Recycling stationery/Papierwaren, recycled

At this time of year, I find pleasure in recycling all kinds of paper that falls into my hands while cleaning up and sorting out.



My daughter's beautiful dolphin calendar and another one, with angels, will get new lives as gift bags and matching greeting cards - and some of the Christmas cards look almost even better when decorated with punched stars, sewn sequins and beads, then glued to black or white card stock.



A pile of one-side-printed work sheets from school is chopped up and held together with a buldog paper clip to serve as a note pad - and old envelopes will be closed lengthwise and serve as seed bags later on this year.



Reading Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord's lovely blog and homepage and following her YouTube-tutorials on recycling one-side-printed paper into small books of all sorts, we will have plenty of pages to fill with thoughts, words and drawings throughout the year!

Maybe this will be the year where we all will put even more efforts in sustainability and recycling - it's important and it's inspiring: please read more on this matter at the blog 'A sustainable life', written by Elizabeth, Jude, Julochka and Rayfamily.

(German summary: Es gibt unzählige Möglichkeiten, einseitig bedrucktes Papier zu recyclen - eine davon ist, kleine Bücher daraus zu machen, wie es Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord in ihrem Blog und auf YouTube anschaulich erklärt! Notizblöcke, kleine Sackerl und Billets sind andere Optionen.

Vielleicht wird dies' das Jahr, wo wir alle nach mehr Wiederverwertung und Nachhaltigkeit streben werden ... mehr dazu auch auf diesem Blog.)

New year - new projects/Neues Jahr - neue Projekte

Ooops, and again this year is running along much faster than I thought it would ...

As I've had problems with my internet connection lately, I started the year concentrating on cleaning up and sorting out my work-space/studio - a never-ending job it seems, as I gladly allow myself to drift off the cleaning and instead start arranging the freshly found objects into some new projects ...

Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that I have a lot of interesting stuff there in my stash and really should dig into this before considering any further shopping adventures - does that sound familiar to you ;-)?

But of course there must be exceptions, like for haberdashery or bargain leavings and leftovers ... :-)

On Etsy, I recently found a bag of coloured fulled/felted cloth scraps for sale and thought they would be nice to combine with some wool thread embroidery on felt. Actually, I've planned to use them together with pieces of old sweaters, felted in the washing machine - and maybe some embellished/punched wool as well.

So I started with a small project - it's a cover for a wheat&lavender cushion - the type you heat up in the microwave or in the owen for comforting warmth.



About a fortnight ago, Elizabeth/Landanna wrote about her needlebooks and how dear they are to her. Her description of them was so inspiring, that I suddenly felt the urge to possess a needlebook, too ...

All materials were already there in my stash - I just had to put them together!



And while working on the cushion cover, I've simultaneously started stitching on another little needlebook, using the same materials as for the cushion ...

Guess the cleaning-up has to be postponed again!

(German summary: Beim Aufräumen fallen mir immer wieder interessante Materialien aus dem 'Fundus' zu - und ich lasse mich gerne ablenken! 'Nadelbrief' hat für mich so altmodisch und verstaubt geklungen, bis ich das Posting von Elizabeth/Landanna gelesen habe - und mir auch ganz dringend eines machen mußte ...! Der Wärmekissenbezug ist aus Walkstoffresten auf Filz - da kommen noch ein paar Stickereien hinzu.)

Fragments for the New Year/Neujahrsfragmente

A new year, and some new fragments ...

The first one, an experiment with bamboo fibers on wool, found in my stash, now embellished with cotton thread in a running stitch and some metal thread for the cross couching.



Makes me think of snow and starfilled winter nights, of Santa's beard, of longhaired reindeer winter fur and of the Northern light.

The second one, another experiment, this time with bleached linen fibers on wool cloth - now embellished with a piece of blueish organza and another metal thread:



makes me think of birch tree bark and of a hidden cobweb door, to be trespassed by fairies only ...

What fragments may this year bring, which will be brought to mind?

(German summary: Zwei neue Fragmente zum neuen Jahr; mit Bambus-Fasern und etwas Stickerei, das winterliche Assoziationen bringt - das andere mit Leinen-Fasern und ein hauchdünnes Stück Organza, eine Feen-Tür vielleicht ...)