leslierahye's 2nd Annual Earth Day Blog Hop | Line Up and guests

Welcome to leslierahye's 2nd Annual Earth Day Blog Hop! It seems like only yesterday that 16 of us celebrated Earth Day with our upcycled crafts and now here we are again! This year I've had an amazing response from co-bloggers and companies to participate and again I am honored to be among them.
This hop is entirely devoted to upcycled crafting.  I feel that to protect our earth for generations to come it is important that we as crafters be able to renew, reuse and recycle--or upcycle as the crafty would say!
Interest in upcycled crafting extends beyond the blog world this year. I have a few friends and family who are not bloggers but are crafty in their own right and do awesome upcycled crafting. I am showcasing them here for you to enjoy. Please be sure to leave them some love here too!

Joy in the Garden

Joy, or Aunt Joy as I call her, has been a crafty lady for longer than I've been alive! She introduced me to upcycled crafting decades ago when she reused some old Christmas ornaments to make new fabulous decorations for her tree. I was instantly hooked. Today she is sharing some fantastic pieces she does with broken glass! from Joy:

You may do whatever you want to do with this. It is actually a very simple process. You cover the glass because when you break it it shatters all over the place and you can hear it cracking for about an hour after this. I use a silicone glue that I get at Ace hardware that you put in a caulking gun. I glue the beads or half marbles or whatever on first. If I put glitter I mix it with the silicone when I glue the glass on. After it dries you grout that. You can put pictures or fabric or anything under it. I have put Mylar.

Dedra

Dedra is my friend and she also just happens to be my boss at Cowboy Way Travel. We receive tons of packing materials and brochures every day. She looks for opportunities to reuse this over abundance of materials in her business and in her personal life. Often times old brochures or posters are remade into ornaments, decorations and wrapping paper. This past week I came into work to find a present left for me on my desk wrapped in upcycled news paper....It was AWESOME--both the wrapping and the gift! With Dedra's permission I am sharing with you these amazing paper flowers that she created as part of my wrapping...enjoy!

Jessica Baker 

My blog buddy Jessica is having technical difficulties on her blog today but I did not want to leave  her out of this hop. She always has amazingly fun projects. Today she made these fabulous upcycled candles with crayons and baby food jars! From Jessica:

Hi everyone. Love hoping with LeslieRahye but this time time, technology and forgetting my project as I am traveling doesn't help. My project was upcycling crayons into votive candles with baby food jars. I kept a lot of baby food jars. You can recycle baby food jars in many ways. I took all the broken crayons and matched them up with the closest colors in the rainbow. I added a wick in the bottom and I used the toaster oven to melt the crayons, placing them in the freezer for a quicker hardening process to added the next color. They are quick and easy and there is no waste of materials. I will embellish the jar suited to the occasion  for decorations and gifts.

...and  now on to the hop! My co-bloggers have some wonderful projects to share with you...be sure to hop all the way through and leave then some love! I know they each would appreciate comments and for you to follow their blogs or fan pages if you love what they do! My project is at the end of the hop along with a fabulous prize donated by Donna Salazar Designs!! Donna created a great recycle stencil to match some of her fantastic GCD Fun & Funky Collection!!!

Check out my project post here for details on how to enter to WIN!!!

 Be sure to take time to go to each blog, view their amazing projects and be inspired to create you own unique upcycled items--AND be sure to leave some love.