't recyclable... I'm planning to start some gourd seeds next month in mine... 

Okay, so I can't post a picture of this next project because it's all linked up in one long tutorial, but it's soooo cool, you've got to go check it out.  It's a plastic soda bottle that someone turned into a vase.  Gorgeous.  The site is in Chinese, but the pictures don't need captions.  Great tutorial for a really beautiful project.  It would be a cool way to deliver flowers from your garden...

I know that you can buy pencils really cheaply, but I adored this project over at Share Your EcoIdeas! Mims and I can't wait to try making our own!  How rad would it be to be out at the park and to pull out a sketchbook and a homemade pencil and start sketching?! If you do this, you have to send me one!  I am sooo into it!!! (okay, you don't actually have to, but it would be a generous gesture, and giving really IS better than receiving...)

Okay, so that's all the awesome I have for you right now.  I've got a major craft fail to share later, but I forgot that we've got theater tickets today, so I might not get to it until tomorrow.   Also, I had one more thing that I feel like I need to say before I wrap up this week...

** Caution: Eco-Rant Ahead!  I needed to say it, but that doesn't mean that you have to read it.  I love you either way. **

One last thing:  There is a fine line between recycling to make the planet a better place, and recycling out of a massive crushing guilt that you're killing the planet because your drink straw doesn't decompose.  You know I love you, and you know I love our world, but I have a dining room filled with literal garbage right now that I was using as art supplies.  I can't live like that on a normal, every day basis.  I'm going to have to put most of it in our recycle bin, and I'm also going to have to be okay that some of it is going to go into the trash can.  I know that I've dramatically cut down my plastics consumption lately, because I'm now aware of all of the packaging that products/food/daily-life comes in.  I am making different (better, informed) choices for myself and our planet, and I'm not going to let myself become overwhelmed by guilt fear anger shame anything that I've done/not done in the past that I can't un-do/do now.  

It's such a slippery slope, this eco-thinking, because it's not just you. Or me. It's manufacturers who should know better (I'm looking at you, Kraft Foods, purveyor of Capri Sun pouches).  It's convenient meals, and convenient bags to carry the meals home in.  It's plastic wrapping on paper towels. It's restaurants that serve meals in styrofoam.  It's not any one person's fault.  We all work hard.  Very, very hard. The convenience of being able to pop a plastic tray into the microwave and have dinner in 4 minutes is sometimes the difference between me and insanity.  There is a high cost of cooking every meal from scratch, and that cost is time, and sometimes that price is too high.  We have to cut ourselves some slack, and allow ourselves to be flawed, imperfect, and still consider ourselves a good person. Some of you may want to argue with me about this, and that's okay, I'd love to throw this up for discussion.

This week has been eye-opening for me, and I'm excited and thrilled to discover new ways that I can use things that I already have, but I'm not going to have a melt down if my sister surprises me with an ice-blended chai tea in a plastic to-go cup.  I'll enjoy the surprise, and recycle what I can.  Because I'm flawed, imperfect, and I'm a good person.

xoxo