Recycle Holiday Goods Into New Decor

Jennifer Chait — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 02:55:23 +0000

Leftover holiday goods from last year (or even this year) can easily be turned into fun holiday decor for the season. You save an item from the landfill and crafting items from recycled goodies saves money.

This month you’ve probably got some large tin cans hanging around – especially if you’ve been making pies in bulk with canned goods. This is the perfect opportunity to make lovely homemade Recycled Holiday Luminaries.

You’ve got lots of choices about how to reuse scrap gift wrap from last year. I was thinking you could make some adorable recycled cereal box houses, then dress them up for the holidays. Not only a cute idea, but something the kids could totally help with. You can make beautiful recycled gift wrap scrap cards. You can also create paper Christmas trees with recycled construction then cover them with ornaments made from recycled gift wrap.

Lastly you can use small scraps of recycled gift wrap around drink glasses at your holiday party or gathering. People can write their names on their cup without marking the glass and more easily tell them apart.

One of my favorite craft ideas is the Illuminated Wreath (shown above) that I saw at Real Simple. Grab a wire wreath frame and an old set of lights and you’re good to go. I realize the downside is the energy use, but you can limit that by unplugging this wreath at night when everyone heads off to bed.

A great useful reuse craft is to turn old holiday greeting cards into brand new gift boxes – seriously these are awesome and gift boxes can be expensive so this solves two issues.

What holiday reuse ideas do you have?

[Wreath Image via Real Simple; Homemade luminary image via:http://www.flickr.com/photos/beckmann/ / CC BY 2.0]

Post from: Blisstree

Recycle Holiday Goods Into New Decor