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A New Twist to Recycling
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Angie Leszczak
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Neighbors
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November 27, 2008
What do bowling balls, Depression glass, garage sale tables and old jeans have in common?
These are some of the items a Crete resident has recycled into beautiful, sellable, usable crafts.
Joan Davis, a 30-year resident of Crete has been crafting for almost as many years as she has been alive.
She has done everything from painting, to sewing, to scrapbooking, to designing.
As a little girl, Joan was introduced to crafting by her mother who was an avid sewer.
As a teenager, Joan became interested in oil painting as one of her first hobbies and her love of crafting escalated from there.
During her school years, Joan took an array of classes to help her learn different crafts, techniques and to perfect the skills she already possessed.
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When Joan retired in December 2005, she realized she would have a lot of time on her hands and needed a way to fill it. Because of her extensive background and love of crafting, she started thinking about participating in craft shows. However, booths cost money and she needed to make sure she sold enough products to be able to make a profit. That's when her crafting really took off.
Stained glass was Joan's first sellable, crafting project. Today, Joan makes hanging stained glass pieces. A large majority of the pieces are made from the usual stained glass bought at supply houses; however, Joan shared the secret of her "recyclable" stained glass pieces.
"Antique and Depression glass plates and saucers can be stained glass works of art," Joan said.
Joan uses these unique pieces of history as the centerpiece of some of her hanging stained glass. Each piece takes about 5 hours to make. Nearly all of Joan's stained glass pieces are of her own design, but she has recently created two requested pieces.
In her study of creating stained glass, she stumbled upon the artistry of turning bowling balls into gazing balls. It was then Joan saw and realized the value of old, dusty bowling balls and how they could be transformed into beautiful glass gazing balls, guaranteed not to break or blow away.
Where does a person go for old bowling balls? Garage sales and resale shops are at the top of the list, but Joan has established relationships with local bowling alleys as well. Whether a ball is forgotten for a period of time by its owner or is damaged in use, Joan gives each bowling ball a new purpose - a beautiful decoration for someone's yard.
The time to turn one of these unwanted or unusable bowling balls into a gazing ball is approximately 6 hours. The first step is the preparation of the bowling ball, which entails plugging the holes. The next step is cutting the glass that is to be applied to the bowling ball.
The real work comes when it is time to put the glass pieces on, by hand, one piece at a time. After all the glass has been applied, the entire ball has to be grouted. Once the grouting is completed and dried, a protective sealant is applied.
"The messiest part of making the gazing ball is the grouting. It is all done by hand. It is not my favorite part," Joan said.
One of Joan's less messy, consumer-friendly recyclable crafts are blue jean bags. These bags start from different size jeans, but all the jeans end up as the same, perfect-size, reusable grocery bag.
"Old, recycled blue jeans can carry your groceries from the store and are big and strong," Joan said of her blue jean grocery bags.
Joan gets the jeans for her bags from resale shops. "The hardest part of making the bags is ripping off the original pockets," Joan said.
The bags are made with two large, exterior pockets and have hand-painted artwork on the bag. Joan designs the artwork for each bag. She also does special artwork upon request.
When asked how she came up with this clever idea, Joan said, "I had seen in magazines where they take the top of jeans and make purses, and all of a sudden, the thought of shopping bags came to me. I paint them to make shopping enjoyable."
This is a less time-consuming project. The recyclable blue jean bags take about half an hour for Joan to make. Recyclable bags are nothing new, but this creative jean bag is durable and fun.
As if this wasn't enough in helping the environment with recycling, Joan decided to take garage sale tables and make them into beautiful, mosaic side tables. Joan expanded the idea to tables after she completed several serving trays.
Several of the same steps go into creating these mosaic tables as it does in producing the gazing balls. Because of the flatness the tables offer, the time to create a table is only a couple of hours.
From tables, to stained glass, to gazing balls, Joan has not stopped there. One of the simpler crafts she has in her recyclable collection is painted, characterized, dried gourds.
Joan does not grow her own gourds. She purchases the already dried-out gourds from local farm stands. Joan then paints the gourds and brings them to life with faces and hands.
"With a little paint, the gourds look cute as Silly Green Beings," Joan said. Joan saw these cuties at a craft show 10 years ago and decided she could make her own gourd beings.
"I love to create and I'm just amazed at what I can do," Joan said of all of the crafts she has created thus far. With all of the recycling going on in Joan's house, the obvious question was, is there a new project on the horizon?
"No. Not yet," Joan said. But with all of her talent, there is sure to be some new recycled craft available in the near future.
Joan recently started renting a space at Country Consignment in Beecher, on the northeast corner of Route 1 and Indiana. She also sells her crafts at The European Market in Crete and at the Crown Point Farmer's Market.
Joan has taken the word recycle and put a new twist to it by taking old, unusable, unwanted items and giving them life. If you'd like to purchase any of Joan's items please call her at 708-672-4307.
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