Turn your junk into a GEM

FOR the record, I am a hoarder. I’m not ashamed to say it. I have a junk trunk outside my house where I put things that might come in handy later.

Candles, toilet roll tubes, empty bottles of fabric softener — anything I can get my hands on — goes in there. It’s like an Aladdin’s cave of stuff, all waiting for me to give it a new lease of life.

Mine’s just a cheap, watertight plastic box that I keep outside. But honestly, it gives me so much joy! Anything that I think I can use to make something goes into the junk trunk.

I really would recommend you having some sort of junk trunk too.

Then, if you ever think: ‘Oh, it’s a shame to throw that away.’ That’s where you put it even though someone else might call it rubbish.

Later, when you see something that inspires you, say, on the Pinterest site, you’ll remember: ‘Ooh, I’ve got that old glass jar in the junk trunk, that’s what I can make out of it.’

You might not necessarily know at the time what you’re saving it for — it might come to you days, weeks, months afterwards. But eventually, you’ll get a better sense of what you will and won’t use and it will start to be obvious what to keep and what to throw away.

Just wash whatever you put in there before you leave it for months — otherwise you don’t know what kind of smelly mess you’ll return to.

I make something nearly every day and it gives me so much pleasure. The other day, I found a broken hanger. I put it in the junk trunk, searched online for ‘What can I make out of a broken hanger?’ and later made a bedside lamp that I bloomin’ well love.

But first I need an idea. And sometimes I’ll get upset when I look in there and think I’ve got nothing — nothing! I don’t know what to do with you. But then some days I open it up and I think, ‘Ah! I know what I can do with that.’

So, I am tidy, but I do hoard. I think some things are worth stashing away!

Shells are great to work with — I have a collection that I organise in jars.

If you glue-gun shells to a picture frame, (see right) it immediately looks prettier. Glue guns are a brilliant piece of kit for when you’re crafting.

These things pump out strong glue that really holds things together in a way the regular stuff can’t. Sometimes I’ll even use a few pumps from my trusty glue gun instead of nailing something down, which is so much easier.

And if you’ve used up a candle, but still love the look of the heatproof holder it came in, just boil some water and pour it in to lift out any excess wax, and then you can use it again.

Or you could use an old chopping board, screw in some hooks to hang your keys on and fix it to the wall.

Even an old plastic ketchup bottle gets a chance of a new lease of life in our house when I turn it into a pencil case!

BOTTLE PENCIL CASES YOU’LL NEED:

■ Old plastic bottles rinsed clean.

■ Zips (one per bottle; I used a red one to match the ketchup bottle that I’d picked).

1. FIRST, stand a bottle on its base, then carefully cut off the top of it just before the point where the bottle narrows. This is where you glue the zip.

2. THEN, glue one side of the zip around the open edge of the lower half of the bottle and trim it to fit (cutting from the end of the zip without the little metal base, of course). Don’t cut it so it is exactly the same length as the bottle’s edge — leave a flap.

3. NEXT, unzip the zip to make it easier to glue the other side of the zip piece around the edge of the other, bottle half.

4. WHEN you zip it up again, you’ve got a pencil case!

PRETTY PEN POTS

I CRAFTED a pen pot out of empty tin cans.

All you have to do is wrap them in whatever material you want (once they are clean), gluing it into place: I did one in rustic string; another in a piece of an old jumper.

CANDLE HOLDERS SHINE AGAIN

TO GIVE old candle holders and jars a new lease of life first soak them overnight in water to get the labels off.

If there’s any wax in there, you can pour in boiling water, leave for a bit, and the wax will just rise to the top so you can lift it off when cooled down.

Be careful though: glass containers sold with a candle should normally be heatproof, but boiling water can cause some glass to shatter.

EDIBLE SAND THAT’S CHILD’S PLAY

YOU can even turn all those bits of cereal which get left at the bottom of the box into a treasure for your baby by turning it into play sand. You just whiz the cereal up in a food processor until it’s like a powder. Then chuck it in a little tray.

I give it to Rex to play with. he can even eat it if he wants — but he just loves the feel of it. Sometimes, I’ll blend a few

different types of cereal separately — Rice Krispies, Frosties and Cheerios, say — and put them in a tray or baby dish with small sections, so he can feel the different types of ‘sand’.

And I’ll watch him notice the difference — it’s really interesting for me, too!

MAKE MEMORIES EVERY DAY

I love making memories. It doesn’t have to be something big, some over-the-top holiday or anything like that. even just going for a walk in the woods with the kids or going out into the garden and digging with them — I love that so much.

And if I craft something connected to that memory, it will be so special to me. For example, my stone family made from pebbles we collected on holiday just reminds me of how happy we were when we were there. I’m in love with it!

YOUR STONE FAMILY (OR FRIENDS)

THIS is a sweet twist on the little stone family people make, labelled ‘Mum’, ‘Dad’ and so on — or named after friends or even pets, as in the picture inset, top left.

We have loads of frames hung up around the house, and didn’t want to add any more to the mix. so instead of framing our stone family, made from pebbles collected on the beach, I got a large pebble and stood us up on that.

YOU’LL NEED:

■ Pebbles.

■ Candle (optional).

1. I FOUND some body-shaped pebbles and little round pebbles for our heads. That’s it!

2. I JUST glued them all on top of each other using the big pebble as a base — and stuck a candle on there, to make it functional, too.

CREATE A COLOURFUL LAVA LAMP

THIS is so easy and a really fun way to upcycle an empty glass bottle. Kids love these.

YOU’LL NEED:

■ A clear glass bottle.

■ Baby oil (You can use any oil, but I like this as it’s so clear).

■ Food colouring.

■ An effervescent (fizzy) tablet — we use the Milton sterilising tablets of the kind I use for Rex’s baby bottles

1. TAKE a glass bottle — I used one of my bathroom empties.

If you need to get the label off, an easy way is to just fill the bottle carefully with boiling water, if it’s heatproof. After a while, the heat melts the glue and you should be able to peel the label away.

2. USING the empty bottle, pour in enough water, so it’s a bit over halfway full, then top up with oil, a dash of food colouring and then the tablet, broken up. I used a funnel so it didn’t spill, but don’t worry if you don’t have one.

3. Then, the ingredients begin to react together — that’s when the ‘lava’ effect begins. It doesn’t go on for ever, but you get a good few days out of it.