Lane Patterson creates fantastic lighting using old recycled objects and transforms them into figural sculptures, functional sculptural lamps and fountains.  These two are made with license plates, lawn mower blades, fishing floats and recycled metal.

Fun for all ages: Kusudama flower folding tutorial at Folding Tree.

Modern and resourceful waste basket tutorial from recycled magazines from Craft Stylish.

The Smith and Coates children’s collection is made from felted recycled cashmere by Sarah Coates. Adult sweaters are beautifully transformed into stylish kids pieces. Each item is hand embellished with vintage fabric trim and crochet work. A summer line is available too with a range of tops, dresses and trousers made from second hand cotton shirts.

These amazing pendant lights were once boring plastic clothing hangers, but Aaron Brand upcycled them into fabulous looking lighting. The Hanger 75 and Hanger 150 are built DIY or affixed permanently for custom orders. The hangers are sold in intervals of 25 so you can mix and match the recycled inventory for your own unique look. Cool idea!

Each kit includes a basket to hang the clothes hangers, a chain to hold basket from the ceiling and a cord and socket set.

via The Reclaimed Home

Creative wrapping can always take a gift to the next level, it shows that you put a bit more thought into it rather than had someone else wrap it at the store. But if you have the time, this D.I.Y. can use up some of your junk mail or piles of magazines you have lying around. I think when wrapping a gift it is important not to create extra waste in doing so. This super resourceful tutorial from How About Orange is the perfect way to stay green minding while gift giving. It could also work in a pinch if you find yourself without wrap, by instead using newsprint as wrapping and crafting one of these recycled magazine bows. Great job Orange!

The end results have a certain quality to them that you cannot get with store bought versions. They have a bit more patina and more of a soft matte finish.

I think I’ll try out the map version with my already hacked up atlas I use for collages!

additional photos from Katie’s Flickr set

For more recycled magazine ideas click here.

Lucy Slivinski, a sculptor in Chicago, is the creative designer behind these magnificent chandeliers. Slivinski fashioned these lighting fixtures out of salvaged metal scraps into illuminated art.

Her grandparents are attributed as her inspiration for recycling, they did as a matter of necessity during the Depression. Their resourcefulness led to her art, and we are all benefitting.

The five chandeliers in Ms. Slivinski’s new collection, which range in price from $1,000 to $3,500, are all made from rusted steel and copper wire.

More of her work available here.

Find recycled and upcycled gifts like these:

Brooches by Mainichi, handmade from layers of recycled upholstery leather off cuts, cut into elliptical shapes (by hand) and stitched together.

Ruby and Sage bracelet made from resin and recycled buttons, both available at Australian ethical design market Blue Caravan.

Kirsten of Pearl Clothing and Jil Cappuccio both create one of a kind clothing and limited lines of fabulous digs. Both based in Denver Colorado, they are amazing ladies who know how to recycle and refashion vintage clothing and vintage textiles and look good doing it!

Check their websites for shops that carry their lines. Pearl Clothing can also be found here.

Sometimes I love an artist so much that I want to keep them just for myself, but alas, I have kept the genius of Clare Graham a secret for far too long. Graham has been a recycling champion for years and years, in fact it is the basis of all his artwork, sculpture and furniture. Each piece he makes is based on a ‘collection’ of items be they buttons, bottlecaps, puzzle pieces, game pieces, paint by number art, yard sticks or swizzle sticks.

Graham’s began his compulsive collecting and tinkering during his childhood in Atikokan, Ontario, a town of 2,300 people. Growing up in a working-class family with limited means and four siblings, he had to make the best of hand-me-downs and whatever raw material he could find. “Those kinds of circumstances make you frugal,” he explains.

In the mid 1960s, Graham attended Long Beach State University. A part-time job at Disneyland in 1968 turned into a 25 year career there, by the time he left Disney in 1993, Graham oversaw a staff of a hundred as a senior art director for Disney’s global network of theme parks. This can begin to explain why his work is so dazzling.

Clare Graham’s work could be categorized as outsider art, but his wild conglomerations of bottle caps and buttons show an obsessive drive for perfection, his collecting of the materials being the most difficult portion of the process.  Graham scours swap meets, flea markets, garage sales and thrift stores for the massive quantities of material he utilizes. Just one of his organic, free form chandeliers (my favorites) includes 25,000 buttons, arranged by color and size. He estimates he has recycled close to three and a half million buttons for his sculptures. He works a bit of magic transforming cast off materials of of scant value into usable, functional pieces.

Because his work is enormous in scale —he works out of a warehouse in Highland Park California that was built in 1933 as a Safeway supermarket, the space serves as a gigantic gallery not only for Graham’s work but for the wide-ranging collections of art, decorative objects, anatomical figures, animal bones and other curiosities that he and his partner, Bob Breen, have amassed over many years. In addition, Graham and Breen have set aside 1,200 square feet for the Mor York Gallery, an exhibition space dedicated to presenting the work of other local artists. They host open-houses each second Saturday night of the month where one can witness the spectacle of his amazing creations.