5 Winter Upcycled Hacks

Winter is a season of many things, the holidays coming in first and foremost among them for most of us, presenting us with nearly unlimited opportunities for useful and beautiful crafts and hacks for our homes, both inside and out.

Whether you're looking to create a festive atmosphere, or you simply want to get the very most out of some unused items when you've got the time to transform them during the chilliest months of year, check out these five winter upcycled hacks, for yourself and to gift:

1. Arm Warmers

5 Cute Upcycled Hacks for Christmas

Christmas is coming, and no that wasn't the beginning of a carol. We are gearing up for one of the most popular holidays around, putting up our trees and hanging up stockings. It also means that DIY junkies like me are looking for projects for house decor and handmade gifts. Especially those that upcycle old items and save on materials.

Pinterest has once again come to the rescue. Anyone who has been on their DIY board knows that it is filled with cool ideas in both the simple and impossibly advanced categories. Whatever level you are at yourself, you can find something fun to do any time of the year.
But with it being winter, you can bet there are even more Christmas themed upcycle projects than ever. Here are five super cute upcycled hacks for the holidays.

1. Sock Wreath

10 Cute Tips for Upcycled Kitchen Decor

Upcycling is a really big hobby for many people these days. Part of that is due to the years of living under a difficult economy during the financial crisis. But for others, it is just a fun interest they have always enjoyed and continue to do so. There are certainly a lot of blogs and social media posts dedicated to the practice, and thanks to Macklemore, second hand shops are more popular than ever. At least some of what is bought there is sure to end up as part of a project.

To get tips on how to upcycle, such as projects involving kitchen d?cor, sometimes it is best just to look at what people have already made. Here are ten tips from upcycled items around the web, all having to do with kitchens.

1. Kitchen Utensil Chimes

Upcycle-Inspired with Pinterest

Pinterest is one of the coolest social networks I am hanging out at. It is so addictive! I use it to source upcycling ideas for this blog as well!

A few days ago I came this beautiful article listing some of the coolest DIY projects found on Pinterest. How cool is that?!

Hipstagram Wall! I love it!

What are your thought?

4 Ways To Create A Kitchen Garden Using Upcycled Materials

 

Whether you live in an apartment and have no yard space or are just enchanted with the idea of growing a bit of food in your own kitchen or on your porch, creating a kitchen garden can be fun and rewarding. There are, of course, a host of kitchen garden pots, planters and other tools available for purchase, but why not create your kitchen garden using upcycled materials? What better way is there to be kind to the environment while enjoying home-grown food straight from your own kitchen?

What to Grow 

A number of plants are suitable for a kitchen garden, but it is important to take into account root depth, sunlight requirements and more. Below are a few suggestions of plants worthy of consideration for your kitchen garden.

• Strawberries: Nothing quite beats the romance of picking plump, red berries off your own personal plants. Because they are shallow-rooted plants, they adapt well to container growing.
• Lettuce: Incredibly easy to grow, lettuce is a top candidate for kitchen gardens, especially if you choose a cut-and-come-again lettuce blend. There are some fantastic seed blends with a wide range of leaf textures and colors and tastes that vary from bland to spicy.
• Herbs: The best chefs use fresh herbs. Join their ranks by planting your own food seasonings such as chives, basil, rosemary, parsley and thyme.
• Tomatoes: Be cautious when selecting tomato plants. If you have limited space, you will want to look for patio container varieties. These will stay a bit more contained than some of the bigger garden varieties. You can also grow tomato plants specifically for indoor growing, as they don't require bees to pollinate them. Although the pollen naturally drops from one flower to another, some growers suggest gently shaking your tomato plant to encourage pollination.
• Radishes: Their compact size and bursts of color make it a no brainer – it must be included in the kitchen garden!
• Dwarf Carrots: While your average carrot is too long for many containers, the more compact, ball-type carrots work well.

These are some of the easiest to grow and most popular plants for a kitchen garden. Of course, you can grow many other things, but keep in mind that plants such as watermelon and squash need a lot of space! Once you have decided what to grow, it is time to get down to the business of finding containers in which to plant.

10 Ways to Upcycle a Suitcase

Everyone should have a good piece of luggage, even if they only travel occasionally. But what happens when you no longer need a particular set? Maybe you got something new, or you went a little suitcase crazy and picked up too many at a second hand shop. Or you might just have worn it through and need to do something with the old luggage.

