Upcycling Magazines into Envelopes

It has been a really busy few weeks for me and should continue that way for a little while longer. I am right in the thick of hiring season and 100 other things at work. With all this going on I haven’t really been shopping, we’ve just been trying to stay afloat and awake. My big plan is to get everything done this week and make up for the lost sleep over Memorial Day weekend. If you don’t see too many post from me this week don’t be alarmed I’ve got lots of great things planned I just need to get everything typed up and ready to post.

Until then I wanted to leave you with a craft. This weekend after coming home from work I spent some time making up a few recycled envelopes. They are so quick to make and allow me to reuse all my magazines.

In order to make the template I took apart a small envelope I had lying around. I then reduced it by 25% using our copy machine so I could have two sizes. As I read through my magazines if I saw a picture I liked I tore out the page to use. Next I traced the template to the page, cut them out, folded, and glued together. They don’t take much time to make at all and I did them while watching TV.

I made this whole box last night in about two hours. My next plan is to separate a few of them into sets for easy viewing. Sadly you can’t actually use them for mailing because the USPS machines won’t be able to read the bar codes and they’re a little thin they’d be great for putting them in other envelopes or including them with gifts.

Hopefully I’ll be able to list a few on etsy and maybe get a couple sets to a craft show soon.

Cheap Yarn

I know what your thinking, that’s a lot of yarn, it probably cost you a ton. (There goes meg again buying yarn even though she keeps saying she’s getting rid of stuff).

This yarn was all upcycled from > those sweaters I showed you back in March. It took me quite a while to rip out all the yarn and then re wrap it but I think I’ve got a nice stash started now. I love how my self made center pull balls turned out. I used the tutorial from Laughing Purple Gold Fish Designs it’s just so simple. I wouldn’t have been able to do this on my own if it wasn’t for her easy tutorial, and it saved me about $50 to $100 from having to buy a ball winder.

New Feature - Recycled Crafts

Today is a big day at OnOurWay because today I’m launching a new feature.

It seems that each day on the web I find another great project made from recycled materials. I also find people looking for how they can recycle items around their homes. This new web page brings both together in one location.
Stop by our new Recycled Crafts page to find great ways you can reuse and upcycle the trash in your home.

Recycled Crafts highlights great reused projects from blogs and websites all over the web. The page is categorized by items to be recycled such as paper, plastic bags, toilet paper rolls, and kitchen items. Hopefully this layout will make it easier for you to navigate. You can also use the find command in most browsers to search for a certain category. I would like to one day put them into a searchable database but I’m still learning.


This list encompasses the projects I’ve found to be amazing and useful for others. I’ve tried to find the best of the best but of course I know I’ve missed some. If you have a great recycled craft project or known of a blog that does email me and let me know. I also have another fifty or so projects waiting to be added so expect this page to update frequently. I hope you keep checking back for the latest and greatest in recycled projects. And please let me know what you think of our new page I'd love to hear your comments.


Forget other people – make your trash a new treasure

More Sweater Yarn

My craft this week was taking a picture of my craft to do next week.

I know not very creative, but I did get all these great sweaters for 50% making them about $1.80 a piece. I love the orange and green colors in the back and all the sweaters should make some great yarn.

I might even use one for some at home dyeing with directions from Laughing Purple Goldfish. She also has a great set of instructions on how to make a center pull ball of yarn something I hope I can figure out with this yarn.

Unique, frugal and good for the earth gift wrap options

There are a ton of ways to save on gift wrap this year not only for your wallet but also for our planet. Rather than going out and spending a ton on metallic paper that won't biodegrade consider some of these options.

Below are two gifts I wrapped in brown craft paper found at Wal-Mart for $1.88 you could also turn a brown paper bag inside out and use that for a free solution. I decorated them by using the persons name cut from different types of papers. The first is from another Sunday comic page and the second from some left over wrapping paper. (you know the part on the sides you always have to cut off but never have a gift small enough to use it on). The bow is also made from the same left over wrapping paper. The stencils I used were a little too big for the gifts, I'll have to purchase a smaller set for next year. Even with all of that, I"m still really happy with the way they turned out. For different lettering looks you could also use a newspaper page full of text, a large picture from a newspaper or magazine, the inside of security envelopes, or even some pretty scrap booking paper or stationary.

Of course if you have a lot of stamps laying around you could also choose to stamp your craft paper for a holiday look. It's really hard to tell in the attached picture (sorry) but I stamped this gift with red presents and green trees. I also added a little glitter to the gifts to make them stand out. I'm hoping it doesn't all rub off before we get to our Christmas party. My husband so loves when I bring out the glitter so I'm sure this is his favorite method. I only spilled a little this time, I swear.

