Eye Opener: Photo Essay

These are pictures of recycled or re-used items that are in our house. Some of the items are old, some are more recent. Before taking this class I have never really thought about where these items have come from. I never even knew we had some of the things I found and was surprised how many recycled or re-used items we had in our home. My mom was setting up Christmas decorations at our house this weekend so some of the items are Christmas related.

My grandpa made these two items about 10 years ago. On the right is a candle made out of part of a birch tree. Then he stapled ribbon and pine cones and pine needles on for decoration. The bigger log on the right holds two candles sticks and is decorated the same way as the small candle. This is just a simple way to make a nice looking candle or holiday decoration.

This was an old sled that was sitting in storage at our house and my mom decided to make it into a Christmas decoration for the outside of our house. She put a ribbon, wreath, and bells on it and it sits by our front door.

This is a lamp that is in our bathroom. It is made out of a glass jar and has been painted and decorated with twine. I think this is a cool use of an empty glass jar.

This is a bowl made out of recycled glass. One of my mom's students made it and gave it to her as a gift.

This cabinet was taken out of my great grandparents house and was in rough shape. We refinished it and it looks as good as new. It is currently sitting in our dining area with some other decorative type things inside.

This is a picture of some christmas decorations my mom has made in the past. On the left is a reindeer ornament made from an old christmas light and pipe cleaners. On the right, since my mom is a teacher, she made these apples out of a crushed pop can and wrote holiday messages on some.

The box that is temporarily holding up our new t.v. until we get a shelf built in our entertainment center was an old wooden fruit box that we sanded and painted and is usually used a decoration in our home.

This is the exercise room at our house. The floor is rubber matting that was torn out of the hockey arena in my hometown that was going to be thrown away. We asked if we could have some and cleaned it up and put it in our exercise room and it has worked out great!