Don't be so quick to throw it out. Instead, check out these awesome and creative upcycling ideas for old suitcases.

1. Storage Ottoman

Upcycle Books into Book Couch!

5 Awesome Book Purses

Reading is a treasured pass time and one of the greatest things you can do. There is nothing quite as satisfying as sinking into a story and losing yourself to the plot, characters and excitement.

Which is something that fewer and fewer people are enjoying these days, the lack of appreciation of books depressing. Even with the creation of ereaders, which give us greater access than ever.
Why not do your part to show books some love? Check out these awesome purses that upcycle your favorites.

1. Harry Potter

While the series is now over and done with, Harry Potter will go down in history as one of the most popular fictional worlds of all time. Order of the Phoenix is a favorite of many, and this Etsy seller is offering purse with custom fittings, buckles, straps and decorations using the cover. I have seen many other Harry Potter books used, with every title available.

10 Cool DIY Projects Using Old Tires

The other day I was in my garage and I realized something: we have way too many tires. Living where we do, we end up driving into the mountains a great deal, or further south and into the dessert. Both types of terrain can be rough on rubber, and we go through a full set of tires once a year. For a long time we just threw the old ones out, but now we have been patching and reusing them instead of purchasing new ones.

Obviously, this is better than tossing them both environmentally and economically. But we still have more than we need, and I had no idea what to do with them. Sell them? Give them away? That is when my Pinterest instinct kicked in and I knew I had to see if I could find some good upcycling projects for them.

These are the ten coolest I found.

1. Tire Swing

Turn an Old Crib into a Craft Shelf, Art Table, Wall Decor + 7 More DIY Ideas

There are a lot of cribs out there these days that act as a full sleep system. They go from a crib to a toddler bed, and sometimes even to a base for a full twin later on. But not all of them do this, or live long enough to make it into all three incarnations.

I know both of my kids brother their cribs long before they could become even a toddler bed. Which should tell you something about my children.

For those leftover pieces, you might not know what to do with them. If the crib is intact you can always try and sell it, or maybe offer it in freecycle. But most are leery about taking a used crib, especially with all the recalls to hit the baby industry in recent years. You may not have as much success as you hope for.

Instead, why not get creative? Pinterest, home of all things DIY, has a ton of awesome ideas for upcycling cribs. Stylish, interesting and functional additions to your home are just a project away.

1. Wall Decor

You could do a lot with this idea, because it is entirely based around your personal tastes for decor and art. I like the concept of converting the grip springs into a canvas board, because it is light weight and yet would easily hold different items. You could probably come up with some other ways based on this principle.

5 Coolest DIY Christmas Gifts

We are now far enough into the Christmas holiday that we are all burnt out from shopping, hungover from parties and sick to death of the music, am I right? It may only be December 7, but it all starts so early these days that I feel as though it is all almost over. Even with weeks to go before the big day is really here. A point that I am constantly reminded of every time I look at the list of presents I still have to make.

I never do big gifts for most of my list. Friend, coworkers, neighbors, my kid's teachers and extended family members are usually on a separate list. One where the main point isn't to give them something so much as it is to show I am thinking of and appreciating them. This is best done (in my opinion) through things I made myself, rather than anything bought from the store.

But what to give? I try to break everyone up into two categories: edible and non-edible. People closer to me go with the former, as it takes more effort for me to make those. The latter are given edible gifts that I can make in bulk and wrap up nicely.

Our previously featured DIY hacks:

• 3 eco-friendly DIY Christmas wreaths 
• CD Christmas Tree
• LED Lights in a Bottle
• Ping-Pong Balls into Diffused Party Lights
• Light Bulb Christmas Tree

This year, myself and my kids will be working together on presents. So I thought I would find some new ideas of DIY Christmas items...here are the five I like most.

Christmas DIY Ideas: 5 Ways to Decorate Using Candles and Glass Jars

I have so many glass jars! Seriously, I have an entire cupboard full of them, most of them from old food items like pasta sauce, salsa and olives. I don't know what to do with them and I never have. While I recycle, my local place doesn't take glassware and I would have to go clear into another county to get rid of them. Which isn't exactly eco friendly when you consider the driving involved to get three hours out of town to the nearly recycling facility that takes glass.

