BG, plastic bag yarn mat and pot

न कर्मणामनारम्भान्नैष्कर्म्यं पुरुषोऽश्नुते |
न च संन्यसनादेव सिद्धिं समधिगच्छति || 4||

BG 3.4:One cannot achieve freedom from karmic reactions by merely abstaining from work, nor can one attain perfection of knowledge by mere physical renunciation.

Isn't this place mat cute? It makes me happy every time I look at it! And believe it or not, I crocheted this with my very own two hands using "plarn" which is yarn that you assemble yourself by recycling plastic bags. Okay, those of you already verse in recycling crafts won't be surprised, and the rest of you, well, I'm helping to bring you up to date on what's happening out there in the world of crafting! Amazing things are going on, and I'm just trying to do my part to encourage this type of crafting. I don't know how you feel, but for me, it's a great feeling to make something nice looking and useful from garbage.

 First of all, there are a few ways to make "plarn" but I'm going to show you the method I used to make this place mat. It's fairly quick to make and quite honestly becomes a bit of an addiction. Heavy plastic bags are great for fusing projects like I've taught you here, but the light weight bags (mine are from the grocery store and the vegetable store) used for food, and even light weight garbage bags (the orange stripe in my place mat) will do the trick as well, and are in fact the best, since you can get quite a bit of"plarn" out of one bag.

Needless to say grocery shopping will take on a whole new meaning if you decide to try out this great craft. Yes, you do need to know how to crochet, which I highly recommend learning in any case, but other than that, it's really simple.

Isn’t this  rainy day mat cute? What about this flower pot ? it makes me happy every time I look at it! And believe it or not, I created this out of plarn.

“What,” you’re thinking, “is plarn?

If you’re  interested to know how to make these things, you should know what “plarn” is. If not, here’s the definition:

Plarn is a creative way to recycle plastic bags by turning it into yarn. Plastic bags made into yarn+plarn. This is the easy way to beat the recession.Yes!!!creat your own yarn ...and free of cost. I have been using plarn in place of traditional yarn to create things  with  crochet hooks , and knitting needles too.

Needless to say grocery shopping will take on a whole new meaning if  you decide to try out this great craft.Yes, you do need to know how to crochet, which I highly recommend learning in any case, but other than that, it's really simple.

One day Last week when we were indoors after rain followed by heavy rain followed by rainstorm, my cushions were going insane with boredom. Ineeded to take care for getting dinner together and putting away laundry. So, this reuse idea came from desperation. I handed each kids some of the poly bags stored and equip each of them with a set of ruler, pencils and ,scissors. Then I told them to cut the plarn out of each bag. This kept them occupied for a good hour or two.

its me in front of mirror

for these two items i used lots of plastic bags

Here's a fun little scenario with my green Cladium plant and mosaic on broken mataka neck that's making me very happy right now, and it all happened quite by accident. Of course it's no accident that I saved this broken earthen pitcher neck plate to use under plants, just when I glued the pieces of tiles  on the broken pitcher piece  with fevicol  so that the uneven circumference of the broken piece hideaway underneath and to see if that would help it be more permanent, (It helped a bit, but not entirely) well, I didn't have in mind pairing it with this plant. 

I was cleaning up for my daughter  and wondering around with this art piece of mine in hand trying to find a place for it, when quite by accident I placed it under this up cycled  pot and voila, a great combination was born! So my friends, do save broken pitchers to use under plants, and do apply some mosaic skill  to them with tile pieces, or if you want to go the whole route, you can do something really permanent with plaster of paris. There really isn't anything much simpler  

that can give you so much visual pleasure and add a little personal touch to your container garden! And you can trust me by now, right?

xoxo