TinkerAndPo!

There’s nothing that fuels my creative fire more than making beautiful or useful recycled crafts  out of something that, well, wasn’t beautiful to begin with!

Recycled crafts offer so many different ways to be creative, resourceful and unique!  Take wool sweaters for instance.

Have you ever accidentally shrunk a wool or merino sweater by washing and drying it in the machine instead of having it dry cleaned? I know I have!  That’s one of the ways I found out how much fun it is to make recycled crafts by working with felted wool.

If you don’t already have a shrunken sweater sitting around, go take one of your wool sweaters that you don’t wear anymore and wash it on the longest cycle with hot water and dry it in the dryer on the hottest setting.  Voila!  You have a felted sweater to work with!

Cut two large squares from the front and back of the sweater, sew together on three sides, add a strap and you’ve got an instant recycled bag!  You can even cut a square and a rectangle and use the top of the rectangle as a flap to fold over the top of the bag.

Cut the squares smaller to make an iPod case, a glasses case, a netbook or laptop sleeve – really fun recycled crafts that you can even give for gifts!

Cut the sleeves off your sweater at around 7-12 inches, sew them so that they’re fitted to your arm, cut thumb holes and you have yourself a wonderful, cozy and unique pair of fingerless gloves!

Make a set of coasters by cutting a few squares or circles out of your sweater and sew a zig-zag stitch around the edges with contrasting thread.

There are so many recycled crafts you can make out of a felted sweater I simply can’t list them all in a short blog post!  Hopefully this little introduction will get your creative juices flowing and motivate you to search through your closet and dresser for sweaters to felt and recycle into beautiful items!

Leave a comment and let me know what great ideas YOU have come up with!