Upcycle Living

Until we started buying screw top wine, I had been painstakingly saving up all the wine corks: cleaning, drying and storing. Thanks to my inexplainable sentiment towards the little brown thing and the thought that one day I would be able to use them for something, I've filled up a whole large shoe box. And they had been in there for 7 long years! Just when I was about to give up and decide to clean them out, I caught a glimpse of a trivet made of wine corks in the background of a TV show. Obviously this is not an original idea and surely there must be others who've already done so, but hey I managed to use up all the corks and turned them into something useful - that's good enough for me. With the help of some Selleys adhesive, I made quite a few trivets and 1 pin cushion. Most importantly: I get to keep them, not bin them ;)

4 good reasons that made me think of making my own hand fan: Extremely hot weather Some used disposable chopsticks and manky wooden spoons lying around Some odd old table mats I can't be bothered to spend money on an ugly ones available in the shops And the whole process can't get any simpler: Cut out 2 identical rectangles from the table mat Spread strong glue evenly on the underside of each cut out mat, leave to dry. Stick the 2 chopsticks together with strong glue.  When the chopsticks are dry and firmly in place, apply thick glue over about 2-3 inches of the smaller end (depends on the length). Now place the glued part onto the middle of one of the cut out mat's underside, then press on the other cut out mat, making sure that all sides are in line. Leave to dry. Hold the sides in place with some paperclips or even clothes pegs would do. Trim to round corners with sharp scissors. Done. As for the other one, I made it slightly different: ...

We've been using normal hand towels in the kitchen, but the nail keeps ripping holes in them. And as they are often hung stacked in double layers, drying is always a problem in this hot and humid weather which means it can get smelly too. But ready made hanging kitchen hand towels available in this country are often really horribly designed yet expensive. So here's a very simple solution - DIY! One existing hand towel cut into halves + some fabric scraps + two 6" long ribbons (hanger loops I cut and saved from clothing) = two new kitchen hanging hand towels absolutely free I can really get used to doing this :)