Linnea: On my spare time, which actually does not exists, I find it interesting and fun to come up with new recycling ideas. My thoughts have been circling around glass bottles. Here in Israel you can give the beer bottles back to the store and get some money for it . But wine bottles, coffee jars and all other glass junk , everybody throw in the regular garbage. There are no glass recycling containers like in Sweden ( I have never seen one anyway ) and it breaks my heart every time I have to throw it in the trash..... In our house we drink a lot of coffee, so it didn't take me so long to save some coffee jars. First I removed the labels and cleaned them from grease. Then I sand papered all the jar, also the top ( using a very fine sandpaper, # 240 ) . After that, I chose a pattern from a crocheted cloth and used spray paint to get the jar a fun pattern. Voilá and now I can reuse them for a long time as a cookie jar or as storage for sugar or what ever you want to put inside!
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Linnea:
So, first of all I have a confession to make: I have a "thing" for ostriches, trees, leafs and peacocks. Maybe I forgot something now, but I guess that this mix is weird enough as it is. And on top of that, I love strong colors. One of my latest projects are two cabinet doors that my land lord had laying around on the road to our house. In the beginning, I really wanted to make them into tables but after I had painted them, they seemed more suitable on the wall. I used acrylic paint for glass and made the ostrich sketchy like. The trees took longer time, cause there was a lot of precise painting to do. But what took me the longest time, were the frames. They were covered in thick layers of lack and it took me forever to get it out. When I finally got rid of it, I didn't feel like covering it all again. So I used linen oil to protect the wood andto bring out the beautiful tree color! Linnea: So I decided that the biscuit- tin- watches was a cool project and made some more: But there is another project that I really want to do with these tins, that actually was the original idea. But for that, I will need at least 5 and right now I have none!!!! Just need to be patient and wait until I have collected enough. And that is really not one of my strong sides......
Caroline: Some quick and easy shelves were made this week. The first one Kitchen Blues Shelf started out as a piece of wood lying by the side of the road. And the second shelf was made from some old wooden drawers that I took from a beautiful large rustic table that was too heavy for me to take home. A little sawing, a little paint, a few screws and some nails and as they say in Israel - chick chack - there you have new storage. Click on the pictures to view. Linnea:
It has been terrible weather in Israel, cold, raining and in many places also snowing. Now it´s kind of windy but really ok, if you compare it to what has been! So, during this time I have stayed inside the house and worked with what I can. I have been thinking about what I can do with used glass, instead of throwing it away. I had some old facial cream boxes that I cleaned completely. I primed them first with a sponge in white, 3 times. After that, I used small brushes to paint them in different patterns. You need to air dry them for 3 weeks or as I prefer; to dry them inside the oven for 1 hour in 100 c. I can honestly say that it is not worth the time if you want to make money from it, but it is definitely a fun thing to give away as a gift or to keep for yourself! Linnea:
So, I've got a hang up on biscuit tins.......It will probably get very bad. I can feel the craving building up in my body just by writing "biscuit tin".... I think that one of the reasons is that I can take some of the metal waste that they just trow away and do something with it. Here in Israel they are quite good at recycling plastic bottles but cans, glass and other metals, they just throw away with all the rest of the garbage. Which of course is totally CRAZY!!!! I tried another method today on the biscuit tin clock. I spray painted an ugly tin completely white and when it had dried, I put a crocheted small tablecloth (also called doily) over it and sprayed it again Ultra-pink. It was just for fun and now I can't actually decide if it´s still ugly or kind of cool? What do you think? Linnea:
Both me and Caroline have a fetish for old biscuit tins.You can find them everywhere in our houses, in all different sizes and colours. For me they are not as holy as they are for C, and I have been thinking for a while what you can use them for - more than just a tin. One day, I found a clock face in a store, came home and put it inside one of my favorite tins and it´s now hanging on my wall. Maybe Caroline will forgive me one day for making a hole in the tin but probably she won't... Caroline: I was given some stringed electric lights that I did not dare to use since I didn't know how old they were. They were the kind you see everywhere in Thailand, simple orbs made of cotton string covering a little light. Then my drying rack broke and I cut off all the white metal spokes to use for something. The picture in my head of little string orbs hanging in the air made me think of the wind chimes the hill tribes in northern Thailand make to ward off evil spirits. They thread colourful cotton string round and round and create these square "eyes" and put bells on the bottom so that when they sway in the wind it creates a nice tinkling sound which also wards off evil spirits. One can see these wind chimes if one is lucky to be invited to stay with the hill tribes. Anyhow I made my own talisman against evil by recycling the drying rack and string orbs. Gallery of photos - click one to enlarge and use arrows. |
Linnea & Caroline2 foreigners in Israel trying to find their space. Up-cycling furniture and clothes for a better environment and future. Check us out on Instagram:
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