Recycled Manger

Although she won't admit it to herself or anyone else for that matter, my mom is an artist.  She learned to knit at a young age, and has mastered the skill well into her old age.  This is a manger she knit for me one year for Christmas, and to me it's a masterpiece.  All it took was some yarn, old pieces of cardboard, and some scraps of jewelry she had laying around the house.  And of course, plenty of time.  But don't all masterpieces?

I decided to post this because it is the quintessential example of what upcycling is about.  It's about recycling common materials headed for the trash, yes.  But even more, it's about having a vision.  Nothing is trash. Everything has a purpose.  And everything has a re-purpose.  You might have to add a little here and there to make your vision a reality, but with a little time and sense of direction you can turn anything into something to be appreciated. 

She used cardboard boxes cut into strips to make the background and then simply wrapped them with yarn and glued them together.  

She knit the figures using a pattern and used old cardboard to build the bases for them to stand.  The halos are made from plastic water bottles and the "jewels" are made from old jewelry.  A true masterpiece.