Greening Up the Holidays - Beautiful Recycling For Christmas

With the weather turning colder and money getting even tighter than before, a lot of us are spending more time at home and are wishing there were more inexpensive ways to enjoy this time of the year.
Why not take this opportunity to warm up the holiday season by doing some creative recycling? Doing projects together that are simple and fun brings everyone closer and recycling helps to teach that basic values are important and not everything needs to be bought ready-made at the store.
The Countdown Chain This is so simple.
Get out last year's wrapping paper and cut some 1.
5" x 6" strips.
Make a ring by gluing the ends of one strip with a glue stick or tape and then link on more strip/rings the same way until your chain has enough loops to count off the days before Christmas.
My daughter used to love the ritual of tearing off a link each night before she went to bed.
If you want to get extra creative and teach a little fascinating math trick, try making each link a moebius strip instead of a plain loop.
Just give the strip a half twist before gluing the ends and watch their eyes light up as they trace along and find that the loop now has only one surface! Homemade Curly Ribbon Don't have just the right ribbon for a certain gift package or you are bored with regular ribbon? Not to worry.
Just using some of the same paper let's you create a unique 'bow' that sets the gift apart in a very nice way.
Cut a strip of paper about 12" x 18" long and fold it in half lengthwise to measure 6" x 18".
Then snip the long cut edge (not the folded edge) into ¼" strips to within about an inch from the fold.
It's the same as when you used to make paper eyelashes when you were little.
Roll or fold the strip up and tape the folded edge together.
Then you can curl the little strips just like curly ribbon.
It makes a great package topper that coordinates perfectly.
Do-It-Yourself Gift Bag Filler Shredded tissue is costly.
Years ago I bought an inexpensive paper shredder and started shredding my own.
It works! A pack of tissue paper sheets is relatively cheap (dollar stores are a good source) and if you fold 2 or 3 sheets together you can run them through the shredder.
I've found you need that little bit of bulk.
Individual sheets don't feed through very well.
And if you really want to be cost effective, use junk mail advertising circulars.
They make colorful packing material for gift bags or baskets and you are keeping them out of the trash and the landfills.
Painted Light Bulbs Instead of throwing away old, burnt out light bulbs, turn them into something special! I put a basecoat of water-based stained glass paint on first and then paint them with acrylic craft paints.
Paint the metal base, too.
You can add squiggles and dots of contrasting paint or glitter.
Whatever inspires you is perfect.
Wrap the base with wire or pipe cleaners and they're ready to hang as ornaments.
Or stick the wires into a floral foam base covered with moss and make a grouping.
You can also make felt or paper 'tops' to cover the base.
Do a Google search for 'painted light bulbs' and you'll see lots of creative ornaments made from them to use as inspiration.
Paper Snowflakes These are fun to hang with thread or string, tape on the windows, or even use to decorate gift packages.
The simplest way is to fold a square of paper into quarters and snip away.
Then unfold and, voila! You can get fancier and experiment with fan-folding the paper before cutting and see what happens.
Since real snowflakes have six sides, I needed to look up the instructions for folding because I could never remember exactly how to do it.
A great resource for six-sided paper snowflakes is http://highhopes.
com/snowflakes.
html.
It's very clear and has photos, too.
The important thing is to have fun.
Feed The Birds Stringing popcorn has always been a family tradition.
Make sure you pop extra for snacking! But after Christmas why not recycle the strands for the birds to enjoy? Put your popcorn strings on a bush outside and pretty it up even more by adding orange slices tied with ribbon and bits of brightly colored yarn left over from gift wrappings.
You can also make it more special by smearing peanut butter into pinecones and rolling them in birdseed.
What a treat! Use your imagination and open your heart to even more projects.
'Tis the season to make a difference! © Janet L.
Burgar, December 2008