Recycling Crafts with Baby Food Jars

Here's my list of 5 of the BEST recycling crafts with baby food jars EVER. After collecting hundreds (thousands?) of glass jars over the last few years, recycling them has become a personal challenge. There are lots of blogs that have posted ideas but some of them are super and some not so much. That's why I've started a top 10 list (ok, I've got 5 so far)!

My husband was always laughing and calling me a "hoarder" and the "jar lady" but he stopped laughing when he saw how much money we saved by decorating the jars and giving them as baby shower gifts. My focus is primarily on the environmental benefits of keeping the empty jars out of the landfill but cheap gifts are pretty cool, too.

Now, here's my list that has many creative uses for baby food jars and where to go to find the instructions and tutorials.

Number One - Decorating the Empty Jars to Give as Gifts
Here's one that I've used over and over again. Don't let the jars decorated for Halloween throw you, just substitute ribbons in the baby's nursery colors. But they also make cool Halloween baby shower or party favors. I suppose that's why I keep going back to this project; it's versatile.

Number Two - Making Party Lanterns Out of Empty Glass Baby Food Jars
But speaking of parties, Here are some instructions for how to transform those empty jars into lanterns! Imagine strings of these twinkling lanterns at your next backyard barbecue or pool party. Sock some citronella candles in there for bug control and you're all set!

Number Three - Etching the Glass Jars
If you run out of parties and showers to decorate and make gifts for, go here to see how this crafty blog used a glass etching technique to transform the jars into spice containers!

Number Four - Make a Chandelier with Baby Food Jar Globes
Another of my favorites (that I have yet to get around to actually making) is this chandelier decorated with globes that are actually; you guessed it, baby food jars! I can just imagine my husband's eyeballs rolling in his head if I asked him to help me with this one.

Number Five - Make Magnificent Christmas Window Decorations
Being a mom who is never afraid to let her freak flag fly, I made a Christmas tree out of baby food jars to display in our window. I have plans to make either another tree so that I'll have a matching set or stars for the upstairs windows. Here
are the instructions for the tree that helped me use up all the jars that so many of my neighbors and friends left on my steps when you thought I wasn't home.

This one didn't make my list but it's cool all the same.

And last of all of the crafts with baby food jars is this one a space-age looking chair made with LOTS of jars. Not very practical, but cool looking and you use up lots of your stash!

Please feel free to add your own favorites to my list of the
5 BEST Recycling Crafts with Baby Food Jars. Now, let the
baby food jar recycling begin and don't forget to come back and share your pictures!

HOW TO RECYCLE YOUR SHOES

You really need to learn how to recycle your shoes if you're sitting crosslegged on the bed looking at this blog on your laptop and when you're done you have to kick your old tennis shoes out of the way to get to the kitchen or the bathroom. There are better ways of recycling those old shoes than using them (in their current form) as a lumpy area rug on your bedroom floor.

SHOE RECYCLING PROGRAMS

A remote location is no excuse for harboring a closet full of athletic shoes, dress shoes, baby shoes or any other kind of shoes for that matter since there are recycling programs for shoes all over the planet; I counted 11 in the good old United States on one page and others Peru, the UK and even a couple in Peru and New South Wales..how cool is that? You can read up on each program's mission to see that your old skids will be given a new life according to your wishes.

SHOE DONATION CHARITIES

Organizations like Souls4Souls (www.soles4souls.org/), Up and Running [www.upandrunning.co.uk], Recycled Runners [www.recycledrunners.com.au], or Eco-Cycle [www.ecocycle.org] are all excellent places to donate those shoes...BUT...if you aren't close enough to one of the recycling programs to drop them off on your way to work, don't ship those shoes! To donate your shoes locally a better "green" way to go since your method of delivery may have a smaller carbon footprint since you can walk over to the neighborhood church and give your shoes to their clothes closet. Volunteers at the church will deliver them to needy children who will be tickled to get new (to them) shoes that fit and keep their feet warm and dry.

What did you say? Your church doesn't have such a program to provide clothes and/or shoes to the needy? Well, why don't you hike your butt down there and devise a plan of action to remedy that and have the honor of making the first donation? You not only learn how to recycle your shoes, but teach others the finer points of charity while you're at it!


CHOP SHOPS FOR SHOES

You know how old cars that land in salvage yards get stripped for their usable parts before being shipped to metal recycling facilities? You can now do the same thing with your old shoes since there are parts that can be recycled assuming that they are no longer any good whole, of course.

The rubber of their soles can actually be recycled into a variety of products, the most common being flooring in athletic facilities where concrete and tile floors wreak havoc on athletes. The best known of these programs is the Nike Reuse-a-Shoe program, based in Wilsonville, Oregon. The Nike Reuse a Shoe program takes the donated shoes and grinds them down to recycle the rubber into flooring for indoor basketball courts, running tracks and tennis courts. Here's how to recycle your shoes using Nike's shoe recycling program. Just take as many as 10 pairs of your old athletic shoes to your local Nike store or your local recycling center.

Now that you know how to recycle your shoes, I know that you will want to take things to the next level and maybe start your own group shoe drive. However, I just read that they are currently not accepting any shoe drive applications, but that could change any day so visit the Nike shoe recycling website to get the current status if this is something that you would like to do.

RECYCLED BABY STUFF

There are so many recycled items popping up and recycled baby stuff like cardboard baby high chairs and eco-friendly cribs are certainly a step in the right direction. But it's important that in the rush to buy and use more products that are earth friendly we often overlook the less flashy, everyday stuff that we can recycle.

