UF students may find their best decorations in the trash can this holiday season.
UF’s Office of Sustainability showed five students how to turn used materials into holiday treasures while they sipped hot cocoa and ate cookies at the GIY: Green It Yourself Holiday Edition-UpCycle Christmas Crafts event Monday afternoon.
Students of all artistic skill levels made bows, wreaths, ornaments and gift bags out of old magazines and toilet paper rolls.
The office provided the materials along with glitter, ribbon, glue, rubber bands and a stapler at four craft-making stations in the Reitz Union to give students ideas for festive, inexpensive and environmentally friendly crafts.
“We figured with the holidays coming up, it would be a good way for people to save money by making their own Christmas decor and also help things from going into the trash,” said Nicole Galehouse, 25, sustainability and the built environment senior and intern with the Office of Sustainability.
The third in the Green It Yourself series, the workshop was the Office of Sustainability’s first holiday event.
In the two previous workshops, students made green cleaning products and recycled paper planters.
The most popular craft was a gift bow made of long strips of magazine.
“I definitely have to go home and teach my mom this,” said Samantha Doucette, a 22-year-old journalism senior.
Employees of UF’s Office of Sustainability make Christmas bows out of magazines on Monday at the Reitz Union. The Christmas decorations were created out of sustainable materials.
