Upcycling. Do you know what it is, and do you do it?
I have an entire family of "crafters". That means a herd of about 30 people - brothers, sisters, inlaws, kids, cousins, etc - who are all into making something out of nothing. We've all done it for years. My husband used to say "Never use an item for it's intended purpose"
An old doily became an Angel Christmas Ornament. An old potting table became a stereo cabinet. Bamboo placemats became wall sconces. Just about anything can become a lamp or a clock.
Who knew that it was going to become all the rage? Now you have TV shows like Flea Market Flip where people find old items, refurbish them or re-imagine them into something completely different.
It's a great idea. It keeps stuff out of landfills, it's cheap and its a great creative outlet.
I have an entire craft room in my house where I keep everything from take-out chopsticks to used wrapping paper. When someone calls me and says, "Hey, do you happen to have 6 matching blue buttons?" I say "Yep, sure do. Come on over".
So do you upcycle? What's your best project and share a photo if you'd like.
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Anybody want to go to a flea market tomorow?
Oh, that's pretty Cool gunny!
I think upcycling is what working class/hillbilly culture has been doing from the get go. Use shyte till it no longer works then transform it into something that does. Knives from old Chevy springs, using empty plastic bottles for trot lines, camp stoves from old cocola cans, the building of toys out of scraps, and on and on. I'm in the process of making a smoker/bar-b-q out of an old oil tank I found out in the woods. We just call it making do.
Take one set of well used deer antlers (where he's gone, the deer doesn't need them any more). Remove from skull with hacksaw and mount on a very weathered pine board (removed from the floor of my uncle's porch when he was re-doing it). Remove the tongue and groove from the edges and sand off the gray paint that's been covering it for forty years; it ends up with pretty good grain. Finish with Linseed Oil and you have a very nice gun rack with a heavily weathered look. It's been holding up a Model 94 in my house for about twenty years.
Tex, you do realize, don't you, that you may have taken part of somebody's still. Both he and the Revenooers might want to have a word with you. Won't the oil give a kind of unique taste to the meat?
Not a cause for trepidation. I am fully aware of the etiquette of the still in these hills. I give unknown smoke a wide berth. Yeah, that oil. You gotta burn it out, and it takes awhile, though I'm sure the first few butt roasts might cause one to consider petroleum products in general. Better living through chemicals and Life itself isn't possible without chemicals. Good saws to live by.
We've got some property down on the Cumberland Plateau. Basically an extreme backwoods rock farm of a little over 40 acres. You might think you'd inadvertently walked onto the set of Deliverance had you not been properly prepared and briefed prior to the visit. It is gorgeous but not all that fine for any dirt grubbing endeavor. Truck crop anyhow. It does grow some fine rocks and some mighty wondrous examples of Copperheads and Timber Rattlers. I like it. It's too dang hot in the summer.
Anyhow, it's an area sort of secretly known for stills and good shine. As well as Guerrilla Grows, but that's another tale to tell. Back in the 70's when I was but a wee lad and hair boy I'd take a pack and hike and sleep out in the woods quite often. On one of those trips I'd been down to the Big Coon and up past the natural arch looking for what my brother and I believe to be an old Salt Peter cave during The Late Misunderstanding.
Took a break and climbed up a big ass rock to have a sit and a rooter. I'd just finished my smoke when I noticed a guy coming out of the tree line and into the creek bed. He was a short, stocky, grizzled fellow maybe ten or fifteen years older than me. He had a Beechnut patch on a work cap that looked like it had been soaked in oil for a few decades perched on his noggin. Blue jeans and blue jean coat with a tattered Skynnyrd Tour T shirt under it. He had those squinty piercing eyes you see on many of the backwoods folks around there. Looking at you like he was considering whether he should just shoot this long haired boy and drop him in a sinkhole or shake his hand. In his left hand he was carrying a Mini 14, which was a pretty dang new fangled carbine in those days, on his belt I could see a hog leg and what looked like a home made Bowie about as long as my arm. There were jail house tats on his hands.
Turned out he was quite affable and witty. We rolled up another muggle on the rock and talked for bit. I did not mention, race, politics, religion or, more importantly, small batch whiskeys.
I've got a million shine stories. It has been a ubiquitous theme in life. Guess that all depends on where you chose to hang your hat and the hills and hollers around it.
Shyte. That's a lot babbling to say that yeah, I didn't carp a shiner's tank.
The only thang that would make that sweeter would be the same pic with your 94 on it.
Dang. That's one that could use an entire article. Pipe's we've made in desperation and amusement when papers are nowhere to be found and we've left our favorite travel pipe at home.
Apples, Cocola cans, Bic pens. If you make it, they will smoke. As it were.
Way cool.
You're an artist. Enjoy it to the fullest that you can.
I try to recycle/upcycle as much as I can. At the end of the day we all have limits.
I thought of that, but I would have had to go upstairs and get the rifle, then re-hang the rack somewhere down here in the basement. I had to take it out of the spare room when my mother in law moved here and it became her room. Maybe tomorrow I'll extend a couple of pieces of 2X4 down from the studs and hang it from them. If I get it done, I'll put up a picture. My wife objects to hanging rifle racks all over the house or I'd put it in the living room. The dark wood paneling would make it look nice. She says that she's not living in a hunting cabin. The deer was not shot with that 94. At that time, it was still my dad's deer rifle and I was using a Model 600 Remington in .308. I inherited it when my dad died but almost immediately passed it to my son (with instructions that it's to go to his oldest son). That'll take a while, though, since his oldest son is only three. Not only do I have the rifle; when I checked my mom's papers after her death in 05, I found the original bill of sale from the hardware store, dated 1947. She paid 90 bucks for it and gave it to him for his birthday on November 1st. November 15th is the opening day of deer season in Michigan.
