A Winter Carnival: Wrapping up Christmas

A Winter Scene: Sutton Hoo, nr Woodbridge in Suffolk

Ho, ho, ho! Well Christmas is now done and dusted, Twelfth Night has come and gone and Britain is now covered in a blanket of snow. It's a good job we've had to take down the decorations. At least it's been one way of keeping warm during this wintry spell.

But forget about the weather. Today I am asking how did you get on with your rubbish...or perhaps I should say....your festive resources over what is the most wasteful time of the year?

Did you recycle them, or bung them in the bin? Of course, I know you wouldn't have done the latter. Maybe you've kept a few things for re-use? After all, there are lots of free things that enter your home during Christmas, including ribbons, cards, paper and boxes and so much can be done with them before you even think about recycling.

This carnival celebrates a range of fabulous posts from some lovely bloggers, showing what they've been all getting up to, with ideas ten-a-penny. And the photo you see below is my own contribution. It's a fishtank that I made with my creative 5-year-old on Boxing Day, from an empty Christmas Cracker box, featuring bits of fir tree, sweetie wrappers, old fabrics and some crepe paper he'd got as a present.




But that's enough from me. Here's over to some of the gorgeous bloggers who have been busy with their imagination over the festive period:


The fabulous Mrs Green over at MyZeroWaste has a whole host of tips on how to recycle your festive bits & bobs. Visit How to recycle your Christmas for lots of inspiration.

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And if you have other thoughts in mind, here are some more excellent ideas from MyZeroWaste, about reusing for greeting cards, even for things as simple as notecards.

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Nixdmix never fails to make me giggle, especially this time with her post Wrapping paper: reindeers can't cross their legs. It really is a lovely story.

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I love this idea from Cathy at NurtureStore who reveals how she's used Christmas cards to make a Jigsaw and Memory Game. What a great idea to keep kids entertained when out and about in restaurants or around at friends. Free and simple!

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And last but not least, here's another creative idea for reusing cards from Jude at Artful Adventures. I'm sure you'll be impressed with how she makes some gorgeous cards from old greetings cards. Check out her ideas in her post Creative ways to recycle Christmas cards.

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I'll most definitely be keeping my favourite cards for re-use next year. As well as making new cards and games, it will save me from the drastic action I took this Christmas, which was to cut up some 2009 cards for reusing as some emergency tags. Cheeky I know, but eh ho!



So thanks to everyone who contributed to this Carnival. I apologise for it being late. With schools closed due to the snow, the children kept me too busy to blog. However, I'd like to wish you all a Happy New Year, and if anyone is interested in some other practical tips, check out this post which I published last week: Packing your Christmas Away with the R-Word.

For the reasons stated above I have postponed my decluttering posts until next week, but do come back on Monday when I will be kicking off Week 1 of the 2010 Rubbish Diet Challenge.
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Recycled Christmas Carnival: Call for entries

I can't hide the fact that this Christmas I am really inspired by the amazing talent that exists out there, with people creating fabulous things out of stuff that would otherwise have been thrown away.

It all started last month, when I was invited to write a feature article for Recycle Now's Christmas Website and got a preview of the photo shown above, of their specially commissioned recycled cardboard Christmas tree.

My particular mission was to uncover a range of other awesome items made from recycled materials and everyday used objects such as pens, CDs and old cassettes. I'm sure you'll be as amazed as me by the range of really desirable objects that can now be found in shops and on the web. To see all my quirky finds, just click here.

So now I am well and truly hooked and I hope you will be too and will be just as excited to join in my Recycled Christmas Carnival to help spread the word about the growing trend for recycled gifts.

Whether it's something that you've made or bought yourself, have received from someone else or have even discovered on the Internet, I'd love you to write a blogpost about your finds. Then when it's done, send it to me for inclusion in my carnival post, which will be published here at The Rubbish Diet on Tuesday 15th December.

If you'd like to, you can use the following image as a header for your posts, which shows how recycled items have moved on from hippy appeal to stylish features of modern homes. You might recognise this as the finished recycled Christmas Tree prize for the competition that Recycle Now is running this Christmas. It would be great if you could spread the news about the competition on your blog too, either as a separate blogpost or as part of your carnival entry. You might even want to enter the competition yourself. See yesterday's blogpost for more information.



I am really excited about including your ideas and I can't wait to see what you'll find.

For the next few days I'll be away from the blog, getting prepared for my very own recycled Christmas and I might even enter our local council's Christmas wreath competition, but please send all carnival entries to me by Monday 14th December.

Simply email karen(at)therubbishdiet(dot)co(dot)uk or follow me on Twitter and send a DM to (@therubbishdiet).

Right, it's time to switch on the CD player and recycle some of those favourite Christmas tunes.

"T'is the season to be jolly...falalalalalalalala
Time to grab some twigs and holly....falalalalalalalala!"

Oh dear, I'm recycling the lyrics again! Someone stop me!

P.S. If you have a mo, I'd love to know what you think of the objects I found for the article. I think my favourite is the birdie coat hanger but it's a really tough choice.
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