They’re frilly, flouncy, flirty – and you can wear them, too.

These handmade, upcycled hanging lamps are made from bare lamp shades, cotton belts and vintage crinoline petticoats. Cute for stringing up in the yard, under the evening sky as laundry is meant to be hung. Or try hanging them daintily in a dressing room, if you happen to have one of those.

Available for around $110 in white, black, and pink taffeta.

Look for Lustables daily at EcoSalon. 100% gorgeous green finds, and never sponsored. Submit your favorite to tips@ecosalon.com

Until our author can afford to go antiquing in Indonesia, she’s happy to batten down the hatches with a pair of salvaged doors.  

Someday, I would love to have a one-of-a-kind headboard like this one featured in Elle Décor.

It’s an antique Indonesian wall panel discovered by husband and wife architects Jose Tavel and Cara Cummins. I love how they opted to pair it with a modern bed frame and simple monochrome bedding.

Today, I cannot afford a beautiful antique from Indonesia, but I can repurpose some salvaged doors and get the same look, care of Dreamy Whites. Old doors can be found in salvage yards and flea markets. They can be repurposed as table tops and shelves – or just lean them against a wall with hooks and a mirror.

Someday, exotic fruits from abroad. Today, tossed out old doors hinged with a new kind purpose.

Images: ElleDecor.com, DreamyWhites.com

Someday/Today is a new Shelter column that inspires you to dream big for your home, and scale it to your lifestyle, always keeping sustainability of the planet – and your wallet – in mind. 

Build yourself a screen of upcycled Spool at home or office to create some privacy.

Founded in 2007 at the Rhode Island School of Design, Grain is “a collaborative of design thinkers with the shared vision of a more sustainable future.”

Their build-it-yourself modular system, called Spool, can be assembled into a variety of freestanding structures such as screens, table bases or partitions. Made from paper spools upcycled from the Los Angeles apparel industry and connectors of chipboard, Spool is sold in kits of 240 spools and 520 connectors, which can build a structure about 55 in H x 40 in W x 7 in D. Each spool has a random graphic pattern that indicates which type of fiber they once held.

Grain, you had us at upcycled.

Look for Lustables daily at EcoSalon. 100% gorgeous green finds, and never sponsored. Submit your favorite to tips@ecosalon.com

A quirky yet elegant re-imagining of the chair.

Ah, the mullet. Well-groomed and refined on top, a little wild on bottom. Ever heard of a furniture mullet? While I would rarely (all right, never) recommend a mullet to frame your face, these lovely creations are as unexpected as a mullet, but with a sense of creativity and sophistication. Let the mullet lust begin.

Based in Strasbourg, France, Sonia Verguet built twenty different chairs created by combining a simple wooden box and recycled flea market furniture. Verguet calls her labor ‘My Family’. Each piece is a juxtaposition of unique components and a wood block – the culmination of all twenty pieces is varied and diverse, just like a family.

Really, has a mullet ever looked so good? The top is intricate and elegant, anchored by the unexpected rigid wooden base. I now long for an entire family of mullet chairs to gather round my dining table (there’s a sentence I never thought I’d use).

One more furniture mullet for you to ponder hails from Uhuru. The Standard Chair is anything but standard. The hand-carved chair backs were rescued from a manufacturing company that went out of business. The Louis the XVI wooden backs are embellished with steel plate seats and front legs. An industrial aluminum mesh serves as the chair back ‘upholstery’. If my love of the Standard isn’t enough to entice you, maybe knowing the chair was recently added to the Brooklyn Museum of Art’s permanent collection will sway your opinion. Add custom sizes and finishes (each creation is hand built to order) to the list of benefits and choose a low VOC lacquer of your choice. I can only hope you’ll invite me over to sit on your new mullet (another sentence I never thought I’d use).

Amsterdam International Fashion Week (AIFW) and the Dutch ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) launched the Green Fashion Competition this past week for the International Year of Biodiversity. The competition, which consisted of eight designers hailing from all over the world and picked from over 180 participants included sustainable sweetheart and New York City mover and shaker Eliza Starbuck. Starbuck, who you might know from the famed Uniform Project and You Bright Young Things, was there to promote biodiversity with her own NYC spin.

While the Green Fashion Competition is a challenge for seasoned entrepreneurs in the fashion industry like Starbuck, each participant was asked to provide a vision of what the future of fashion could look like while sustaining biodiversity.

