For years, the mantra shared by both practitioners of frugal living and those interested in keeping it green was: “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.” These three things not only can save money but can also conserve resources for the planet. You may have heard of a fourth term, “upcycling.” How is this different from the others and should you be doing it?
Chances are that if you have been living frugally for some time you are already participating in upcycling. This fancy term describes taking ordinary materials, objects that you might have recycled anyway, and then transforming them into something more beautiful or more valuable than they were before. Conventionally, this means changing the object or objects into art, but I personally believe that there is beauty in function, too, so I would include that as part of my definition of upcycling. Anything that has a better purpose than what it was originally intended to be.
So, what can you upcycle? Pretty much anything. We have a little shop in our town that is only open on Saturdays. The owner does such an incredible business selling her upcycling projects that she only needs to stay open that one day to practically sell out. She repaints old tables, adds wheels to trunks and calls them TV stands, and turns dry sinks into working vanities.
While we can’t all be as talented as this lady, there are plenty of easy upcycling projects that we can do in our own homes.
For example, let’s say that you have a girl’s t-shirt that is now too short for your daughter to wear. You can add some fabric on to it at the bottom and turn it into a dress. You can stretch the t-shirt over some canvas and frame the pretty design. You can turn it into a pillow. You can cut it up and use the pieces to make a quilt or a rag rug. Do you see what I mean?
Not only will you be saving money by upcycling, but you’ll also be creating one of a kind homemade objects that will give you and your home a unique personality.
Related Articles: