Happy Earth Day!

It's Earth Day today! Why not do a little something for Mother Earth? Reuse, reduce, recycle...there are really a lot of things that we can do. Start today then make it a daily habit and soon enough we can make every day, Earth Day.

In this blog, we love to recycle -- turning blahs into Tadas! And this week, we're putting the spotlight on craftspeople from South Africa. Just look at how they turned soda cans like these from blah...

...into Tada!:

These are excess sheets of aluminum packaging, the stage before they're turned into soda cans. Instead of discarding them, local cooperatives collected them and used them as material for boxes! The edges and insides of the boxes are lined with leather so no sharp edges are exposed. Then they're bound together with string. Such simple materials resulting in a useful box to store anything and everything: a secret stash for snacks, a box for soup & gravy packets or a container for crafting materials. Totally Tada!!!

Cans to Cars

This week's blah are these colorful soda cans and I must say that the artwork graphic designers put on them is really attractive. When I was younger, I had a phase of collecting soda cans because they were so pretty and commemorative cans (ex. Coke Christmas) make good collectibles, too. So imagine the thrill I felt when I saw these at Art Africa (a little shop in South Africa):

An artist turned cans into toy cars! They're decorative but little hands can play with them, too. The sharp edges have been buffed smooth and the wheels really turn. Could this be the car of the future?

See you tomorrow for another cool idea!

Soda Cans

Happy Monday Everyone! We were blessed with very nice weather over the weekend and that was a real Tada! for me! I hope each of you had your own Tada! moment, too.

This week, I'm featuring cans again. There are just too many cans out there and it's good to know how we can make them more useful. Rather than doing the crafting myself, I'll show how how other people turn this blah into a Tada!:

Tada! Soda cans turned into mirror frames.
I found these at Art Africa, a cute gift shop in Durban, South Africa.
They're a little bit bohemian, a little bit quirky, but a lot of fun!

Packages and Parcels

Thank God it's Friday! This week we saw the transformation of different boxes from boring blah to terrific Tada!. Today is no exception. I'll recycle these packaging boxes culled from stuff ordered on-line or enclosed with a gift from across the world.

I'll use them for some packages I need to mail in the next couple of weeks (ex. birthdays, swap parties & Mother's Day). This will save me from buying a new box & prevent me from adding to the trash pile. But of course, I had to pick the good & sturdy-looking ones.

I dismantled the box and removed any old tape. Then I turned it inside-out so that the "ugly" side is inside. The loose flaps, I attached with a glue gun.

As a final step, I filled the box with festive paper and soon I'll be stuffing it with goodies for some very special people ('Ill share with you what I put inside in a future post).

The "new" box is clean & neat outside and imagine the look on the recipient's face when rummaging through this happy pile of confetti!

Happy weekend folks! May you receive lots of Tada! surprises!

Gather Ye Ribbons

Our blah to Tada! project today is related to yesterday's aluminum-foil-box-turned-gift-wrap-organizer. We're waving our magic wand on this box that once contained resealable freezer bags. But before I reveal the Tada!, let me show you how I came up with this idea...

I have ribbons like these, both brand new and recycled from old gift boxes, that I keep handy for birthday presents. I just stuff them in a plastic bag but they end up getting crushed wherever I store it. Such a blah! How do you revive a droopy ribbon anyway? So I thought it was better to keep them in a sturdier container...

Tada! By wrapping the box with an old map (you can use gift wrap or old magazine pages) and cutting off the box top, it now holds ribbons, keeping their shape! Also, it's easy to stash the box in a drawer or closet shelf.

Gift Wrapper Organizer

Does this ever happen to you: when wrapping gifts, small sheets of gift wrap are left over? What do you do? You probably can guess by now that I don't throw mine away. I save them for a smaller gift I need to wrap in the future. So I wind them around the giant roll it came from and tape the end to keep it from unfurling. But one day, an idea came to me when I saw this:

A box of aluminum foil...

Once it's empty, time to turn it into a Tada!

Give it a little make-over...

Using scissors, glue & an old map...

Measure the panels of the box & cut corresponding strips from the map.
Apply the strips to the box with glue.

Roll the loose sheets of gift wrap around the cardboard roll.
A little tip: attach the inner end of the gift wrap to the cardboard roll with some tape.

Tada! A nifty way to organize smaller sheets of gift wrap!
The sharp metal edge helps cut the wrapper to your preferred size
without the need for scissors.

Now, wrapping smaller packages will be so much easier!

See you tomorrow for another Tada! idea.

Gift Boxes

I'm sure you have a lot of boxes in your pantry, from cereal, to granola bars to pasta. Before you roll out the red carpet towards the recycling bin for them, maybe you can consider a blah to Tada! suggestion? It's easy, I promise!

Step 1: Cut out the box tops.
Step 2: Cover the box with gift wrap.
Neatly tuck the edges & secure with glue.
Step 3: Punch holes on the sides of the box; insert a ribbon that
will work as a handle.
Step 4: Put a gift inside the box, conceal with colorful tissue wrap
& attach a tag!

Tada! Effortless, instant gift-wrap!

Imagine how much money you'll save on pre-made boxes and gift bags
just by recycling boxes from your kitchen cupboard.

See you again tomorrow!