Recycling has become such a phenomenon in the recent years. Well, we all know how much we must save mother nature from falling apart, so we all must take steps to reduce global warming and make the world a better place. Do something for earth, start planting trees, if you can! When you have scraps of items left at home, don’t throw them away. Instead, put on your thinking cap and make something out of it. From old magazines, to bottles and cans, create something. The sky is the limit to what you can create out of that something. 

Lisa Foo and Su Sim has successfully created table lamps and awesome sea creature lights to be adorned at your homes. They’re made out of recycled bottles with some help from light bulbs and they look really pretty. Check them out at Emm-a-Shoppe! I personally like the Giant Siphonophore. 

 

Old vinyl banners can be upcycled (source)

On another creative green project, we have Notty Pooch on Etsy who is selling upcycled clutches, wallets, namecard holders and tags made out of vinyl banners. Upcycled simply means creating something of a higher value from a waste product. According to Green Ideas, it has to be using lesser energy to create that new product than to recycle them. Because if it does use more energy than recycling, then, it would defeat the purpose. 

These vinyl wallets reminded me of a friend of mine who had a wallet from Paul Frank and they looked like this:

(Source)

Back to the items, these vinyl banners are taken from scraps of old unused vinyl banners. I’m not too sure how they got them, but, they seem quite funky. These vinyl banners are cut, washed and cleaned by hand. They are then carefully measured to get the best out of the banners (ie: ensuring the prints are at the right places) and finally sewn into a clutch (or tag, card holder, etc). 

What we like about these vinyl purses is that they are made out of vinyl (duh!), slim(perfect for small bags) and they’re funky looking too. Plus, it makes it a lot easier to clean them as you just have to wipe any dirt off with a wet and soapy cloth. 

Some item images:

One of the many upcycled vinyl banner clutches

The clutch has space for hp, cards and some cash. 

Funky looking long purse.

The long purse can fit cards and money

Another design of the long purse

A card holder

It could fit in all your extra cards that don’t fit your wallet. 

Card holder/tag which is my favourite. It allows one to keep cards like work key card/Touch N Go cards handy. Just clip them to a zipper on your bag and you won’t have to be searching high and low for that keycard anymore:)

Notty Pooch can be bought online through Etsy.com and they’re located in Malaysia.

Share with us your upcycling ideas!

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