Scrap House

One person's trash is destined to be another person's treasure. At least this is what happens when a team of San Francisco architects, artists, contractors, engineers, and city officials are challenged to construct a building out of salvaged and recycled materials.

Constructed of previously discarded materials, ScrapHouse is full of resourceful ideas for reusing everyday materials in unconventional ways. Like conveyor belts and fire hoses as colorful textured walls, solid-core doors as economical flooring, phone books for acoustics, and old traffic lights reinvented into a chandelier. Learn more about ScrapHouse, here.

Wool Sweaters Make Great Rugs

Started in Massachusetts to help the founder pay for college, Crispina produces a wide range of home accessories, all from recycled fabrics. "It is our objective to have fun and make money by offering consciousness and beauty, turning secondhand stuff into funktional heirlooms with wholehearted compassion, inventiveness, mindful consumption and reuse." Placemats, table runners, and a number of different sizes of blankets and pillows are available; in the near future, clothing will be sold from the company's website as well.

Woven from used (and cleaned) wool sweaters, Crispina's Potholder Rug comes in a wide variety of colors and sizes. Naturally chemical free and one-inch thick, they are a massage for the feet and a treat for the eyes and the planet.

e-Fabrics

e-Fabrics is an initiative that started two years ago by e-Institute and has as a major preoccupation the research and creation of fabrics that respect Brazil's environmental, social, and cultural biodiversity. From e-Fabrics' line there are products such as four types of fish skin used in shoes and bags, latex and vegetal leather on clothes and accessories, jersey and denim with polyester threads from PET recycled plastic bottles, organic cotton, and coats and tops made of traditional manual weaving techniques. via JC Report

Recycled Tire Doormats

Muddy feet be gone! Check out these whimsical new manhole floormats made from recycled truck tires.

They so make me laugh. Available here for $25 each.