Upcycle and Use Your Creativity

Upcycling is a term that means turning your unwanted or unused items into products of better quality. The goal of upcycling is to prevent wasting potentially useful materials by making use of them. This reduces the consumption of new raw materials when creating new products. It's essentially re-purposing an old or unused item into something useful again.  

Developing countries around the world having been doing this for years. They use old wrappings from packaging in new ways. They reuse clothing for other purposes and find interesting uses for many natural resources around them. 

With sites like Etsy and Pinterest we can see that 'upcycling' and 'repurposing' are terms that are used constantly with DIYers and home decorators. After all it is fun to take an old piece or unused item that you may have just sent to a second hand store be turned into a something useful again. 

Onto my little project. Years ago when I was into tole painting, I painted this wooden box that I used to keep loose photographs in. It was an old cutlery box to begin with. The inside is all padded. I had stained it and painted the top with a pretty floral picture.  Recently as I was cleaning out a few things I came across the box and thought I might repaint it and give it a more modern look. I left the stain on it and just taped off some lines and spray painted it with black and then silver stripes, nothing fancy just a little more mod. I can still use it to hold pictures if I like or I could use it to keep some of my  jewelry organized. That sounds like a good idea for it.  Here is the before and after pictures. 

Well maybe this will inspire you to think of another use for something before you decide to get rid of it. Why not, little projects are fun to do.  Stay creative! :-)