Here comes a new season

It seems as though each season stimulates a different flurry of creativity. In the waxing days of winter the holidays loom large in my crafting mind. With the coming of spring my creativity turns to thoughts of gardens and making trellises and haunting the river banks in search of beautiful stones and enjoying the coming flowers and plants. Summer my creativity turns to thoughts of cooking and using the garden goodies that come my way.
So as we head to break-up I am thinking about how to utilize the things that come free as planters. So far one of my favorites has been the plastic utility sinks that lose a leg, While they do not stand, they do hold a good amount of soil and the drain is well placed to keep things from getting waterlogged.
Recycling in my world is more than taking the bits and pieces to the recyclers or sorting the plastic and cardboard. It is about using the things that other have no use for and re purposing them to my benefit.
I can hardly wait for the snow to get out of my way and to get my hands in the dirt.

First glass ideas

As promised some of my ideas, spilled onto a place where anyone who wants them can pick them up and use them. I make no claims that these are original with me. Some may be modifications of something I saw or read about.

Uses for glass bottles:

Glass mosaics

Use pieces of broken bottles to create mosaic on a glass background so light can shine through.
Because bottle pieces are not flat they may need to be fairly small pieces in order to make it work. Use a clear adhesive and makes sure the whole piece is well glued.
Limiting factors will be colors as glass bottles have a fairly limited range of colors for the most part, but any glass can be used including old chipped or cracked vases and dishes.
For an opaque mosaic use wood or other back ground for tiling.
Can also use old tiles, dishes, stones and possibly even bits of old sinks and toilets.

Other bottle things.

Back to an old 70’s favorite of cutting the tops off bottles and using them for glasses of vases.
To make a fancy vase drill 4 holes near the top of a cut off bottle. Create a circlet with wire, beads, charms, and other stuff then wire the circlet to the top of the vase.

Run pieces of bottle glass through a tumbler to create “beach Glass”. They sell this stuff by the pound at the craft stores so you know someone is doing something with it. The surface is frosted looking and the sharp edges are knocked off
Fill the bottom of a clear vase with the tumbled glass to anchor flowers, use it to decorate picture frames and mirror frames.
Drill pieces (use water to cool as you drill, check web for more info) to use as beads.

Use a saw or cutter to slice rings from the bottle necks.
use these in mosaics, jewelry, or window ornaments. Maybe slumped in a kiln. but I do not know if they would stay round.

Create three dimensional “stained glass” decorations. use larger pieces of bottles where curves and angles lend to the 3 d effects.

Bottle glass can be used as the aggregate in concrete. Poured and polished as counter tops they become quite beautiful. Could also be done on a smaller scale for pathways and stepping stones.
Small pieces can be mixed into polyester resin. when shaped and polished they would be very interesting. crushed or small pieces could be swirled in and cast in poured resin table tops.

Slumping and melting:

bottles are slumped in kiln molds all the time, but what about pieces of bottle glass. This would lead to flatter pieces, but in random shapes to be used for mosaics and stained glass.
I also saw a program once where scraps of stained glass were put into a clay flower pot in a kiln with a clay saucer under it so when the glass melted and ran out of the hole it created a swirled glass disc in the bottom dish. Can this be done with bottle glass?
Dark amber and bright green with clear pieces could result in some great color combos.
I know some of the limitations on melting bottle glass is the temperature and mixing issues, but it could be an interesting experiment.

These are my glass reuse ideas for right now, but you never know what might spring into my head tomorrow.
Kat