Recycle Vinyl Blinds into Plant Markers: Another Quickie Tutorial

Our house is chock-full of vinyl mini-blinds, and one of the things that I’d most loooooove to do is to chuck them all in favor of something natural and something less likely to strangle my dear babies. I haven’t yet, however, because they are perfectly serviceable still and I can’t stand to just throw them in the trash just because I want to upgrade.

And then I thought, “Why do I hate vinyl so much?” Because it will basically never, ever decompose back into the earth.

Where, however, could such a quality ever be an asset?

In the garden, that’s where! No matter what happens between spring and fall–rain, sun, heck, the apocolypse could strike at any second–I am always going to know exactly where my chives are.

Here’s how you can transform your crap blinds into indestructable chives markers, too:

• » See also: A Review of Refashioned Bags: Upcycle Anything into High-Style Handbags
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You will need: vinyl blinds to recycle; REALLY sturdy scissors; permanent markers (you bought some Sharpies to make your #6 plastic shrinky-dinks, right?)

1. Snip away the twine holding your vinyl blinds together to separate them into the nice, long planks.

2. Using your very sturdy scissors, cut each plank into a good length for your plant markers. Mine are extra-long so that my four-year-old daughter can help me and practice her BIG printing, but the bonus is that the extra room also gives me a cheat-sheet of sorts–on some, I wrote what the plant is supposed to look like, so that I don’t accidentally weed it, and on others, I wrote any special water or other care requirements, just so I don’t forget..

3. Using permanent ink pens, label your plant markers any way you’d like.

And that’s it!

Whatever do you do with your sucky old vinyl mini-blinds?

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