It may also be the provenance of Art, Literature and Music. As well as a boon for the snack food industry.
Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesnt the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit . . . unnatural? Bill Hicks
Luckily for me, I don't have a wife. I can hang firearms anywhere I please. I've got the old percussion cap side by side scatter gun my great great Grand Paw made right before the War Between the States hanging to my right. The hanger itself is not even close to yours in coolness. Just some old hardware large brass coat hooks.
My little brother has his old Winchester 92. It's a strange caliber. .38-40 I do believe. I've got the .38 my other Grand Paw carried in North Africa in WWII, The Big One. Still has it's issue canvass hostler.
I hunted Elk for years with an old British .303 in its original configuration. Went to a lever .45-70.
Post a pic when you get it ready to roll. I, for one, love Old Stuff.
Here she is Tex. I put it up on the wall of the back hallway. Had to get kind of oblique photo though. It's a narrow hallway.
Sweet. I especially like the shape you have going on the bottom piece.
No, I see dragonflies in it. That crossed my mind immediately. As well as steam punk and a Celtic Cross rearranged.
I like it. I like both of em.
There you go. That is sweet. With the old lever resting there, all is well in the world.
Oh Yeah. Neither my son nor I have fired it at a deer. When my dad used it, though, there was venison in the freezer every year and the same box of cartridges lasted for over ten years. I never knew him to need more than one round.
That's a beautiful piece and looks to be in fine shape.
Yeah, I've always tried to be a one shot hunter myself. It's why I never used optics. I'd rather let a few walk until close enough for a sure kill.
I went dove hunting back in the day with a bunch of very wealthy folks from my home town on their special spot of land. Those guys shot up more money in bird shot than I made in a week. They were shooting at birds you couldn't hit with a canon, not to mention low fliers. That didn't piss me off or anything. Even back then I didn't like to waste or leave game hurt, I shot twelve shells, took 10 birds. Just enough for grits and gravy later on.
You ever going to try that lever in the woods?
My family is old hands at using up and making do. I don't think it started with, nor will it end with Grandpa. My Grandpa, cut up an old chiffarobe, (sp?), and made a beautiful grandfather clock out of it. His Capeheart sits in my living room, now storing extra silver and serving pieces. (I kept the guts. Never know when I'll find someone with extra tubes.) His first radio is a planter on my mother's patio. My Appalachian Dulcimer is now artwork on the wall. I'm currently restoring his old big wheel bicycle as more artwork. And yes, our house looks like Cracker Barrel...
Grandpa's handy dandy can of rusty tacks keeps feeding my Irises outside, and keeps the kids from riding their bikes through them. The harness bench from my great-great grandpa Bruce's farm is an extra "perch" in the den. I use the wrought iron bottom of an old Singer sewing machine as the table legs on my own patio.
Just about everything I have is old junk. I love it. Old junk is the best junk! 3 cheers for old junk!
Those are great! Beautiful! I love them!
I use old pins are hair ornaments, old earrings as pins, necklaces as all kinds of things... Fun! Note: I never throw out jewelry. Ever. I just keep boxes and boxes of old jewelry! Who knows, maybe someday, I'll get to be creative, too!
My son and I have both had it out. We just didn't happen to see any deer when we did.
That thing was made for the quick reaction stuff. My dad was usually on target before the deer made two jumps. When I was a kid I asked him how he learned to get on target so quickly. He just grinned and told me, "I was inspired to learn by the Japanese Army."
That would mean he was a Marine in the Pacific Theater. Hell, if I was a deer I'd have just surrendered from the get go.
Seabee, building airstrips, usually when the area was halfway captured. He rode a D-8 Cat with a carbine next to his knee.
When I was a kid, one of the guys he used to hunt with had been a sniper during WWII, for the German Army. His favorite phrase when in hunting camp, "Only Rooshins though, only Rooshins".
Okay Polly , here you go. Just reopen your article to edit it, delete your two photos, then copy and paste these:
Everybody has made a pipe out of a dented empty pepsi can, right?
Ok I really really really like those necklaces!
What is a Capeheart, Dowser?
Thanks, Buzz! It worked. My Vista is so out of date they don't even make updates any more so I couldn't rotate the photos when I uploaded them from my cell phone!
I think them Roosians gave as good as they got in the Sniper Wars.
My Paw was a Squid. Aircraft carriers in the Pacific as well. One Grand Paw fought in North Africa along with his brother. The other in the European Theater. He was in the relief column at the Bulge.
My hat's off to anyone who was anywhere near the Pacific Theater. That was one nasty rodeo.
I need some end tables on my deck. Just went out in the garage and found six empty plastic hanging baskets and found two left over charger plates from my son's wedding last year. Got me some liquid nails and I'll let you all know what happens.
Those are really creative and interesting projects, Polly! I once made a lamp (as a school project) using a piece of pvc pipe, drilled holes and decorated it, but that's the extent of my crafts; not real interested, I guess...I'm right-handed
...As for collecting, I tried being a 'saver' for a while, but it seemed like whenever I needed something, I couldn't find it in the masses, or there wasn't enough of what I needed. That's fine with me; less 'stuff' around is getting kind of nice. 
In northern New Mexico, this is Art. Generally known as 'found object' Art. Hefty price tag too.
At the moment, I have an old tree that blew down that I want to turn into a planter. Wood is so hard I started a fire using a spade bit on it. Got some of my grand dad's deep sea fishing lures I want to do something with. Any ideas?