Craft:

Giving voice to the voiceless, Tiffany Threadgould is a true advocate for junk. Not for making it, of course, but re-making it. In her own words, "After all, garbage has feelings, too." The girl has a knack for taking overlooked items bound for the recycling bin, and making them useful as well as stylish. We checked in with Tiffany recently to see what she's been up to, but first let's take a look at what Tiffany has contributed to the pages of CRAFT magazine.

Tiffany made her CRAFT debut back in Volume 03, when she asked us to take another look at plastic bottles and taught us how to revise them into "pop art" in the form of a soap dish, trinket dish, photo cuff, and vase:

Then, in Volume 04, she gave new life to old shirts, combined them with soda caps, and offered a how-to for making this adorable Checker Bag that's just the cat's meow:

In Volume 05, Tiffany gave the term "wine sleeve" all new meaning when she showed us how to take old shirt sleeves and make them into this great little gift bag for wine bottles:

And that's just a few of her contributions. Here's what Tiffany told us she's been crafting up these days:

"My ReMake It recycling kits are selling like eco-hotcakes, so I've been working on the next round. For this next set, I'll be weaving with plastic bags and playing with bottle caps."

"I've been designing projects galore for TerraCycle, the eco-company that started off making worm poop. TerraCycle works with schools to collect non-recyclable items like Capri Sun juice pouches and yogurt tubs. Then they get sent my way to turn into new products like backpacks and planters. TerraCycle has a new show called Garbage Moguls coming out in April, so keep an eye out for me turning cookie wrappers into kites. Quite possibly the first time flying garbage has been sold to large retail stores."

"I also host regular crafty gatherings at my design studio and the most recent one resulted in googly eyes everywhere! It's so fun to get like-minded crafters together. The googly eyes make it seem as if there are extra friends around all the time. Adding eyes give personality to inanimate objects, kind of like recycling. Giving garbage a second chance and a new personality. After all, garbage has feelings, too."

"You can always see the latest happenings in my recycling world on my RePlayGround blog."

Thanks for all the eco-grooviness, Tiffany — Mother Earth loves ya! Here's Tiffany's Checker Bag project in our Digital Edition for your crafting pleasure. And be sure to pick up any back issues of CRAFT you don't already have in the Maker Shed (before they're all gone!).