The Christmas Guide to Upcycling…

The Christmas Guide to Upcycling is my latest e-book! I am so excited to be sharing it with y’all. As most of you must already know I love to use household items that would otherwise be thrown into the trash and use them to make embellishments and projects.

This latest e-book is full of all sorts of Chritsmasy goodness with projects that range from ornaments, gifts and jewelry to napkin rings, place-mats and much much more. All of these projects are made using up-cycled items.

Turn soda cans into earrings, fabric scraps into gorgeous place-mats and old boxes into Christmas ornaments all with the help of your die-cutting machine and following the complete and detailed instructions given in this book! http://alteredupcycling.com/books.php

The book is over 160 pages with lots of pictures that explain every step of the entire process so that you can easily replicate the projects in the book.

Learn new techniques that can be used for other projects throughout the year. Use the same technique with slightly different supplies and you can use the same process to make birthday gifts and cards, thank you cards, get well soon cards….the list goes on and on.

Here is the introduction from the book:

‘It is that time of year again, when there is holiday cheer all around. Jingles play in supermarkets and the chilly evening air reminds us that Christmas is near.

There is something about the holiday season that is very refreshing and joyful! Even a task as mundane as doing groceries becomes joyful for me at this time of year. I walk down the aisles looking at all the goodies that line the shelves and think of all the holiday goodness I can cook up, while humming along to Jingle Bells 🙂

Craft stores are also full of people with smiles on their faces, looking for all the materials and supplies they will need to make holiday décor and gifts. A handmade gift or card comes with such a lot of love, since you know the process is much longer and thought consuming than picking something off the shelf at a department store. That is why I love giving handmade gifts!

I am an avid crafter and a green crafter at that. I love to repurpose otherwise ‘junk’ items and turn them into something quite new and something quite different. Like a soda can into a pair of chic earrings. Or an old book into a box of goodies. Or packaging plastic into napkin rings.

In this green crafting endeavor I have had enormous help from all the cool machines, gadgets and products that have hit the market. They help us to perform nothing short of miracles, turning trash into treasure. With machines like the Sizzix and Cuttlebug die-cutters and embossers or products like Tim Holtz’s alcohol inks, metallic and colored spray paints and Sharpies, it has become easier to create gorgeous works of art and to change the fate of most trash items!

As a family we rely very heavily on coke and diet coke and I hated seeing all those cans end up in the trash (sure I could send them to the recycling plant, but I wanted to up-cycle). I am also an avid crafter and have lots and lots of paper and fabric scraps always waiting for a project and invariably being shoved to the back of my ‘crafting pile’. I am sure you understand what I mean J our scrap piles keep growing over the years and in the end most of us have to toss them out just to make some more room. I felt very bad about tossing out good material and since I am a new and extremely excited “green altered artist” I put on my thinking cap and tried to come up with ideas on what to make and do with things that found their way into my recycling bin! In short I tried to ‘alter’ their fate and ‘up-cycle’ them into everything from cards, tags, gift and bags to frames, napkin rings and scrapbook embellishments!

‘Tis the season to toss no more! The time has come to up-cycle all of your trash into beautiful handmade holiday gifts and cards. Get out your die-cutting/embossing machines, dies, embossing folders, spray paints, scraps of paper, leftover ribbons and embellishments, inks and Sharpies and let’s embark on a magical journey this holiday season.

Let’s spread the joy of Christmas and at the same time try to save our planet one craft project at a time!

Please share your stories and adventures with me at thecraftycan@gmail.com or visit our website at www.alteredupcycling.com for more great books and Upcycling videos and projects. Let’s change the world and make it greener!

Have an artsy season!

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

MZ ‘

Here are some pictures of the projects that are discussed in the book and also a tutorial on how to make a Christmas Snowflake card! https://alteredfantasy.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/using-leftovers-and-turning-them-into-christmas-cards/