Upcycler Extraordinaire

When you throw something away, where is away?

I’m a native Detroiter who cares about the environment and wants to make a difference. So I upcycle. My journey into upcycling started with a simple mason jar, which I turned into a handy pump-top soap bottle. The transformation captivated me, drawing me to the idea that something so banal and ubiquitous as a jar could be converted into a useful, good-looking household item. When I learned that reusing one jar saves enough energy to watch TV for three hours, I was hooked. From there I was transforming jars into household gadgets ranging from light fixtures and pincushions to cocktail shakers and piggy banks. Today I consider myself an upcycler extraordinaire, taking just about anything headed for the waste stream and reinventing its use.

My business, Farnsworth Upcycle and blog, Don’t Throw That Out, are a warehouse for upcycling ideas. If reusing one jar saves enough energy for three hours of television, think how much energy could be saved if we all reused our jars—even if only as drinking glasses. My upcycling work stems from a hope to motivate others to think twice before tossing anything out.

I've moved on from mason jar mania, expanding my upcycling to include Kodak slide lampshades, pique assiette mosaics, trash-picked furniture, and decoupaged ephemera (maps, comics, books, magazines...). And I've discovered my upcycling crafts have one common denominator: the frontend begins with a trusted pair of Fiskars scissors. Whether I'm cutting discarded road maps for dumpster-dive furniture, creating a template out of clear contact paper for pique assiette, even working on my Backforty Spice line⏤snipping fresh herbs from my garden and cutting out handmade spice jar labels⏤Fiskars are the perfect design phase tool.

What is Upcycling?

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, upcycling uses unwanted and discarded items to create useful and beautiful products. Think trash to treasure. The essence of upcycling is its positive impact on the environment, diverting materials headed for the landfill and upending the waste stream.

While recycling also uses unwanted material such as plastic and glass, upcycling is energy efficient. Recycling breaks down waste products. Upcycling reuses the waste without destroying it to form something new.

Think of the environmental impact if we saved and revamped furniture rather than tossing it to the curb. According to National Geographic, Americans discard more than 250 million tons of trash each year. While 33% of the trash is recycled and another 12% burned in incinerators, a whopping 55% ends up in the landfill.

Waste is a terrible thing to mind. Upcycle.

Although the term "upcycling" is contemporary, the practice is not. Upcycling can be traced back to a 16th century English proverb, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Originally penned in Latin as folk wisdom (the precursor to “where there’s a will, there’s a way”), it basically means that when you really need to do something, you’ll find a way to do it. And because proverbs allow you to interpret your own meaning as well as the advice, this particular turn of words has been translated into multiple languages with just as many cultural interpretations. The Russian translation, for example, literally means “poor people are crafty.” Adaptations aside, upcycling is 21st-century thrifting using resources you have or have found.

I see a parallel between upcycling and the current transformation in my city. Following the nation’s largest municipal bankruptcy, Detroit is experiencing a metamorphosis. While the investor-led transformation focuses on the downtown area, Detroit residents in small pocket neighborhoods use age-old upcycling techniques to renovate and restore their homesteads that extend to vacant and overgrown lots, reinventing these into community green space, vegetable gardens, workspaces, and art studios. My Farnsworth Upcycle neighborhood is the epitome of steadfast resolve to do it yourself and work with what you have.

Each of my upcycling pieces contains at least one element rescued from the waste stream. Following is a gallery showing of my crafts that use scissors:

Pique Assiette Mosaic⏤Using sticky clear contact paper, I trace the vessel shape and, using scissors, I cut out a template. With the sticky side up, I use the template to plan the placement of each piece of "tile" and jewelry.

Decoupage⏤Using scissors, I cut up discarded books, road maps, comic strips, etc. to decoupage on trash-picked furniture.

Upholstery⏤Occasionally I find a unique chair that I reupholster with upcycled materials.

Light of My Life⏤I often upcycle lampshades and create a marriage of mismatched bases and shades. If the lampshade fabric is intact, I use as-is and add to it. If the lampshade fabric is worn/torn, I cut it off with scissors to reinvent the look.

Scissors are a key instrument in the creation of my pieces. From deconstructing old materials to creating patterns and cutting fabrics, they are essential to my upcycling craft.

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