Upcycling Recycled

I've finally figured out what was bothering me about the GreenCraft magazine I complained about in my previous post. It's not that bits and scraps and old used things can't be turned into lovely useful items--they can, the magazine is full of them and you have no doubt made a few yourself. The fact that my recycled trash still looks like trash makes me grumpy but doesn't make the concept any less valuable. What bugged me about the magazine was that the focus was on what to do with trash, rather than on how to make beautiful things.

I love to look at articles that show me how, if I need or want a beautiful bag, I can make one out of an old tablecloth. Etsy is awash with beautiful tablecloth tote bags. But an entire magazine telling me not to throw away my old tablecloths, plastic bags, measuring tapes, T-shirts and magazines because they can all be upcycled into other stuff just makes me feel guilty about my entire life.

Anyway, I feel better now because I gave the magazine to a woman waiting to board the subway from which I had just disembarked. Does getting two posts and a random act of kindness out of one magazine count as upcycling?

Speaking of random, here's a notice posted on the wall of a ladies' room in a bar in Amsterdam. Disturbing on several levels.

I'm Down With Upcycling

I ride the buses and subway in Los Angeles. I could work while I'm riding, and sometimes I do, but I don't always feel like it. I also can and do read literary periodicals and science fiction novels. But sometimes I just want to look at pictures, so the other day I picked this up at a newsstand.



This is a pretty magazine (for the price it should be!) and it is printed on recycled paper, which is a Good Thing. But actual ideas, practical suggestions, are a little thin. Repurposing tablecloths, for example. Tablecloths are already purposed, aren't they? And if a tablecloth is no longer suitable to clothe a table, say because it is stained, I'm hardly likely to want to wear it as an apron or dress my baby in it. Speaking of aprons, doesn't the idea of making an apron out of last year's tea towel calendar just suggest that the whole tea towel calendar idea should be rethought? And no amount of artful photography is going to convince me that cut-up tyvek or a brown plastic grocery bag makes a good necklace or brooch.

Much of the stuff pictured is, in fact, quite lovely, but the text offers little guidance on how to reproduce the loveliness. To repurpose a small box, for example, we are instructed: "with a glue stick or glue gun, adhere bits and pieces of papers, including magazine pictures, catalog pictures, scrapbook paper, etc." to it, then "Add ribbon, buttons, fabric, and other embellishments." And then? Trash hot-glued together is still trash. Maybe if I use pages from this magazine . . .

Actually, I do have a one repurposed item I've cherished for many years. Here it is:



It is a law school textbook for a class I taught, left behind by a student who dropped out to go to art school. (I added the sun glasses.) I keep it by my desk to remind me what the Socratic Method can do to the unprotected brain.