This year, except for The Green Guide magazine, I have stopped subscribing to my other magazine subscriptions. I have decided that until magazines businesses become more environmentally responsible and begin to use more environmentally friendly ways to print their issues I will have to settle for checking them out at the library or not reading them at all.
In the mean time I have old issues I have already read that are piled up on my bookshelves and in my magazine rack. In the past I have passed old magazines on to someone else, either someone I know or someone from freecycle. I have also dropped them off at recycling sites to be recycled or used them for simple art projects with my kids, but this year the crafter in me wants to do something a little more creative with my old magazines.
I have found that old magazine can be crafted into plenty of different useful and elegant crafts. In most instances all a crafter needs is glue, scissors, a magazine and step-by-step instructions. There is no need to pay high prices to attend craft class and learn how to make this type of craft. Luckily, how-to craft with magazine project instructions are all over the Internet.
Below I have listed three types of the magazine crafts I have found available online: making beads, decorative containers and magazine mosaics.
Making Beads. Beads are useful for making bracelets, necklaces, earrings, buttons and other kinds of jewelry and accessories. To make beads cut magazines pages into different shape strips, triangles strips, rectangles strips, squares strips, etc. Before rolling the strip into a bead apply glue to the strip, for the exception of one end. Then with a thin round object (ex: a pencil, a crotchet needle, straw, etc) roll up the strip, starting from the unglued edge. The different shaped strips make different shaped beads.
Decorative containers. Bowls, baskets, coasters, vases and colorful boxes can be crafted from magazines as well. The steps to making these sort of decorations are similar to bead making, but instead of cutting a page into strips the whole page is used. Each page is folded into a long thin strip and then coiled. Other strips, depending on the decoration that needs to be made, are then added on the top, over, beside or added inside another strip.
Magazine Mosaics. I have seen this craft made on baby food jars, glass jars and as kids art projects. Ingredients include: magazine pages, scissors, white glue, water and a small brush. First trace a mosaic design onto the surface of a selected object (ex. glass jar). Cut out different colored pieces from magazine pages. Then glue them on to the object by brushing the top and the bottom with the glue water mixture recommended in the instructions.
Feel free to search the Internet for more magazine crafting ideas or share your ideas below.
