Reuse

Reuse, to me, means simply to recycle. I can almost guarantee that you follow this practice. Everyone has something they have taken and reused. Don't believe me, think on plastic bags, are they in your bathroom garbage can, holding your library books, given to a friend with an item you had for her? To reuse something is a cinch, you just use it again. You can also repurpose something, take it from its old life and turn it into something new. Aahh, a little more complicated. To repurpose something takes a tiny bit of imagination, and a small amount of creativity. I have a hard time throwing anything away, ask my minimalist husband. I always think "but maybe I could use that one day...."







a.) a bowling bag that I use for a carry all b.) soda pop bottles that make a nice array of vases c.) a belt from a pair of my daughter's pants, cut in two, to hold some curtains back.


Some more project ideas we have created here at my house using repurposing:

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I had an old pillowcase from my grandmother, it had such a funky print. I have sewn and sewn this thing, finally I had to admit it's life as a pillowcase just had to be over. Inspiration struck, I needed to recover some old stools, the pillowcase print happened to match the walls. Voila, now it lives on as fashionable stool covers.
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I once had an entire pocket rip off the side of some cargo pants. I took the pocket and hung it on a corkboard, we kept pens in it. You could put love notes, paper clips, or keys in it.
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Here's an easy one. Spaghetti sauce jars. They are big wide-mouthed jars with dependable lids. You can use these for all sorts of things. They can hold money, nails, tacks, any kind of odds and ends. We use them as drinking glasses (I have kids, I gave up the idea of having beautiful sets of matched dishware long, long ago.), vases, containers for leftovers. The only limit for an item like this is your imagination.
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Repurposing and reusing items does not have to mean that they will look like garbage. You can slap some paint on an old table and you have a new one. You can dress up your spaghetti jars with a glue gun, cardstock paper, and a sharpie. Reuse ribbons and wrapping paper. Magazine ads have wonderful pictures. (I make a calendar for my honey every year out of ads I collage together.) Imagination is the key and even if you feel that you have little or no imagination, the internet is the most useful resource we have nowadays, use it. You can find a "recipe" for any craft project you want.

There are lots of things out there that you can take and make into something useful and needed. List some items for me, and I will try my best to help you figure out a way to reuse them.