One of the great things about being a crafter is that you can help the recycling movement through your craft.

Here are just some ways you can use recycled materials in your project.

Let's start with the one thing that intimidates me most (because I don't consider myself a very patient person) and that is PLARN. Plastic yarn, or yarn made by cutting those plastic grocery sacks into strips and stringing the strips together. I have never done this, but I'm told the items made from plarn last a good long while. If you want more details on making plarn, check out RecycleCindy's website. She has a great tutorial for making plarn.

Other ways items can be upcycled include making tile pendants out of old game pieces.

You can take your old wine bottle corks and make a trivet or bulletin board.

You can turn old T-shirts into just about anything. Want to save them because they have sentimental value, but no longer fit? Turn 'em into just about anything. Generation T offers lots of ideas.

Old sweaters, if the yarn is good enough, can be unraveled and the yarn used to knit or crochet something new.

The bottom line is, you can transform just about anything into something new and functional.

How do you upcycle, repurpose, reuse or recycle in your crafting?