For another option I completely wrapped one of Matt's gifts in a page from the Sunday comics. The bow was created using my normal method found in previous posts and the tag is just a piece folded over with his name. It's a simple and quick method but I think it's really unique. I wish I would have wrapped more of our gifts this way.

In total I've spent less than $2 in gift wrap this holiday season which was on the craft paper. Since I have so much left over I'll also be using it to wrap birthday gifts in 2009. I can just use birthday stamps or pick seasonal paper for the stencil cut outs. Maybe I'll even keep the paper plain and use pretty ribbon.

Have you used any interesting or frugal gift wrap this year?

Cheap & Recycled Gift Wrap

Another great gift wrap option. If you're running out of time before the holidays this is a great solution to create your own gift wrap from things found around your home.


As you can see in the picture above I've taken a page from a catalog and some paper from our shredder.


When put all together it makes a great mini gift bag all from recycled materials and with no cost.

You can find the great gift bag tutorial from Junk Mail Gems (I love her site) . I kept my bag simple but you can also add handles made from ribbon or yarn.

And don't forget to finish the gift off with some free gift tags.

Embroidered Gift Tags
Tags from scraps

I also had Leah from Suddenly Frugal tweet me another great idea for making gift tags. She takes last years Christmas cards and cuts out the image with pinking shears making a unique tag for each gift.

More frugal gift tags

Looking to make more personalized gift tags?

Check out this crafter on Flickr, they have some great Embroidered Gift Tags that you can whip up in no time.

The template is available at sublime stitching.

And don't forget about making your own tags from left over scrap book paper.

Upcycling Success – Reused Yarn

Remember my last Goodwill sweater fiasco?

This one turned out much better wouldn’t you say?


I was able to salvage a ton of yard from just one size large sweater; actually it was more of a cardigan which means I also ended up with some ugly buttons (not pictured). I forgot to take a before picture, but I purchased the cardigan at Goodwill on a sale day for $1.75 much cheaper than buying even clearance yard at any craft store. Plus I was able to reuse toilet paper rolls to wrap the yarn around, it was a twofer.

I’m so excited to get projects started and use up this yarn. Just think of all the things I can make...
Cute little Bluebirds
A traveling Bag
Sweater Ornaments
An adorable blue Elephant

Maybe I’ll even learn to knit and whip up some of these adorable snowflake dish cloths unless someone can find patterns to crotchet. I’ve had no luck.

Frugal Gift Wrap

Looking to save some money on gift boxes this year? You have to stop by Frugal living and see her DIY Gift boxes made from an old cereal box.

You can make them in about five minutes and the only supplies you need include a knife and some tape.

They look great, I'm hoping to whip some up this weekend and post the results as part of my cheap gift wrap tutorial.

Cheap Christmas Bows

Here's a great way to save a few dollars this holiday season.

Remember these bows I made earlier?

I've put a new spin on them to use as Christmas bows!



The picture isn't great but hopefully you can see some of the detail. I created these bows from left over wrapping paper Sunday night. Each one cost me about three cents to make since all I pay for is the brad.

Much cheaper and at least in my opinion better looking than store purchased bows. The best part is if you don't want to spend the money on brads you can use tape or glue to achieve the same results, making the bows 100% FREE. I plan to use these on our own Christmas gifts and hope to sell some at our last craft fair of the year this Thursday/Friday.

Want to learn how to make your own? I link to a great tutorial in this post.

Is that a sweater?

What is this you ask? That’s right, it's a big mess.

This my friends is my first attempt at salvaging an old sweater for new yarn. Lets just say it didn’t go so well. I didn’t get much yard at all from it before I gave up. I used the tutorial at Craft Leftovers. It's a great tutorial with lots of pictures, something I always find useful. None of my mistakes are because of the directions. The sweater I purchased was only 67% wool… bad. It was also thin yarn in two pieces… bad. I plan to try again with a 100% wool sweater. No more acrylic for me. never ever use anything that’s not 100% natural material. As you can see the rest of the sweater was cut up for filling on a few projects I have planned.

Chunky Crayons

This week’s upcycle craft projects are Chunky Crayons. I know these have been floating around the internet for a while, but I wanted to give them a shot. I used some of my old crayons ands a tote from my little sister. Here’s how the first few colors turned out. I really like them and they’re easy to make. Six easy steps actually



Step 1: Take paper off crayons
Step 2: Preheat oven to 265 degrees
Step 3: Break into small pieces no larger than one inch
Step 4: Put chunks in muffin pan
Step 5: Cook until melted (4-8 minutes)
Step 6: Cool on counter or in freezer

Color away!

I hope to get some packets listed on my etsy store - GreenCycle soon, so keep checking back.

