The end of our August Project... or is it?

Does the closing of our monthly project have you thinking… “man I wish I had made time to do this one.” If so, we’re with you. We asked ourselves, is monthly too much? Do we need more time to really explore these topics together? But then we remembered, 😃, our Projects are live all the time. So while we explore a topic each month, you (and we) can create for any one of them, anytime.

By the way, did you know you can now create Projects, too? If you’re dying to see an upcycle project of a particular type, go ahead and start it ⬇️! You never know, it might just become a monthly community project.

BTW, we’re really excited about this week’s edition, seeing you all vote for our new project always makes us happy. Be sure to cast your vote below. And if you still have jewelry upcycles to share, do so right here:

Wrapping up: our upcycled jewelry lessons learned

Lesson 1: When it comes to jewelry, all waste is a supply, but that doesn’t mean all waste makes good wearables

It’s just so easy to make anything into an earring or pendant that when you really look around, the possibilities are endless for what can be upcycled into a wearable. But should it be? Bread tags, heat shrunk plastic from bottles, and even tiny toys can make great jewelry. But as fun as it was to imagine all of the things we could earringify, we did manage to restrain ourselves and try to keep our upcycles to things we knew we’d wear. How about you?

If you are interested in heat shrinking plastic though, this is a pretty great little guide (though we suggest a heat gun over a lighter).

Lesson 2: There are no hard and fast rules here, do what you can with what you have

If your past lives include being an actual jewelry maker, and you still have all the supplies, you, like us, may have been torn: upcycle with waste, or make with the supplies you have? When we sat down to get to work on this project, we had so many beads in our craft bins — did it really make sense to make plastic beads from bottles? We wanted to participate, after all! But perhaps, it is participating when we make something out of the things we have.

Peo Vee isn’t hard and fast about rules. We just aim to support a forward looking lifestyle built around not buying new, and enjoying creative arts using things that exist in the world already. Because as we said last week, it all exists already for us, there’s more than we’ll ever need. So we think break out that bead bin, folks, just do your best to not buy new beads for it, eh?

Thanks for coming along with us this month. If you have thoughts, projects or lessons learned of your very own, reply to this newsletter and share them with us!

Or better yet. Write a blog post about it.

Vote for our September upcycle project!

If you’re new to this growing community, we’ll fill you in: each month we let the community vote for and choose our upcycle project theme. Throughout the month, we explore the topic together through digging into inspirational content, and sharing our own project takes. Vote below for our September upcycle! We’ll announce the winner next week here and on social.

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New in the blog:

What the Thrift Store Doesn’t Want You to Know
^{by Gabriela Chagas}

Gabriela’s often profound words hit yet again in this week’s post, where she outlines 5 must-knows (learned the hard way) that will make you a better thrifter. Our favorite tip: “Sleeping on a purchase is the most effective way to avoid impulse buys – and save money, and the planet.” Click to read about her quite simple way to relieve the FOMO on an item that might be gone the next day.

Read the post »

In this together,