Upcycling ...

""The practice of taking something that is disposable and transforming it into something of greater use and value."

The term was coined in the book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart."

(taken from About.com)

I have no idea when the book Cradle to Cradle was first published but the term 'upcycling' seems to have almost become a dominant, catch phrase for the crafting community in recent years.  Personally I love it.  But then I love to recycle.  Seriously, almost nothing is thrown out or recycled until it is run by me.  Not because I rule with an iron fist LOL but because I've become a bit obsessive about it I guess.  Here's a little story to give you an understanding of what 'it's' like ...

A few weeks ago I sent a magazine to my BIL (hi Gary!).  He'd been hunting it down for a little while and it was the first issue of a magazine he subscribes to so I didn't want it to be damaged in the mail.  Fair enough?  Yep, I thought so too.  So I packaged it very carefully with book board on either side of the magazine and then well sealed it in a new, 12x12 zip lock plastic bag.  Now book board isn't exactly cheap, and this was the good stuff, but more importantly its a product I use frequently.  The 12x12 zip lock plastic bag?  Well I seem to have a whole pile of them which never ends and then all of a sudden, overnight, they're gone.  So I added a note with the magazine asking him to please not throw out the book board and plastic bag.  Pretty reasonable?  Yes I agree.  It appears, so did he. Last week he came over for dinner (a yummy roast cooked by GB ... thanks GB!) and not only did he bring the book board and plastic bag with him but several other recycled materials he thought I might be able to use!!!!  The funniest part in all of this (I think) is that he was spot on with the items he bought over.  They were exactly what I would recycle myself.  Oh dear ... does this mean I'm going to turn into one of those crazy old ladies who lives in a maze of recycled materials and ends up never throwing anything out?????????

So anyways, back to the upcycling ...

After, in not quite three years, cleaning out and packing up our home to prepare it for sale, packing to move when it sold, moving into a rental whilst we waited for our new home to be built so only partially unpacking items, re-packing those things plus the extra 'stuff' we'd acquired whilst renting, to move to our new home, starting to slowly unpack after the final move, to then need to repack a whole pile of 'stuff' after half our home was flooded during freak storm weather, you can probably imagine I'm a little over 'stuff' and the need to pack it, unpack it, or store it LOL!  In the process of all that sorting and packing and unpacking and sorting and culling and packing some more this once sentimental hoarder of gargantuan proportions is ready to move to Japan and live in a house of complete simplicity with almost no 'stuff'.  Not having had our own family has also resulted in, at age 42, me deciding that really, there is just no need (or point) in holding onto things from my childhood because honestly, who is going to want that 'stuff'??!!  So, to cut a long story short (ha ha), I decided to photograph the childhood toys I've been sentimentally holding on to all these years and eventually (yes I'm still hoarding them LOL!) I plan to find them new homes (I guess perhaps, maybe, possibly when I get to the boxes they're packed in).  My plan is to scrap the photos and the memories and that way I'll still have that sentimentality recorded, I just won't have the toys.  For the time being though they are all safely packed away.  Well ... that is for Mr Rattle Rag Yo-Yo Doll ...

Yo-yos are still so popular in scrapbooking and other crafts, and vintage items are such sought after treasures, that when it came time to pack Mr Rattle Rag Yo-Yo Doll, who incidentally was missing an arm and half his face, I was torn.  Dismantle him and have all those gorgeous 40 plus years old yo-yos for use on my projects?  Or pack him away?  Dismantle?  Pack?  Store in a box for another (hopefully LOL!) 40 years or upcycle him?  Upcycle him!  Upcycle him!  Upcycle him!  But my mum (who was an accomplished dressmaker) made him for me when I was a wee baby from fabric remnants.  Upcycle him!  But she even put bells on the ends of his arms and legs (they weren't so aware of choking hazards in 1968 it seems!!) to make me smile and perhaps even giggle or at least catch my attention.  Upcycle him!  But that weirdly elongated shaped head still contained half the face she lovingly hand stitched all those years ago.  Upcycle him!!!!!  So upcycle him I did.  Once I made the decision to re home him by upcycling him in my scrapbooking and card making, the scissors to cut him apart perhaps not surprisingly, easily did their job.

You might think that after all that to-ing and fro-ing I would have started using those vintage yo-yos straight away.  Nope.  I packed them in a box for our move and promptly forgot about them.  Imagine my delight on stumbling across them just in time to do a CJ contribution for my friend Amanda (heh Manda!) who's CJ theme was 'hand made'.  Honestly could these vintage yo-yos have been anymore perfect?  So with a little help from Heather Bailey's instructions on how to make yo-yos (see HERE) and poor, old, darling Mr Rattle Rag Yo-Yo Doll, Yo-Yos was born ...

Yo-Yos

front

reverse (includes sign in)

products used include patterned papers from Cosmo Cricket's Material Girl collection and, of course, genuine vintage yo-yos from Mr Rattle Rag Yo-Yo Doll

So we have recycling and now we have upcycling.   But what do you call it when you now don't buy anything unless it has the potential to eventually be one or the other??  Obsessed ... maybe ...