To be sure, it's always wise to do your research on what items are worth the time it takes to recycle them. Some things, in today's environment are just not cost effective no matter how dedicated we are to keeping piles of trash out of our landfills and reducing our footprint.


If you read my last post, you know that large families are under attack. I thought that I would start compiling a list of stuff to recycle associated with raising children so that parents with more than a few babies can do their part to be green and be more environmentally friendly. Some of the baby products on the list are pretty obvious but keep reading because there may be a few items that you haven't thought of recycling.

For instance, have you thought about recycling or do you use:

• 
  recycled baby clothes
• recycled baby shower invitations, announcements and thank you cards
• recycled baby diaper bags
• cribs and nursery furniture
• baby food jars
• cloth baby diapers

It might take a little more effort to load your baby's bed and dresser up and deliver it to the Goodwill Store or anywhere new parents with few resources go to find free baby stuff rather than taking it to the dump. And it might take a few minutes more to rip those frayed cloth diapers into cleaning cloths than it would have to just toss them in the garbage. But when you think of using or passing forward recycled baby stuff as giving our kids the gift of a cleaner less cluttered world, it seems to make the time pass quicker and the work to be lighter.

GREEN HOME CLEANING SOLUTIONS

Any list offering tips for green home cleaning solutions should involve more than recipes for green household cleaners. Not that chemical free toilet cleaners are not a step in the right direction but those of you still using paper products should be aware that paper products (paper towels, facial tissues, etc) made up 20.7 % of the municipal waste discarded in 2008. Yep, that year it was reported that there was 6,550,000 tons of paper and paperboard waste.

I got curious as to how much my own home was contributing to this problem so I decided to conduct an experiment (being as experiments are so cool and I needed something to write about in the worst way). What I did was direct hubby and the older girls to throw every facial tissue and paper towel into a special trash bin. They were so enthusiastic about being asked to participate that they actually asked if there was going to be a waste can next to the toilet! I thought about it and had to admit that collecting toilet paper would have given more accurate results but dismissed the thought as a little too gross.

Before the day was out my trash can was overflowing with wet wipes and tissues used to wipe runny noses much less paper towels that I used to clean the glass, kitchen and bathroom surfaces!

Wow, this really made me aware that I needed to bone up on my all around green home cleaning solutions and not just how to clean a toilet without toxic chemicals and this is the plan that I came up with.

• toss the mop that has disposable mop heads and shop for one with a washable cover
  
• stop using paper towels and invest in low lint microfiber cleaning cloths
  
• stop using disposable scrub pads and buy scrubbing stones (that would probably be the only thing that will tackle those pesky toilet bowl rings anyway)

The results that I expect to see should come in the way of less money spent on disposables and a much emptier can on trash pickup day.

The unexpected amount of paper that I collected in such a short time was a reminder that even though I've made great strides toward making a green home for my family, there is much work to be done and that going green is an ongoing process.

Recycling Your Kids Halloween Trick or Treat Bag

I promised you all some unusual stuff to recycle well how about recycling your kids Halloween Trick or Treat Bag? My oldest daughter has a cute stuffed pumpkin that my sister carried from house to house on Halloween when we were kids. My sister's only complaint was that she had to loop back to our house more often than she wanted to empty the pumpkin so she could go out and get more candy. Since my little girl is incapable of carrying large amounts (read: pounds) of candy it works just fine for her. This treat bag has been recycled more years than my dear sister would appreciate me typing in this article.

If your kids are older and capable of carrying as much as 25 pounds of loot at a pop might be interested in the earth friendly, reusable Chicobag that claims it can handle just that amount of candy. Some helpful person did the math and they concluded that that translates into as many as 781 snack sized KitKat Bars.

This green bag company has teamed up with the nonprofit organization, greenhalloween.org,, for its annual trick or treat bag contest.

Children age 13 and under can e-mail their own eco-friendly designs to Halloween "at" chicobag.com before November 5th for a chance to win. The winning design will be featured on next year's carrier's.

For more information on the contest or to buy this year's design please visit the website that inspired me to recommend recycling your kids Halloween trick or treat bag in the first place,chicobag.com. Who know that finding stuff to recycle would extend to finding recycling tips to include one of my favorite times of year, Trick-Or-Treat!

STUFF TO RECYCLE

I was talking to my neighbor today and she said she never had stuff to recycle. I said, and I quote "WHAT"??? Not wanting to get on the bad side of my next door neighbor, but I bet her a ($100) that I could go through her garbage can and come up with a huge pile of recyclable garbage.

She didn't jump at my offer and whether or not she has a dead body in her dumpster that she needs to hide is between her and the law but it did prompt me to start making a list of stuff to recycle in case she happens by my blog.

EVERYDAY STUFF

Who doesn't get more than enough junk mail? I get stacks upons stacks of the stuff and even though I try to go through the proper channels to get my name taken off of lists. The special papers from local stores and the like still get put under my mulch to block weeds so nothing goes to waste.

Other items that we toss before thinking things through (that I'll bet you were hiding in your garbage can...you know who you are) are blown out flipflops, old VHS video tapes, prescription bottles and styrofoam shipping peanuts.

Here's more stuff on my list to recycle:

JEANS: If they are so threadbare they show my buttocks, I cut squares to use in crafts projects and then recycle the rest.

And there's more! You can recycle everything from your shredded bank statements to your old car tires. Even your old sheets and shower curtains can be given a second shot at usefulness if you are creative, resourceful and will allow somebody to advise you as to how best reduce the amount of household garbage that you throw into the landfills!

Here's a list of stuff to recycle that has 50 items that those who are not up to snuff on green living practices might toss in the garbage.