Mason Jars into Elegant Garden Lanterns

On: Monday, August 8, 2011

Mason jars work great as upcycling material: they look pretty (no need for extra decor) and are rather thick and reliable (they aren't even afraid of open fire).

Here's a detailed tutorial on creating stylish mason jar lanterns to decorate your garden.

You will need:
  • 1 pint or ½ pint mason jars
  • 2-2 ½ feet of bailing wire per lantern
  • Sand
  • Votive or tea light candles
Tools:
  • Pencil
  • Wire cutters
  • Needle Nose Pliers

Mason Jars into Elegant Garden Lanterns

More cool DIY ideas for garden lanterns

Plastic Bottle into a Bird Feeder

On: Friday, August 5, 2011

Bird feeders are always fun to make as you can easily enroll your kids into the process. It is awesome to watch birds coming and it also teaches your children to care for the Nature (which, in turn, makes them kinder, more responsible and eco-conscious).

Here are a couple of nice-looking useful and smart ways to re-use your old plastic bottles into bird-feeders:

1) For this one, apart from a large plastic bottle, you will also need two wooden spoons that work as actual feeders. The wholes above the spoons will let bird seeds out, but not too much:

Plastic Bottle into a Bird Feeder

2) I fell in love with this one: the roof looks fantastic! And your kids will love the idea of "Welcome home" message. It must really feel at home there:

Plastic Bottle into a Bird Feeder

Recycle Old-Fashioned Belts into a Garden Chair

On: Thursday, August 4, 2011

If you have an old lawn chair that is already too old to offer your barbecue guests to sit on it, here's a great idea to renovate it: use your old forgotten western belts as webbing for the tired chair.

Recycle Old-Fashioned Belts into a Garden Chair

Breathe new life into your backyard chair!

Plastic Bottles into Upside Down Herb Planters

On: Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Plastic Bottles into Upside Down Herb Planters

If you love planting and adore original designs and ideas, you will find this idea simply awesome! Plant herbs upside down and use old plastic bottles for this!
  • These save plenty of space;
  • They look amazing and fun (your guests and friends will love it!)
  • That's an awesome way to reuse old plastic bottles.

Plastic Bottles into Upside Down Herb Planters

Here's the detailed instruction as well as another way to implement the idea.

More ways to re-use those plastic bottles:

Light Bulb into a Mini Green House

On: Monday, July 18, 2011

lightbulb plant
If you are into in-house planting, you'll love this fun idea: turn a light bulb into a tiny greenhouse.
Here's the detailed instruction (and make sure to look though the comments as well).

I am not sure what happens if / when a plant outgrows the bulb - but I guess there's a way to find a really tiny plant for it to grow inside for a long time.

Ideas?

lightbulb greenhouse
Here are a few interesting takeaways from the comments:
  • Will the plant need air?

    If you give the plants an airtight house, you create a mini ecosystem and the water that's inside will eventually evaporate to the top, condensate on the glass, and fall back down like rain.  It will keep doing that over and over, and you end up hardly ever having to water
  • Do the plant grow, and does it stop growing?

    The plants don't really grow much- a little bit, but they have stayed small enough to not outgrow the terrarium.  A few of the little fern babies have doubled or tripled in size over the course of many months, but they were very tiny to begin with.
More plants in a bulb:

lightbulb plant
lightbulb plant
lightbulb greenhouse 


More greenhouse and planting gadgets:

Vinyl Record Covers into a Box

On: Thursday, July 14, 2011

Vinyl record cover box

We have had quite few DIY ideas on how to recycle vinyl records including several projects in upcycling them into check bags and purses (Stylish vinyl records purse and cool vinyl records bags) as well as other, more creative ideas (like cool vinyl records bags and vinyl record into a cool necklace).

But how about the vinyl record covers we all store at home? How can we reuse them as well?

Here's a fun and very useful idea: vinyl record cover box (find the full tutorial here).

Gotta love the stylish design that would make a perfect match into a retro interior! And it looks like a useful storage utility too! On top of all, it looks easy to do and is absolutely free.

Vinyl record cover box
Thanks to Kate of Silver Prices Today for sending this cool tip!

Wine Bottle into the Garden Borders

On: Wednesday, July 13, 2011

wine bottles edges

If you like gardening and recycling, I am sure you are always looking for new creative ways to combine the two.

Here's an awesome tip for you: use wine bottles as borders and edges: this looks nice and is 100% eco-friendly. They can be arranged in a pretty way and they will never get old: will last as long as they want to keep them in the garden.

You may enroll you whole neighborhood into collecting the bottles. This should be fun!

wine bottled garden edges
wine bottles borders

Via 

More ideas on recycling wine bottles:
More gardening DIY projects: