a bit o’ plastic

today i have a couple of useful projects that require plastic objects that would normally get tossed in the plastic recycling bin (or even worse, in the trash!).

let’s start with a well-washed plastic bottle (this one was a body wash).

cut it like so with a box cutter and/or scissors.

and pop it onto a leaky faucet or spigot. in our case, the container holding the olive oil our friend makes (the same friend who gave us the olive branch for our christmas tree) which drips a bit after turning it off.

for the second, you need two glue stick caps or other similarly shaped caps.

stick the tip of an ice pick in a flame to heat it up and then make two holes in each cap, as in the above photo.

slip some thin elastic through the four holes and knot the ends to make a loop.

and there you have a pair of handy dandy knitting needle protectors! they’re very useful when you have kids that like touching your works in progress! (once i had to restart this scarf from scratch after my daughter slipped out the needles to use them as swords. and you see the pitiful shape of my balls of yarn above? the doing of her brother.) it’s really helpful to have if you’re like me and take literally years to finish even a simple knitting project! (this here is a hat for my husband that i started nearly a year ago. i almost finished the matching scarf about 6-7 years ago, but it’s still on the needles!!)

originally i’d planned on making these with this type of plastic cap that is often used with homemade wine, but they ended up being too narrow for the wider end (not the tip, the other). the glue stick caps are a bit too wide, but they work anyway. but something in the middle would be perfect!

speaking of knitting, i knitted a few of these beaded necklaces for christmas gifts (i know, i said i was going to do that in that very post, two years ago, but i had a hard time finding the right sized beads and just never ended up doing them). but would you believe the ridiculous things that happen to me while knitting? the plastic needles, which had been my grandmother‘s, snapped into pieces! but not to worry, they will not go completely to waste. i already know what i’m going to do with the pieces!