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Crafts are a great way to add decoration, express creativity, learn new skills, and create together time for friends or families. They are also useful for people on tight budgets or people with bored kids.

Recycling is also great idea, obviously, for keeping down the amounts of trash and pollution. It's another fantastic money saving tip that can help pay the bills. Put recycling and crafts together, and you get a perfect way to make earth-friendly, cheap, fun items from everyday products.

When deciding what or how to recycle for crafts, there are tons and tons of choices. Almost anything, except food and toxins, can be recycled into a material for creativity. Jars, cans, boxes, jugs, scrap fabric, broken jewelry, old clothing, wrapping/drawing paper, books, light bulbs, and damaged toys can all be used to make lovely objects.

DECOUPAGE

- Decoupage is defined as the art of decorating something with flat materials that are then made smooth and strong with glue, lacquer or varnish. Find any neat looking paper to recycle and a solid object that needs a new look. This is a *fantastic* way to get rid of all that useless junk mail!

- Take that binder, lamp, box, or picture frame and use the paper to create a cool covering. Cut assorted shaped pieces of paper and glue them onto the surface, letting them overlap. Make sure everything stays smooth and flat, and secure. Let dry and either leaves as is, or cover with a coat of clear varnish for protection.

QUILTING

- Almost any fabric can be stitched and patched into a lovely quilt. It can be an actual full-sized blanket, or small baby blanket. You can even quilt hats, coats, robes, wall hangings, placemats, tablecloths, and curtains. With some time and patience, you can just cut up all those old clothes and make new blankets for every bed in the home!

STORAGE

- All kinds of great storage items can be made from recycled crafts. Cans can be painted and/or decorated to be perfect pen/pencil holders. Jars, glue, and a little felt can create fun trinket, tool, food, or bead holders with faces or funny heads on the lid. Boxes can be painted, decoupaged, or decorated to hold almost anything! Books can be hollowed out and used as a tiny safe. Cereal boxes can be cut and painted to make ideal magazine holders.

FEEDERS

- A basic milk carton can be cut and decorated, hung with yarn, and used as a birdfeeder. Plastic pop bottles work great as bird feeders too. Jugs and boxes can be cut and flipped over to make automatic dog/cat water or food

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