More recycling tips for miniature makers

My most popular blog post by far is one of the very first, in which I shared some ideas about recycling. I don't know whether people hit it because they are looking for something else or whether they find it helpful - I'd like to know. If you read this and have visited that post, please leave a comment.

Since then I have been recycling more and more, and I am always looking for new materials. I thought I would collect some pictures and links here, hoping that people might find them useful. It will come in no particular order, but organised around a particular material or object.  For instance, look what you can do with buttons.

Here is what you can do with corrugated plastic from a candy box:

Here is some other things you can do with candy boxes:

Hats
Kitchen pots and pans
Door pediments 

With single eye-drop containers you can do wine and milk bottles.

And with eyedrop bottle caps you can make lamps (this is a scene from Alice in Wonderland):

The bottle itself becomes a milk canister.

 With large wooden beads you can make jam jars.

From fans you can make all kinds of things. A pedestal. A cradle. Or a modesty screen.

Spice bottle caps make showers:

Broken clock hands make fireplace tools:

Jewellery box lids make TV and computer screens. Here is a whole room full of computers.

Toothpicks have a variety of potential. For instance, knitting needles.

Hard foam (the kind electronic appliances are packed in) are excellent to make chimneys.

If you are throwing away an old printer or other device, there are all kinds of wheels and cogs and small bits that can be useful.  Resistors make excellent food jars (this is a half-scale dresser):

  From a metal toothpaste or tomato paste tube, you can make a lamp:

 

Envelope clips become door knobs (the door is, by the way, made from thin card).

Plastic lids make great modernist tables and stools, with legs made from paper clips.

Champagne wire can be used for many things, including bar chairs. My best invention is kitchen hooks, but as you see I have also used it for handles.

Pen caps can be used to make wall sconces.

A fish hook becomes a chandelier. And the ceiling rose is a lid from a yogurt jar.

From beer bottle caps you can make pie forms, but also clocks. 

And talking pie forms, trays from eye shadows are indispensable.

 

I think I will stop here. It was fun going through my old posts and pictures. Of course I haven't even mentioned things such as junk jewellery that can be used in scores of projects. I never buy card, but use old binders, and for window panes I use transparent plastic binders. I use chess pieces for lamp posts, table legs and ornaments. I use various bottle caps for almost anything, from fruit bowls to birthday cakes. Paper clips, cable clips, pen caps, medicine containers - everything comes handy.

But I also have a huge collection of rubbish that I have been saving for years and not figured out what to do with. It will be another post.