Record Bowls

Spend an afternoon turning old records into unique bowls

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Last week for the craft show Matt and I spent some time turning these old vinyl records into amazing bowls. I picked up the records at goodwill and we were able to transform them in an evening. I liked picking out the labels while centering the bowl and Matt enjoyed forming them after they were melted. It was a good project to do together for the weekend. Cheap too. I found the directions at thrifty fun - HERE.

We used different styles and sizes of pans to make the various bowls. These are great and can be used for almost anything, even planters. If you plan to store food you only have to add an acrylic base spray for safety.

I hope to list a couple of the bowls on my etsy page (Greencycle) in the near future. I'll let you know when I get them up.

Look what followed me home....

These books contain the wallpaper samples displayed at home improvement & paint stores.

While I was shopping the other day they were being taken off the table to be thrown away. I quickly offered to take them off their hands and the manager gladly agreed.

I have one Nickelodeon, one metallic, and a country sample book.
Here's a look into some of the pages...

I have some BIG plans for these books, not only will they make some great bows and beads, but I was able to save them from just becoming more trash.

Recyled gift bows from magazines

I’m always keeping my eye out for great upcycling projects so you can imagine my excitement when I found this great tutorial at Craftster on how to make gift bows out of magazines. Now that I’ve learned how to get lots of free magazines I need a way to make sure they get fully recycled, and this is a great solution.

I bought cute little flower and star brads from JoAnn’s at 100 for $2.99. Since the magazines were free and I can make 100 bows from each box each gift bow cost me about three cents. A much cheaper solution than the options available at Wal-Mart and these are homemade.

Just beware they are quick to make and quickly become an addiction.

Because I have frugal and upcycling on the mind lately I wanted to bring you a frugal organizing craft. **Ignore the messy desk**

Last week at work I was getting frustrated because the square pieces of scrap paper I keep at my desk were starting to get messy. One of our employees suggested I head to Wal-Mart and get a little box to put them in, but I didn't want to spend money on that. So to save money and a trip to Wally world I decided to make my own. We sell votive candles where I work and they come in the boxes pictures. Once the candles all sell we recycle the boxes, I decided to take it a step further and upcycle two boxes I found into something better.

All I did was make the cute “Notes” tag and throw in my precut scrap paper. Best of all my paper now smells great from the left over candle smell. I used another one to organize the small stuff in a desk drawer as well. Now every time I open my desk it smells like cucumber melon. Being able to upcycle something and having a good smelling desk is enough to brighten any bad day.

Everyone liked them so much the next time I find more of these boxes I’ve been commissioned to make organizers for my fellow managers.

Paper Beads

So I’ve done a lot of talking about upcycling and how much I enjoy it but I haven’t shown any projects I’ve completed. In reality my “to make” list is somewhat extremely larger than my “completed list”, but I’m working through it slowly. I figure this winter will give me a chance to be super productive as I tend to hibernate during Michigan winters. Expect to see many more project post in the winter to come.

My most recent project has been these little beads. They are made by rolling strips of magazine pages, newspaper, junk mail, even pages from the phone book. I received the idea one night while shop gazing on etsy.com. I actually remember one Christmas I received a machine to help you make paper beads like these. I spent the next few weeks rolling all our used wrapper paper. While the process is the same I used a crotchet hook to roll these beads and a little glue around the outside to help seal them. Even though the beads are technically sealed they’re still paper and shouldn’t be wet.

Making the beads is easy and fun. I do them while we watch TV or Matt plays Zelda on the Wii. It could even be a fun activity to do with older children or school groups. I plan to take these beads to the craft show I’ll be attending at the end of the month and I will list some on my Etsy shop. Yes that’s right I have a shop. You can visit me at GreenCycle on Etsy. It’s a little sparse right now but I hope to get some things added soon. I’ll make sure to update when I do.

If your interested in making some of your own paper beads I found a great tutorial on WikiHow.com HERE.

Shredded Paper = Free packing materials

Need free shipping material? You probably already have some laying around.

We've taken another step to reducing our clutter, reusing, and upcycling as much as we can. Matt and I received a paper shredder for one of our wedding gifts. Quite possibly the gift we use the most. We were shredding our documents and then just putting the paper out with our recycling, but I wanted to do more. I'm really committed to reusing, not only to help the planet but to save on having to purchase new.

From now on all our paper shredding will be used for packing materials. My Mom has begun visiting craft shows and selling some of her items on her Etsy shop so I will be giving her all our shreds to use. Not only will this reuse our paper but she won't have to buy packing peanuts or other shipping materials that will just be thrown away, creating more waste.

You can check out her shop HERE or at the etsy link above.