http://www.care2.com/greenliving/a-marriage-made-in-the-recycling-bin-diy-valentine-vase-and-button-buds.html
A Marriage Made in the Recycling Bin: DIY Valentine Vase and Button Buds
Is your home feeling the love? Rethink the roses and forget the flowers–the environment and your home will love you back with these two DIY Valentine’s Day projects.
Unless you are giving organic flowers, conventionally grown flowers can be an environmental hazard. Most cut flowers are grown in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. They can be heavily sprayed with pesticides, fungicides, herbicides and even DDT. These chemicals pose problems for workers and florists who work with cut flowers. Add the transporting time and the greenhouse gases emitted; flowers may not be so lovely.
I remember the milkman delivering milk to my home when I was a kid (OK, now I’ve really dated myself). Lately, I’ve been buying milk in reusable glass bottles at the health food store. The empty glass bottles have been looking lonely sitting in the recycling bin waiting for a new purpose. Stacked next to the bottles is a pile of discarded garden and flower catalogs. I’m learning to repurpose and love what I have, so I married the two. Love was in the air and the culmination of the ceremony was this Valentine Vase and Button Bouquet.
Glass Milk Bottle Vase:
What you need:
• Glass milk bottle
• Magazines, catalogs, newspaper, etc.
• Mod Podge
• 1″ Paint brush
What to do:
1. Clean out the bottle.
2. Cut pictures from the sources.
3. With the Mod Podge (serves as a glue and a sealant) and paintbrush, paint the back of the desired pictures, arrange and glue like a collage around the bottle.
4. When you have covered the bottle, with Mod Podge, paint over the collage. It will paint on white and dry clear.
Button Buds. Inspired by TheRipeRadish at Etsy.
What you need:
• Buttons–buttons in different sizes with multi-holes. For each flower, the top button or bead can be a shank button or bead.
• Wire–floral or jewelry wire
• Scissors
What to do:
1. Cut a piece of wire to the desired size.
2. Bend the wire about 1/3 of the way from the top.
3. To stack the buttons, thread a small shank button (or bead) and push it up to the bend.
4. Then thread through one hole of the two or four holes of the buttons with the longer end of wire. Thread in the short end through another hole. Push up to top. Continue in the same manner with the largest button last.
5. Twist the short end of the wire around the long end of the wire.
6. Arrange your no-guilt Button Bud bouquet.
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16 comments
add your comment »thanks...
Kabin
Konteyner,Prefabrik
mega kabin
Konteyner
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The picture is not displaying for me but I like the idea of dedoupage on a bottle. In my craft active some of the children wrapped coloured wool and string around jamjars to use as pencil holders and vases. When they were varnished they looked good. Homemade but funky!
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Hi All,
I am fine with you guys not liking this project. Actually, the picture is pitiful and really does not do any justice to the project. That said, maybe it’s a dud. Carla, thanks for your sentiment. I agree there are better ways to give constructive comments. Michelle is also right, I didn’t lose any sleep over it. Please stay tuned, I have a more “mature” DIY project for next week that I hope you all enjoy.
Best,
Ronnie
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Ah, lighten up, Carla. If you publish something (which means "make it public") then you ought to be able to live with comments, good and bad. I'm sure Ronnie didn't lose any sleep over this. And generally her ideas are pretty cool, I (and a few others) just think this one's a dud. Happens to the best of us.
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this is shameful!! whatever happened to if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all?!
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This is sooooooooo uuuuuuuggly .What was she thinking I wonder?
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or hodge podge, perhaps? Sorry, I often enjoy the eco-freindly craft and decorating ideas on this site, but this one is just plain ugly. My six-year old can do much better. I'll stick my long-stemmed roses, thank you very much.
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Maybe not a great photo? I think in real life it probably looks pretty cool. And it IS Modge Podge!
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Wow, does that look stupid... Honestly, I wish this site was a little pickier about what it posted.
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The vase is OK, but the "button buds"? Who would you give something like that to?
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