recycled crafts

We've already used broken plates and pottery to decorate our mailbox post. The girls even made our house number from pieces of broken plate. We'll be decorating a planter that way some time soon. (It's simple: You take broken coffee mugs or plates, and affix them to the post or other surface with the same adhesive you use for doing a ceramic surface on your sink. They sell the adhesive at home improvement stores, even the big, ugly, useless ones.)

I'm nearly finished with a rag rug made entirely from old pants of mine that had become indecent. (You stich 2-inch-wide strips together into three long strands, and then you braid them together to make a rope, then use carpet thread to stitch it together.)

My mother has taken a bunch of old T-shirts of mine that have outlived their usefulness as T-shirts, and is in the process of making them into a quilt. The quilt, when it is finished, will be something that we can use for years to come to keep ourselves warm.

These are all things we can do fairly cheaply, getting extra use out of things that once we would have thrown into the garbage. In every case mentioned so far, we're getting years of extra use out of the original items by changing what we use them for. If we do a good enough job at them, these can even be gifts with a personal touch for friends and relatives.

Here's a new one I want to try tomorrow: Making patterns and shapes from old crayons. The girls have plenty of these from trips to restaurants, where they routinely give children cheap crayons that break as soon as they're used for more than 30 seconds. I also seem to remember that you can make crayons into candles.

And I have a ton of old socks that I can't use. They have holes, they're stretched out, and they lost their mates, but mostly they have holes in the heels. So, here's an idea I have for those: another quilt, a patchwork that I make myself by sewing the socks together as I go. I don't know if that would be thick enough, or if I'd need bunting or whatever it's called, but as long as the socks are clean, it's not a bad idea. And again, it adds years of life to the material. Or I can get the girls to make sock puppets. Either way, it reduces our waste, makes something useful from something that has lost its usefulness, and it teachs the girl actual skills, unlike most of what passes for crafts these days. ("Let's glue stuff together and color with markers!" Bleah.)

Bit by bit, I want to cut into the trash we produce. A private school I visited Wednesday, one with LEEDS platinum certification, has set the goal of eliminating all trash within three years. Everything on site will be recycled, composted, or reused in some way so that it doesn't end up moldering in a landfill. That's an impressive goal, and one I want to emulate here at the house.

We already recycle plenty, and we compost a great deal too, but I really like the idea of finding crafty ways to turn trash into something that we can use and appreciate for years to come.

a good craft

Now here's a craft Rachel has made that we'll be using for years to come. It's a new pencil holder for the house.

I wish crafts at the library were half this interesting and useful. Most crafts there, or in other programs, are unimaginative things like "Glue stuff to this cheap piece of plastic and add some wire ties. Now you have a butterfly to leave lying around the floor until it's been stepped on so many times that your father finally throws it away, except you see it in the wastebasket two days later and throw a fit."

Doing the craft was a snap. I took clothespins apart, showed Rachel how to glue them onto an empty Morton salt canister, and then watched her do it.

This wasn't a very complicated craft -- as noted, it involves dismantling clothespins and gluing them to a Morton salt canister -- but this is something no one is throwing out. Tomorrow morning, when the glue is all dried, Rachel is going to load our pens and pencils into it, and we'll have a nice, convenient place to keep them all, instead of leaving them lying on the countertop. My brother made one of these more than 30 years ago, and my parents still have it on the island cupboard in their kitchen.

When did crayons and glue become the way to do crafts anyway? Wouldn't it be better if kids either made things that actually were useful, or at least learned the beginnings of a skill (such as braiding or knitting) that one day could lead them to produce useful things?

Show me the advantage in following the directions in a kit of self-adhesive precut shapes to make a cheap snowman that'll fall apart by Christmas. 'Cause I can't see one.



Copyright © 2008 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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rebuilding the temple

Just to inform those who have been watching with all diligence for the reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem: There has been a slight change of plans. Reconstruction of the Temple began this morning, in my kitchen.

Solomon built the original Temple with stone from the finest quarries, and with nothing but the choicest cedars from Lebanon. The new Temple is being made from the finest Popsicle sticks available. They have been mined from Popsicles of many flavors and hues, and purchased at the local crafts store.

Solomon hired many craftsmen and spent years completing the Temple. We have employed the services of a 5½-year-old girl and her father. The girl is applying glue with due diligence, and her father is working on a way to get the walls to stay standing. When construction finishes in the next few days, we expect the Temple will have an outer court for Gentiles, an inner court for the Jews, and the Most Holy Place. I have no idea what will go there since the local crafts store does not sell miniature Arks of the Covenant. Perhaps we will place "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in there instead.

Worship will be very difficult for anyone who desires to entire the Temple and make offerings. We have heard rumblings among the Fischer-Price people and from the host of Polly Pockets that they may make the pilgrimage.

The occasion for the Temple's reconstruction? A certain 5½-year-old read her Bible today and learned about Solomon's Temple, and decided it would be a fun craft. I'm sure you're familiar enough with biblical prophecy to realize that the prophets said nothing about "arts and crafts" coming into play with the third temple. That being the case, if I can find one small enough, I'm going to sneak a purple hippo into the Most Holy Place and call it the abomination that causes desolation.