Recycled Wrapping Paper Crafts

Everybody goes through much more waste this month than the rest of the year, mostly due to the waste created by gift wrapping. However, it seems a shame to throw all of that pretty paper into a landfill. After the presents have been ripped open, these crafts will help you give new life to all that barely used paper!

Wrapping Paper Basket DIY

 This fun basket is great for craft supplies and little nic nacs. It's easy enough that your children can help you with it, and it is a fun way to store a few of the new gifts they unwrapped!

Wrapping Paper Bookmark DIY

These bookmarks are a great future gift for any book lover in your family, or to mark your spot in your new book that your received as a gift! 

Frame From Rolled Paper DIY

 This tutorial is actually for newspaper, but we think it could be even more beautiful with wrapping paper! It's a great little frame that could be used as a gift in the future, or used to decorate your house!

Book Covers DIY

If you ever had to make a book cover in grade school, you already know how to do this craft! Use your wrapping paper to protect your books and make them stylish!  

Soap Cozy DIY

Imagine how great this could look with bright, shimmery holiday wrapping? We like this to spruce up any soap container!

Card DIY

 For fun and festive cards you can't really beat these. Plus it adds a nice homemade touch to all of your cards.

Wrapping Paper Star DIY

These lovely wrapping paper stars would make a great ornament for parties year round (as long as it doesn't have any season specific images)!

Office Supply Cans

 Spruce up some tin cans and make these beautiful and chic office supply cans!

Holiday Season Upcycling DIYs

It's officially the start of the holiday season, and so it's only fitting that we have an upcycling blog post! There are so many fun crafts out there for any skill level. We've gathered X DIYs for you to try out this holiday season! Good luck!

Ornament Garland

DIY tutorial

This garland is pretty cute, and it's a fun and easy way to upcycle old ornaments that you aren't using this year, or extra ones that don't fit on your tree. The tutorial seems pretty easy and full of holiday cheer! 

Recycled Jar Snow Globe

DIY tutorial

Fun and cheerful looking, there's nothing not to like about this little snow globe! You can use an old mason or spaghetti jar and have a cute gift or decoration for the holiday season. 

Recycled Paper Tree

DIY tutorial

Either as a mantlepiece or a centerpiece, we think this lovely, wintery paper tree would brighten up any area and give it a little bit of seasonal flair. Maybe, if you were daring, you could test ou adding color to the sheets of paper first, although it looks great in white as well. 

Holiday Card Ornaments

DIY Tutorial

Every holiday season is brightened by the mail. Holidays are probably the one time of year where you consistently get mail other than bills and it's kind of nice! When the season ends it's easy to feel guilty trashing or recycling old cards, but this craft gives you a way to enjoy them for years to come! These ornaments work well on a tree, but we also think it could work well in a glass centerpiece. 

Stick Star Ornament

DIY tutorial

While yard waste is compostable, if you don't have a composting service or your own compost pile, dealing with those sticks and leaves from late fall and early winter can be a hassle. This craft deals with those sticks, although it could be fun to superglue some leaves on the front to make it very natural looking. 

Magazine Paper Ornament

DIY tutorial

Folded and coiled magazine paper can make for very interesting crafts. They're colorful and somehow feel chic, even though they're homemade. These ornaments are sure to impress and brighten up any tree. 

Cone Trees

DIY tutorial

This craft takes old dixie cups, toilet paper rolls, and scrap wrapping paper and makes a fun and decorative gift.  This fun craft is an easy way to give a smaller gift and looks very nice to boot! 

Cereal Box Snowman

DIY tutorial

Using old cereal boxes for crafts is always fun, but this cute snowman is sure to make everyone happy with the end result! 

Punched Tin Ornaments

DIY tutorial

These vintage looking tin ornamens have a high class feel, but are easy for even children to make! Plus you get to reuse tins from all your holiday cooking. These are fun and even more lovely shining against holiday lights.

Fabric Trees

DIY tutorial

If you're normally crafty, this craft may be perfect. Leftover fabric scraps will become chic and fun fabric trees for your holiday decorating. 

These are definitely some great Upcycling crafts that should lead to some fun snow days spent inside and some festive decor! 

Top 10 Thanksgiving DIYs

It's just a little over a week and a half until Thanksgiving. It's hard to believe the holiday got here so quickly! If you're hosting a get together at your house it's probably about time to start decorating. It's easy to buy decorations at the store, but it is often cheaper and greener to make some yourself, using things you have around the house, plus a few store-bought craft supplies! Today's blog is our top 10 Thanksgiving decoration DIYs. Check them out!

Give Thanks Tablecloth

The table is a crucial part of Thanksgiving- it's a holiday that is all about eating and giving thanks! So what better than a thanksgiving tablecloth? This burlap tablecloth is very chic, and it can also be very personal since you're making it yourself! 

Thanksgiving Centerpiece Bottle Trees

 Centerpieces are also a very important part of thanksgiving. These bottles that have been repurposed as decorations make a great centerpiece, but we think you can use them all winter long on your mantel as well!

Thankful Tree

The idea behind this tree is to have guests write what they are thankful for on the slips of paper. It's a fun way to get everyone's ideas on it, and if you eat with the same people every year you can continue to add to it, so you will have years worth of thankful memories!

Giving Thanks Cigar Box

 This fun box allows everyone to write down a memory and keep it in the box. If you like the idea of time capsules, this could work great! It will also be a box you can reuse every year.

Thanks bottle mantel piece

This is a little different than the other bottle craft we have. This one you can put whatever words on it you like (as long as you have enough bottles)! It might be fun to do the family name and change the decorations with every season!

Thanksgiving Tree

 This is another craft we've had an alternative version for, however this one is a little more Thanksgiving specific with the leaves. It might be fun to use the leaves first as the place setting, and then have everyone flip the leaf over and write what they're thankful for after or right before dinner.

2x4 Thanksgiving Turkey Tutorial

 This 2x4 Turkey is so cute and you could use it to decorate any room in your house! This tutorial does a great step-by-step guide to making your new turkey friend.

Branches Leaf

 The unfortunate thing about this tutorial is that it isn't very specific- but the poster brings up a good point that with a little hot glue or wire it would be easy to recreate, and all of your supplies can be found in your front lawn!

Glitter Wreath

 This wreath is trendy and fun. We also think the best way to make the leaves is with old cardboard that you then paint over and glitter up!

Gratitude Mobile

This mobile is a fun craft to do a little bit ahead of Thanksgiving with the kids, so they remember to be grateful even before they take a bite of the turkey.

Those are our top picks! Do you have any great crafts that you've found this thanksgiving or have a favorite of the ones we've shared? Be sure to let us know in the comments!

Featured Article: Reuse Campaign Signs

Finally, after what feels like a long campaign here in Iowa, the elections are over. Regardless of political afiliation there is something everyone can agree on, campaign signs are very hard to deal with after the election! The mixed use of materials makes them hard to recycle and all the work that goes into making them weatherproof often makes them non-recyclable as well. However, our featured article found a fun way to reuse those old signs- to give you additions for your bike for next spring. Imagine riding down the street with this cool basket:

Now, thanks to your bulky political sign you can! The article we found gives a couple different cool bike additions all made from old campaign signs.

What do you think? Is this a good way to reuse campaign signs? What do you normally do with yours after the election?

Read the full article here.