June 24 is Upcycling Day in the US. If you’re not familiar with upcycling, it’s the creative cousin of the ‘Reuse’ part of the well-known Reduce/Reuse/Recycle. Instead of just reusing something secondhand for its intended purpose, it’s giving a whole new life to something old and giving it a new purpose. Upcycling is the act of taking something that may otherwise just get thrown away, and breathing new life into it.

For example, with some screws and a plywood board, a pair of old tires can become a planter for your yard. An empty soda bottle, some found stones, and an LED tealight can become a fairy house decoration. Cereal boxes can become folders, and a favorite outgrown shirt can become a pillow! Here at the library, we upcycle and reuse items frequently in our programming in the Dabble Box and Youth Services. For example, kids last summer turned toilet paper tubes into “rockets” that they sent flying on a zipline between the levels of the library. In a previous class with one of our Makers in Residence, we turned old t-shirts into tote bags.

If you can imagine it, there is something you can use to create it.

I personally have turned old clothing into a patchwork bag, an unraveled sweater into a small crochet friend, and empty pasta sauce and jam jars into candles.

Upcycling Day is a day to challenge yourself to imagine and create. Look around at what you have in your home, your yard, your trash or recycle bin and go wild with whimsy! If you get stuck, there are lots of ideas in books in our MORE catalog or online in places like Pinterest.

Another idea would be to bring down some of your found items and combine them with tools and supplies in our Dabble Box during one of our open labs. Got some cool pages from a magazine you saved? Bring them down and turn them into buttons with our button makers! Got an idea for a fun-sized cardboard box you saved, but no paint to decorate it with? We’ve got that too! There are always more ideas to dream, and more things to make and do!

From Our Catalog