As a result, I tend to take a fair number of them to reuse as water glasses. You know, the big ones you put on the bedside table to combat the effects of winter dryness, and all that. A couple of others have been filled and used as vases, though fresh flowers aren't much of an option now that winter has arrived. My kids have even each used one for their 'rewards jar', which they take a prize from at the end of each week as an allowance for doing their chores.

I have run out of ideas on what to do with these multiplying menaces. I learned how to make my own sauce and salsa in order to avoid acquiring anymore. But what to do with the few dozen still crammed into a cupboard in my kitchen...I could use the space!

This past weekend I sat down and started to really search out things to do with them. The holidays are just around the corner, so it seems like a good time to put them to use. I was relieved to find many struggle with this question, and some pretty cool ideas have come out of upcycling needs. As you would expect, a whole lot of these people had gathered on Pinterest. Man, I love that site.

Here are five of my favorites glass jar upcycling ideas for Christmas (psst: Don't forget to check out our previous glass jar DIY projects: DIY Glass Jar Lanterns and DIY Sun Jars).

1. Table Decorations

Why Haven't I Thought about That: DIY Photo and Postcard Organizer

You are most likely to have lots of photos, lots of memories. You like entering your home and being met by those memories. That's what make us feel at home!

However there's never a good way to organize them: Photo frames are boring (you can't often change photos in them) and they don't always fit. Besides, they cannot have too many photos inside...



 But how about this idea: You can use this DIY shelf  to store postcards and photos. You can re-arrange them as often as you want even daily always creating a new mood! How brilliant!

Plus with some paint and creativity you can make this shelf look cute!

Calculator Keys into DIY Fridge Magnets

We all had those huge ugly calculators in the old days. Now we don't need them: we have laptops, tablets and smartphone calculator apps.

But what to do with those almost vintage devices we store in the garage. Here's one cool idea: create fun DIY fridge magnets to help your kid learn math.

Looks awesome!

 

Details via Thrive

Here are more ways to reuse keyboard and calculator keys:

• Old Keyboard to Decorate Your T-Shirt
• Computer Keyboard Necklace
• Keyboard Rings

Plastic Basket into the Ribbons Organizer

Some little hacks require no work at all. It's just the brilliant idea.

Here's one most of DIY craft lovers will appreciate: yet another absolutely awesome idea to organize your DIY stuff at home.

Brilliant!

Via Sustainablog

Wine Bottle + NY Times = Stylish Vase

If you have been inspired by our previous DIY project and created a geeky dictionary lamp, you will find this vase simply awesome.

It looks awesome and will complement any geeky interior perfectly!

 

Via Etsy

5 Awesome Things You Can Make with Light Bulbs

It's amazing how creative some people may get. Imagine you have an old non-working light bulb. Most of us will simply throw it away. Some of us will probably recycle it. And only very few the best of us will turn it into something useful and amazing.

We have covered some awesome light bulb gadgets previously. Let's list them as well a few new ones here.

Recycle Used Bulbs into Light Sculptures

It's an awesome idea to turn a broken non-working light bulb into an awesome chandelier. It's like giving them the light bulbs the second chance or the second life!

Light Bulb into a Mini Green House

For those who love green houses and indoor gardening, here's a great idea to diversify your routine: cute little mini-greenhouses inside a light bulb!

Light Bulb Vertical Gardens

These would make a great decoration for your garden or yard!

Light Bulb Fish Bowl Tank

You will need really tiny fish for it bit all in all this would make an amazing gift idea!

Recycle Old Light Bulbs into Mini Vases

Another cool gift idea, especially for a girl!

Teapot Bird House

That's just the cutest thing I have seen in my life.

The teapot looks somewhat vintage but I am sure there are plenty of various combinations how this may look.

Running to the attic now to find something cool to build a bird house now!


Via Pinterest 
Find more green gardening ideas with these green-inspired instructographics

Use Forgotten Talents To Recover Your Lost Treasure

Image credit
There are lots of things you can make yourself (or grow yourself) instead of buying and spending excessive amounts of money on them. Often, the things we can make ourselves end up working better than the mass produced version anyway! So here is a great list of how you start making your own things and saving those pennies too.

Herbs

Do you buy fresh herbs every time you head off to the supermarket? If so, you could be wasting lots of money! It costs barely anything to purchase some little seeds and start growing your own – and you’ll save ever so much from buying them at a premium in the supermarket. There’s something really satisfying about eating something you’ve grown too!