EcoSalon was fortunate enough to catch Starbuck and have her answer some questions before the competition finale yesterday and a quick follow up after. Starbuck, although disappointed with her third place win, says she feels very good about the overall experience.

“The competition was fiercely steep but I think we’d all agree that the first prize winner deserved to win. The second prize however might be questioned. Granted they were a shoe company, but I thought sending the models down the runway naked was taking eco fashion a bit far!”

So as a designer, how does she intend to promote biodiversity?

Starbuck says via email from Amsterdam: “I promote bio-diversity by promoting diversity in style and slow fashion practices. That may seem like a stretch, but just imagine a world where everyone’s style is individualized! All things made local, upcycled, recycled, custom, and one offs would be ideal for supporting biodiversity because it would support slow fashion. So to support that vision I produce multifunctional clothes that encourage my customers to play with their personal style and to buy less. I also produce locally, in New York City, and I use materials made of renewable materials, recycled accessories, or materials salvaged from the local fashion industry run off. I also managed to use all of the scraps in the garment’s under structures, making these zero wastage looks.”

While her now well worn black frock has become a wardrobe staple with Bright Young Things everywhere, Starbuck says for this competition she’s presenting some new looks that represent BYT’s “heirloom” fashion.

“This capsule is a bit dressier for the “Lady of the 21st Century”. The trick will be that the two runway looks I’m presenting are actually the same three items in different colors, but all of the items will be styled so drastically different that to the average viewer it will appear as six items. Of course I’ll be wearing my infamous LBD as my travel item of choice,” says Starbuck.

While the immediate prediction for Starbuck’s fashion will most certainly always include her LBD, she says the future is all about diversity.

“I think the mass produced look of the second half of the 20th Century is going to fade away like a boring memory. People are going to start coveting items that customize and differentiate their own style from others, which means a lot more people will be DIYing and searching out one of a kind items. Sure it sounds like an idealized dream now but with today’s resource limitations, social media info sharing, and the economic downturn, it could quickly become a reality,” says Starbuck.

Eliza Starbuck dress images courtesy of Team Peter Stiger

Top Image, Eliza Starbuck walking the Amsterdam Green Fashion runway, from Closet Pique

Ever been smitten with corrugated cardboard? You’re about to be absolutely taken with recycled and scrap corrugation.

The creative gentlemen at Graypants have molded cardboard scraps into an irresistible collection of lights; some are modeled after the four largest moons of Jupiter, some are shaped like beans or bells, some resemble discs, but all are a gorgeous vehicle to cast graphic corrugated shadows across your space.

Desire the exotic allure of a rustic mount, but don’t desire blood on your hands? Hello Cardboard Safari. These elegant contortions of cardboard still require some (simple) assembly, so you will still feel like you earned the pleasure of inviting Billy, Buck, Fred, Eyan, or Robbie to take a perch on your wall (and with lovable names like that – who wouldn’t want to invite these gorgeous gentlemen over?!).

If you prefer the look of cardboard, but with the softness of two hundred thread count cotton and a sweet donation to charity, check this out.

Spray Paint Eclecticism. Broken Baroque. Auction House Awe. It seems no amount of categorical wit can do this space justice. Spray paint, auction houses, paint brushes, second-hand stores, and graffiti all live in these walls. Owners Jimmie Karlsson and Rick Schultz have turned this two-story flat in London into beautifully contained chaos. Karlsson has laced this interior with contrast, creating luscious tension by muddling together old, new, simple, ornate, antique, and modern. From the texture of the unsanded floors to the juxtaposition of opulence and urbanity, I love it. This flat exceeds and defies convention.

Karlsson, a designer for Jimmie Martin, has infused this space with personality, confessing that spray paint and upcycling are his hobbies, “I find it interesting to have pieces with soul and history that you won’t find elsewhere.” If you think upcycled furniture is anything except unabashedly stunning, click around Jimmie Martin, it won’t take long to change your mind.

The decadent photography by Sisters Agency captures the character of the space perfectly (as seen on Living Etc). I have already voiced my love for Harmoni og Kontrast, this interior is just one more morsel of the bountiful inspiration found there.

Kids grow up so quickly, and a great green way to keep up with their constantly changing clothing size is to wield your craftiness and upcycle what you already have on hand to fashion darling garments for them. From cheery dresses made from pillowcases, vintage tablecloths, and daddy’s old button-down shirts, to a cardigan made from a flour sack, here are seven ingenious examples of designers upcycling what you’d least expect to create showstopping wardrobe staples for little ones.

