By Jessica Hare 
Keep Alliance Beautiful 

All throughout December I’ve been visiting classrooms and partnering up with other organizations to provide Christmas-themed upcycled craft activities.  I hope I never reach a point where I cease to be impressed with the uncurbed creativity of a child. I mean, really, you should see what these kids can do with a toilet paper tube or an empty tin can.

Upcycling is when you take an item that is typically discarded and turn it into something that is useful or beautiful.  According to Hipcycle, a company that sells upcycled products, the point is really just to elevate the product into something better.  They point out that even though upcycling is currently very trendy, it has been around for a long time and was especially practiced during the depression when raw materials were expensive.  

Now, without the extreme cost factor, it can be difficult to make ourselves commit to upcycling.  Many of the items that we need to buy are cheap, and going through the effort to upcycle can seem unnecessary. It can also be difficult to take the time and effort to upcycle when it is much easier and faster to just buy something.  The thing is that this reasoning, however logical, does not take into consideration the fact that, if anything, upcycling can just be really, really fun. And, if you have kids, you can use an upcycling project to help teach them how to follow instructions, or you can just give them materials and see what they come up with.  In the different workshops that I was a part of this month, both approaches were used and both garnered great results and a lot of fun.

So, this holiday season when you’re considering what to do about gifts or decorations or even Christmas cards, try to take the time to upcycle at least one thing.  Although it may take more energy and it may make a mess, you can’t underestimate the fun factor.