Tag: Recycling

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New Uses for Old Magazines

Got a rack full of old magazines some as old as 5 years? A Feb ’05 Femina issue with useful kitchen tips or a Woman’s Era magazine from 2006 that carried some mouth-watering recipes for the festive season or some cool tips on how to get dressed for a party after work in a jiffy? Yes? Then you’ve got company…I have saved tons of magazines just because one feature was good, or it had an odd tip on Page 53 on how to keep your coffee decoction fresh (I have this annoying habit of folding pages that I’d like to read again). These magazines lie untouched for years but I don’t feel like giving them away.

After all, there might be a way to put these to good use without letting them occupy useful rack space.

Use it as a stand to keep a vase on the top. Doesn’t it make for a colorful base.

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How to : Recycle Old Coasters

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I had a set of 6 wooden coasters that were nearly 5 years old. Dull, faded, and ready to be discarded. But the coasters/place mats are the sturdy kind that I didn’t have the heart to just junk it. So over the weekend I transformed a pair (to begin with) into these bright, colorful coasters. How to paint: The steps are similar to how we painted the cane furniture: sanding, priming, painting followed by a coat of varnish. The only difference is I used acrylic paint for this project.

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Recycling Old Books to make Book Shelves

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Do you have a dozen novels from your before-marriage days ? When you’re single, that’s one loyal companion for the weekend – John Grisham, Robin Cook, Ayn Rand and the like. Oh, and what did you do to those large hardbound ones from college – you know the ones they call ‘textbooks ‘? My engineering books didn’t come any cheap; I remember spending at least two thousand rupees every semester, only to sell them to a raddiwala for a hundred bucks a few months later. The syllabus changed soon after so it wasn’t of any use to the juniors.

Well, if you have any of those antique dictionaries or encyclopedia volumes, here’s a novel idea. Turn them into book shelves.

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Ideas to Recycle Silk and Cotton Curtains

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Cushion covers are easily the most over-priced items on earth. Seriously. Every visit to a home store lures me to the soft furnishing section for want of possessing a good set of silk cushion covers: the ones in bright color printed with trendy design or the lovely, hand-embroidered ones or some plain yet elegant ones with wooden buttons or some painted ones with great detailing? But their price is a huge letdown. Something like these come in the range of Rs.150-Rs.300 per piece …

Even the less fancy ones such as these are not worth the price if you are up for a little DIY project.

If you’ve been dying for a change in decor for your living room or bed rooms, then the easiest thing to do is to change curtains or rearrange furniture. And if your curtains are a couple of years old, then it is perhaps times to replace and recycle them. If the cotton or silk curtains are in good condition, then this project might just be for you. There are a number of ways to recycle old curtains based on the material and purpose.

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How to Make a Newspaper Basket

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The first shelf of the wooden cabinet in my dining room is stuffed with old newspapers. Every night, after the entire family has read, I deposit the paper in its designated place. Once the shelf has no room for any more paper, which is usually once a month, or sometimes a little longer, I bundle it and sell the pile at the neighboring old-paper-wala.

Last week, I stumbled upon a project in CraftStylish on how to make a basket from a newspaper. I couldn’t wait to get started on a project that required no fancy stuff and made use of a simple thing as a newspaper. It was more of an evening project and I worked on it while the rest of the family watched TV. It took me about 30 minutes to make the basket from scratch to finish. ..