whiptips – recycling signs
Posted October 26th, 2006 by
kath_red
Whiptips – a crafts advice column for readers to ask questions or offer advice by leaving comments. View the Whiptips archive here. You can submit questions, to whiptips@gmail.com. Please include photos with your questions!
Camilla of horse flesh productions writes in asking ideas for recycling plastic road signs.
You know those plastic signs that popup everyone in the autumn, exhorting you to vote for this, consider that, or espouse something or other? Lawn signs, I think they are called, or campaign signs. I haven’t seen a good craft for them, and they’re everywhere, so it seems like there should be some sort of useage for them once their information is no longer useful.
October 26th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
I never really thought about it, but couldn’t they be used to make book covers? You wouldn’t really be able to see what the covers originally were if it was cut right, or if you could see what it originally was, you could probably cover it up pretty easily I’d think.
October 26th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
Check out readymademag.com. In an old issue of readymade magazine they made lamps out of those lawn signs by scoring and bending the sign around a base made from the metal stand you’d push into the grass. Then they just fitted it with a light kit.
October 26th, 2006 at 10:22 pm
I’m sorry, I don’t have a good tip, I just had to comment.
I have never seen lawns signs in Scandinavia, and never ever political signs on a Norwegian lawn. I remember they were everywhere in Ireland, on people’s housewalls, gates and lamp post. Interesting.
October 26th, 2006 at 10:22 pm
I’m sorry, I don’t have a good tip, I just had to comment.
I have never seen lawns signs in Scandinavia, and never ever political signs on a Norwegian lawn. I remember they were everywhere in Ireland, on people’s housewalls, gates and lamp posts. Interesting.
October 26th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
Wow, what an untapped source for weaving! They would make great woven baskets or mats!
October 26th, 2006 at 11:27 pm
If they’re made from coroplast, you can probably cut and tape them into boxes.
Or gather enough together to piece together the bottom of a guinea pig cage!
http://www.guineapigcages.com/
October 26th, 2006 at 11:34 pm
Well, this might be kind of weird, but if you have a guinea pig or a bunny that you like to give lawn time to, you could make an enclosure to use in your yard. Since the signs already have stakes, all you need to do is punch a few holes along the side of the signs and join them together with heavy duty snap ties. Come to think of it, you could probably make some fun play houses for toddlers too!
October 26th, 2006 at 11:48 pm
Last year on the local news, they did a little profile on a woman who had collected a bunch of those signs and had made things like lampshades and boxes out of them by scoring and folding them into different shapes. There may have been a simple small coffee table, too. The signs were the corrugated plastic variety.
October 27th, 2006 at 12:21 am
I’d like to have a go at turning one into a fabric covered bulletin board, but they aren’t that common here.
October 27th, 2006 at 12:59 am
Readymade had directions for making a little table lamp out of a lawn sign a few years ago–I can’t remember which issue it was in, though.
October 27th, 2006 at 4:09 am
I’ve seen websites thatuse the same material for shipping flat things. You stick the item and the corrugated plastic in a paper envelope instead of using those heavy duty cardboard envelopes. Supposedly the shipping is cheaper. So maybe if you cleaned off the signs really well, you could use them for that.
October 27th, 2006 at 5:36 am
THere are 19 ballot measures here right now, so they are EVERYWHERE! Maybe Readymade will have an Election Day project.
October 27th, 2006 at 6:01 am
I once read about a painter that used posters off NYC street walls as his canvas – he’d gesso some parts and paint over others (kind of an “altered” canvas) – creating a whole new image, or replacing it with his own.
I guess they’d be good for kids crafts, too – to paint on or use as a mat under their craft area (libraries or schools may want to use them for this!)
In NH, I know a lot of local politicians collect their signs and re-use them when it’s time for elections again.
October 27th, 2006 at 6:29 am
if they are the corragated variety you could try glueing them together to make a big stack and then you can shape them using a hacksaw.
a friend made a really groovy chair this way from corregated cardboard and i saw in the latest vogue living a wall cabinet from the same material,
they look great and are really strong, and the best bit is this is a great way to recycle more of that crazy plastic waste.
October 27th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
Intructions for bicycle fenders made of campaign signs here:
http://www.mile43.com/peterson/FendForYourself.html
Instructions for incorporating campaign signs into homemade bicycle panniers found here:
http://www.mile43.com/peterson/Pannier/DuctTapePanniers.html
Instructions for a bicycle tailbox made of campaign signs found here:
http://www.mile43.com/peterson/Kents_Tailbox.html
Instructions for bicycle handlebar bags found here:
http://www.mile43.com/peterson/BarBag.html
October 28th, 2006 at 9:43 am
We just have simple wire frames (like an upside-down U) covered with printed plastic sheaths. I use the sheaths as trash bags and the wire frames in the garden to support plants. They can be pushed a good foot or so into the ground and overlapped to make grids that are just as effective as the spendy ones, or bent into curvy supports for single stems (I just pull them around a round metal fencepost and cut off the excess). The rusty and then deep brown patina that develops fits in well.
The sheaths can also be flipped white side out and the signs installed in a triangle or square around a plant as a windscreen.
November 8th, 2006 at 3:56 am
You could also use the plastic signs as a resist for wet felting hollow forms. Felting over a resist (ala http://www.peak.org/~spark/3-dFelt.html) is a great way to make vessels, bags, hats, slippers/booties and many other things. The plastic signs, particularly the corragated ones but even the heavy duty plastic sheeting ones, would make a wonderful and re-useable felting resist. By the same token, the thinner plastic can be used for simple stencils, the thicker, heavier signs could be used to create templates and re-useable pattern pieces.
Hope everyone remembered to vote.
February 19th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
For the thinner signs, you could try cutting spraypaint stencils out of them!
Also, might be good for cutting on with x-acto if you don’t have a healing mat?