Vintage Tablecloth Sets a New Standard as a Gorgeous Dress for Girls

The dress seen at the top of this post was fashioned from a vintage 1950′s tablecloth! The next time your tablecloth gets an indelible stain, consider repurposing it into a sweet summer dress for your daughter.

Vintage Ties Upcycled into One-of-a-Kind Onesies

Your little guy can mix business with pleasure by wearing one of these tiesies to his next formal event, or just to be hip on a daily jaunt! This organic cotton bodysuit features a vintage tie applique that is sure to cause heads to turn, and lots of cooing from admirers.

A Pillowcase Becomes a Bright & Cheery Dress

Your daughter really could make anything look adorable, as evidenced by this pillowcase dress. Who knew bedsheets could look so amazing outside the boudoir? Once you update or redecorate your bedroom, don’t throw old sheets to the wind. Make them into clothing instead!

Upcycled Knits Turn Patchwork Girl’s Dress

Do you have a ton of t-shirts tucked away? Piece them together into a patchwork dress of various colorful knits, as seen here in this upcycled ‘Pocka Pookah Posies’ Soren Dress. This is also a great way to preserve the memories often tied to T-shirt purchases, on a snipped scale.

Upcycling Mens’ Button Down Shirts into Girls’ Summer Dresses

Father’s Day is around the corner, and the dresses above were created from daddy’s button-down dress shirts. If the dad in your house has retired some of his duds, what cuter way to celebrate his day of honor than by dressing his little girl in one of his shirts, by turning it into a dress?

Woman’s Skirt Twirls into a Knot Dress for Girls

Speaking of cast-off clothing. We all have funky patterned skirts hanging around that we’re never going to wear again! Turn yesteryear’s fashion blunder into today’s fabulous dress for your daughter. Can you believe this knot dress was upcycled from a woman’s skirt?

A Summer Cardigan Cooked Up from Reclaimed Flour and Seed Sacks

One of the most impressive upcycling feats yet, these handcrafted, one-of-a-kind enchanting summer cardigans were made from reclaimed flour and feed sacks!

Inspiration is in the materials all around us. Before purchasing clothing for your kids, consider upcycling the fabrics in your home to create clothing as unique and original as your child.

Images: Blue Eyed Betty, Chirp and Bloom, The Measure

I’ve had it with teetering around on dangerously tall shoes, squeezing my feet into items that are eerily reminiscent of Medieval torture devices, and dragging my sorry soles back to my apartment after a night out with the girls. I’ll settle for semi-cute, but uber-comfy footwear any day of the week.

But I love the dominatrix stiletto-turned-planter pictured above. It lets me admire a fabulous pair of shoes without the blisters or back pain. Carrie Bradshaw would be proud! (OK, she might be initially horrified about the brutal mutilation of her Manolos, but I think she’d come around.)

If I were craftier, I’d totally turn my torturous footwear into a flower holder.  But I doubt could do as nice a job as Etsy’s giddyspinster. She removed the top of the shoe, sanded it, drilled holes for drainage (natch), and planted a pink a echeveria in the ball of the shoe.
If black isn’t your thing, she has planters available in several other styles and colors.

Now, isn’t this a clever way to reclaim a pair of heels? Or repurpose a single shoe that’s lost its mate? What other uses would you suggest for upcycling shoes?

With the advent of the iPad, the Kindle, and other electronic readers, many people are buying eBooks instead of paper copies. Obviously, this innovation can save trees (not to mention space in a crowded city apartment), but what’s to become of all of those old school tomes?

One Etsy seller from Michigan may have the solution: upcycled books-turned-iPod docks.

We think this is a clever way to cover electronic clutter and recycle our beloved books. Since it’s compatible with most models of iPod – including the iPod Classic, iPod Nano (2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation), iPod shuffle (2nd generation), iPod Touch (1st and 2nd generation), and even the iPhone – this iPod dock would make a great gift for a book worm in your life. In fact, I may have to buy this for my gadget-loving, Apple-obsessed boyfriend.

Looking for other ways to upcycle old books? A quick Google search uncovered several creative ideas, including a headboard made of hardcover books, bows made of book jackets, even candleholders (don’t forget the flame retardant unless you want to reenact a scene from Fahrenheit 451!).

How else might we upcycled old book? Any creative suggestions? We’re all ears!