Did you know that: Recycling 1 short ton (0.91 t) of paper saves 17 mature trees, 7 thousand US gallons (26 m3) of water, 3 cubic yards (2.3 m3) of landfill space, 2 barrels of oil (84 US gal or 320 l), and 4,100 kilowatt-hours (15 GJ) of electricity?! This is enough energy to power the average American home for six months! (Resources: "Wastes – Resource Conservation - Common Wastes & Materials - Paper Recycling"- US EPA)The Etsy Recyclers Guild is upcycling recycled and vintage paper and transforming it into some beautiful treasures! Please check out the treasury I created below featuring exclusively recycled paper creations all from members the Etsy Recyclers Guild; the treasury is titled "Orange Cats Love Recycled Paper".
My darling sister, Andrea of Storybook Artifact, created a picture tutorial just for the Etsy Recyclers Guild instructing how to make upcycled paper confetti gift/package stuffing "curlicues". Andrea puts these upcycled decorative curlicues in all of her Etsy shop order packages...I bet her customers feel like it is their birthday when they open their packages!
How to Make Upcycled Paper Confetti Package "Curlicues":
1. Collect some magazine pages with brightly colored pages (on both sides of the page if possible). These usually consist of advertisements; however, it is okay to have a little bit of text as long as the other side has lots of color. Recycled clippings of gift wrapping paper is a wonderful choice since they have brightly colored designs and are sometimes shiny or glittery. Furthermore, it is perfectly fine to make different sizes of curlicues (short, long, thin, wide), so you can create them with ease while watching your favorite television show!
2. Take the sheet of recycled paper in one hand and the your scissors in the other (sharp scissors work best) and cut off a strip of paper.
3. Now take the strip (if it is uneven and not completely straight that is okay) and with the sharp end of the scissors, pull the paper from end to end with a sliding motion to create a curlicue. As shown below.
Thank you Andrea of Storybook Artifact for sharing this picture tutorial with us! I encourage everyone to check out the vintage items in her shop...Remember buying vintage is recycling and reusing items from the past! I just love this vintage little leather library collection titled Victorian Literature Collection...It's made of vintage paper!
This post was contributed by Jessica of Eco-Friendly Freckles
See all posts created by Jessica under the tag *Eco Friendly Freckles Column!
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