A few weeks ago Delia The Artist posted a challenge: she showed us her garbage, and asked us to tell her what to make of it. She received a miriad of suggestions for what to make out of her garabage, and inspired some other amazing innovations.

Hello eco art fans! Thank you for being ever so patient for this follow up to my “Trash into Treasure” video. In the comments you guys left me, a lot of people mentioned the food containers, so I knew I wanted to use those. Another concept that got brought up a lot was making use of multiple pieces of garbage in one project, so I did that as well. Personally I was also going for functional; thus was born my new garbage made flower vase! Here’s what I did:

Step One: WASH! I washed everything thoroughly to prevent mold. As you see I picked the ice cream container and cut the juice container down for another project. 

Step Two: PAINT! I used simple white to paint over the box. You may need a few layers to cover the words completely; don’t be afraid to have some fun- I used that gross old sponge to give it texture! Another option is collaging the piece, shown on the juice box.

Step Three: DESIGN! A few different techniques helped me make a simple design from different pieces of garbage- the yellow strip is plastic from a bag, crinkled up for texture and painted a light yellow. The orange strip is newspaper treated with watercolors. The red things are paper beads; more about how to make them in a future blog entry! Twine and a  bottle cap were used to adhere them. 

Step Four: USE! I used a bit Mod Podge to adhere the embellishments to the container. I thought it would be great to hold flowers! Since this held ice cream, the inside can hold water - but if you are worried about leaks, just add a bit of plastic to the bottom or seal with a water proof sealant.

Step Five: SHOW! It's looking keen with some other decor on my dining room table. I’m still considering putting something inside the bottle cap. Thanks for helping me make a cool project out of my kitchen garbage! I stayed pretty safe with the design, but obviously you could go crazy with something like this. Old magazines and comics are a great source of collaging material, and food containers are easily converted to hold anything you’d like!   Next week starts a series on paper, including how to make your own!

Related Content:

Eco Art at Art Basel, Miami (VIDEO)

Meet the Rickshaw Philosopher: Burning Man combines art cars and philosophy (VIDEO)


Meet Right Here Right Nau: a socially resposible sustainable company based in Portland, OR (VIDEO)

Take a tour of Cody's sustainable, eco-designed solar efficient house modelled after a cave dwelling (VIDEO)