Our previous projects to help:

• Phone Book Seedbed

Greeting Cards

Every birthday and Christmas we receive lots of cards from loved ones and friends – but they only end up getting thrown away once the celebration or holiday is over. Instead of throwing them away though, we can easily recycle them into new "home-made" greeting cards for others.

There are plenty of online tutorials on how to do this, and you’ll save such a lot of money in the long run. All you need to do is purchase some glue, a few nice pens (which you probably already have!) and perhaps a roll of pretty ribbon.

Our previous projects to help:

• Reuse a Floppy Disk into a Turnable Greeting Card

Mittens

In the winter we always get pretty cold hands – and most us forget to take our gloves out with us! But did you know you can easily recycle an old jumper or sweater into some cute mittens? Here’s a great little tutorial about this, so you can do the same! And each old, forgotten jumper can make around three pairs of mittens!

Household Cleaners

Often, our household cupboards are full of cleaning brands and bottles of things – that we rarely use. With the average cleaning liquid costing around £2.99, this can really quickly add up and bust anyone budget! But, did you know that you can easily make your own using simple ingredients found around the house?

This article provides a great list of recipes for creating your own cleaning solutions.

If you take a look at this list you will notice that they barely take any time or effort to create, and can save you lots of money in the long-run! There are many other things you can consider too, such as growing your own fruit and vegetables (although you’ll need a garden for this). Think about recycling clothes in other ways too, there are some great ideas for this online – all it takes is some quick research to learn some new, interesting ideas.

If you have children, you could even look into making their toys yourself. My Mum made me ragdolls when I was young our of old school dresses and clothes. Each doll was new surprise and I loved them even more because she’d made them for me especially. If you have a dab-hand at sewing, then this is a great idea!

This do-it-yourself post comes from the creators of forex trading platforms, IronFX.com.

Repurposing Last Season's Sandals

Don't you hate it when a pair of your favorite sandals goes out of style the moment you take it home? I can't tell you how many times I have fallen prey to a fashion trend that quickly died out, and quite frankly, I'm tired of it.

In an effort to save money and get the most out of my footwear investments, I have found some ways to repurpose last season's sandals. Now I can really enjoy those funky flip flops I begged my husband to buy me, even if no one else in the world wants to wear them.

Here are some quick tips to help you reuse, recycle, and re-enjoy some of your favorite summer shoes:

New Sandals

You could just give your sandals a facelift to make them look new again. Add rhinestones, strings of beads, hemp, fabric ties, or whatever else you want to the shoes. You could also use fabric paint to change them to a different color, or you could replace the straps with a new material.

Make the sandals a perfect fit for your wardrobe, and you will know for a fact that they are one-of-a-kind.

Picture Frames

Why not make your shoes into cute displays for photos in your home? This will only work for sandals with a relatively flat soles and minimal straps.  You can us a box knife to cut out a rectangle to fit a picture in, and then you can set the picture in the shoe with a little piece of glass on top. You could get this glass from another picture frame, or you could use clear plastic instead. Most craft stores will sell thin sheets of Plexiglas that you can cut with scissors or a box knife. That will make the perfect cover.

If the edges around the photo look a little jagged, glue on some rope or part of the straps. Then just add a triangular piece of matting or cardboard to the back for support, and you can put this super chic frame on any table in your home.

Coat Racks

You could easily turn your sandals into hooks for hanging things. Just get a piece of wood to secure the shoes to, and then use screws or glue to put them toe-down on the board. Then you can buy some decorative clothes hangers and put one in the toe of each shoe.

You could also buy a hook to secure in the toe, but that kind of defeats the purpose of the shoe in general. Try to incorporate the footwear as much as you can. Add a wire to the back so you can hang this on the wall, and you should be good to go. Something like this may even be good enough to win you a scholarship if you play your cards right.

Coasters

At first glance, a pair of shoes on a table may seem out of place. If you clean them up nicely though, they can look like actual coasters for your drinks. Glue a circular piece of cork board to the inside of the shoe, and you will be able to use your sandals just like you would any other coasters. Who knows – you may start a trend for the neighborhood!

There are plenty of ways to repurpose last season's sandals if you just think outside the shoebox. Figure out a way to really let these shoes shine, and you will not have to worry about throwing away perfectly good shoes.

About the Author: Lisa Winehart is an active fashionista who is currently going to college on a left-handed scholarship. She uses her innovative creativity to propel her career and her hobbies at the same time.