After raising three kids and seeing how much waste there was in the toy industry, we said, “NO MORE,” and began making many of our children’s toys. An old box became a way to stimulate their creativity and recycle at the same time. They loved them and so did the neighborhood kids. It took about 17 years, but…voila…Imagination Box Co was born!

Made in the USA, Imagination Box Co. toys are completely recyclable and made from 45% post consumer materials.  Each set comes with watercolors, so that your child may decorate and assemble their own toy. For my eight-year-old daughter, it has provided hours of entertainment and excitement.

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Here’s another stash-busting project that I’ve been working hard on this week: covering recycled cardboard with pretty stash scrapbooking paper to use as wall photo frames around the house. The benefits of these photo frames are that they’re cheap, light and easy to mount without a lot of hardware, amenable to a plethora of modifications that will allow you to match your room or express your personality, and quick to make, letting you get as quickly as possible to the point of the project: getting your beautiful artwork out there on your walls.

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Cereal is the third most popular food product in the U.S.. When you add up all those bowls of Lucky Charms and Cheerios, that equals a whole lot of empty cereal boxes! Rather than send all that perfectly good cardboard to the landfill, try one of these ways to give it a whole new life!

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Today we’re joined by guest blogger Jeff Hobbs of Organize-Design-Live. Jeff specializes in home organization and interior design in Los Angeles and he is going to share some helpful thoughts with us on getting orGREENized in the New Year.

Get orGREENized in ‘09

Are your closets and drawers your worst enemies? Do you constantly misplace files at your office? Well, it’s a new year so that means we have the opportunity to make some changes, let go of the guilt about the things we didn’t do last year, and start fresh. Getting your personal space organized will result in more efficiency in just about every area of your life. . . a great place to start if you’re serious about fulfilling some of this year’s resolutions. And why not roll the resolutions of getting organized and being more environmentally friendly into one? There are so many great products on the market today, along with other creative organizational systems, that won’t break your bank or our environment.

Here are a few ideas, products, and tips to get you started…

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The Box Doodle Project even has an online tool, so you can still join in on the fun if you don’t have boxes waiting to be recylced.  It gives you all kinds of paint colors and marker sizes.  This is a great option if you would rather recycle your boxes than make art with them, but like the idea of recycled art, or if you’ve already sent your boxes off to the recycling facility.

If you don’t want to make your own, either with real materials or online, you can still enjoy surfing through all the projects that have been posted to the Project.  There are some truly awesome boxes on the website, and worth browsing through.

Gluing junk to cardboard with the kids the other day, however, I had a flash of inspiration: that stuff in the kitchen? That smells good? That I don’t cook with on account of I don’t know how to cook? It could make my house smell less redneck!

Come on–get some glue, some cardboard, and some smelly stuff you don’t know how to cook with from your kitchen, and your house can smell less redneck, too! We’ll make an ornament out of dried herbs or seeds that can scent your house and look festive from now until spring.

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Phil Bridge, a 21 year old Product Design student at Sheffield Hallam University, came up with the design, noting that a bicycle is stolen every 71 seconds in the UK, and wondered if anyone would be interested in running off with a cardboard bike.

Using Hexacomb board, he’s fashioned a vehicle that will never make it to the Tour de France, but figures it would last for about six months of constant use.  And yes, it’s waterproof, and would cost somewhere around $50.

Image Credit:  BBC

Story Source: BBC

Each of the designs contains a minimum of 30% recycled fiber and are free of all formaldehyde/urea. In terms of strength, even the largest of people can be supported. If you happen to spill on your fine paper furniture, a non-toxic, environmentally-friendly coating called ReviveX repels the liquid and protects the material.

When 'Wallpaper' magazine tells you that it's time to change styles, you can always just flip your cardboard pieces out to the road and have them recycled. It would be ever more interesting if these things were loaded with seeds so you could plant them when done; but I'm not sure if that process would gel with manufacturing.

What's the price of going with cardboard over traditional materials? Well, remember this is modern 'design' we're talking about. One chair alone will set you back almost $525! Interested in a bar stool? That will be $430! Here's to hoping such prices come down and we see some more recycled cardboard making its way into the furniture industry. Viva the 3Rs! Hit the site for more!

Source: CardboardChair.com