Day 10 - Crafty Reuse

It's a grocery store dilemma. Buy the conventional, caged-hen, bummer eggs in an easily recyclable paperboard egg carton or buy the organic, free-range, fabulous eggs in the non-recyclable plastic carton. Why do they do this to us? Don't the egg people know that the people who buy organic eggs are most likely also going to care about the eco-friendly-ness of the packaging? Come on people!! I used to not have to concern myself with such issues as I had Val and Betty, two lovely hens who laid packaging-free eggs right in my backyard. But Betty, sadly, went to chicken heaven and Val, to cure her lonesome-ness, went to live with her chicken friends Tulip and Iris at Kris' house. So now I have to deal with my egg and egg carton issues in the grocery store each week (or become a vegan or get more chicken pets).

Luckily, the plastic egg cartons are sort of like the Pringles container. So many reuse possibilities!! This carton begged to become a jewelry kit for a little girl. The inside of the lid can be decorated with fun paper (which doesn't show up too well in the photo) and the double carton on the inside folds out to become little cups for beads and string, plus extra empty cups for sorting beads in the jewelry-making process. Personally, I think this would make a very fun gift for a kid. Decorate it, fill it with beads of the kid's favorite color and tie it up with a bow. Let the fun begin! (I'm still searching for the perfect egg supplier though. Organic, free-range, local, and packaged in paperboard. Anyone know where I can find this?)

Day 9 - Crafty Reuse

This project took a bit longer than expected (maybe because I spent a large portion of my weekend at my nephew's basketball tournament), hence the three days of no crafty reuse post. I saw this idea on Ali Edwards' blog, which is oh so fabulous and if you have any interest in scrapbooking you should check it out, she is so hip and has great ideas. Every Friday she does a Weekend Creative thing where she posts a sort of homework assignment to get your creativity flowing. Anyway, last Friday she posted this great idea of using a punch to see how different types of paper look and lay out together. She mentioned using junk mail as one of her paper sources and I was hooked and wanted to try out the idea. So, while I don't own a butterfly punch (and wasn't going to buy one as this month is all about purging, not buying!), I made a little template out of paper and spent some time cutting out little butterflies out of all sorts of scrap paper, from old maps, junk mail, magazines, out-dated promos for concerts, sheet music and lots and lots of scraps of scrapbooking paper (a great way to use up odd size scraps). Then I took an old frame, gave it a coat of paint, cut some new mats and voila! A fun piece of art work for the baby's room, made just from scraps of paper. Cheap, cool art with a reuse theme.

Freecycle it!

Do we ever outgrow the excitement of getting something for nothing? If you are like me and still have a bit of that college-age mentality, it is time to try Freecycle (see link). Freecycle is a listserve where people can exchange their no-longer-needed treasures for FREE! You can sign up for a Waukesha County specific list, so you don't have to travel far to pick up your winnings. We have gotten a Nordic track, chalkboard paint and fabric, all for free! Such simple fun. 

Oh wait, we are not supposed to be accumulating more stuff this month, even if it is with the nobel intention of keeping it out of someone else's garbage. Freecycle is also a wonderful way to find a new home for what you are purging this month, especially those items that cannot be donated elsewhere. We cleared out some yarn to a woman knitting for charity, found a boy scout troupe who could use an old trailer and passed along crib bedding to a new mom. Now, when we have something we don't know what to do with, my husband and I say, "Freecycle it!". It is great fun to purge stuff when you know it is going directly to someone who wants it. We're still looking for someone who might be in need of a very large flagpole-let us know if we can make your day!

Use It Or Lose It!

My personal purging challenge for February is to begin by using and enjoying all that I have. Before I can decide what needs to go, I need to discover what I own and give some thought to whether or not it enriches my life enough to justify the space it takes up in my house. I am hoping that all this play will make it clear what to purge.

I am not universally opposed to "stuff". I am not sure it is always environmentally better to own less of it. A lot of the stuff I own has been handed down to me, therefore its stay at my house is part of its journey in the cycle of reuse. Much of the junk I squirrel away on the basement craft shelves have allowed my kids to create some pretty cool dioramas and school projects without an outing to the store. The excess number of coats in our closet does serve to allow my family to enjoy the Wisconsin outdoors in any weather. 

However, I don't think we are unlike many American families in that we seem to keep accumulating more and more stuff. Holidays, birthdays and grandparents keep the flow coming in faster than I can figure out where to put it all. I find that I spend more time organizing and managing this stuff than I do actually using it! I dream of a more simple and harmonious relationship with my possessions. 

Part of my motivation to pare down my stuff is that I would like to better use the space that we have. A recent home remodel has opened up new space in our basement. It seems wasteful to use it only for storage. I am hoping to make room to start my garden seeds indoors, for my husband to have a corner for his homebrewing hobby and a spot for the kids crafts and projects. 

Our "use it or lose it" challenge began on a recent snow day when the kids and I headed for the basement to dig out crafts and games that hadn't been played with for awhile. Out came the Easy Bake Oven, a dream-catcher kit and the remote control flying saucer. It was like Christmas all over again! We realized that the ant farm had been sitting on the shelf for three years waiting for me to order another batch of ants. It is time to either get the ants for set it aside for the garage sale box. I began to mentally sort through everything in my house. Stuff that is used and enjoyed...Good. Stuff that lives in my house only to gobble up space and utilities...Bad. It is time for all this stored stuff to start earning its keep. Is there a reason I still have my Duran Duran albums from high school? If we haven't attempted the 3-D puzzle of Notre Dame after 5 years, is it likely we ever will? Can I find a loving home for these items other than a landfill? The next time I am in a store, will I stop to think about how likely my pending purchase will be in next year's purge pile? 

Day 8 - Crafty Reuse

Ah, Pringles. Tasty chips inside a perfect "meant to be disposable, but oh the possibilities of reuse" container. Sadly, chips of any sort rarely make an appearance at our house due to my husband's view that they are bad for us. (What? Chips? Bad for us? Crazy talk.) As luck would have it I have a sister who is allowed to have chips in the house and at her house I tend to gorge myself on chips and then ask if I can have the container. Anyway, today's crafty reuse involves old Pringles containers and juice lids (the ones from cans of juice concentrate), which happen to fit perfectly inside the Pringles container (spooky, really). Two games came from these humble materials. On the right we have a simple game of memory, where I once again reached for the Mod Podge and decoupaged little magazine images on to one side of each lid, making sure there were two of each image. It's amazingly easy to find matching photos in magazines if you happen to get two magazines of the same genre (like decorating or gardening magazines) they will often have the same ads in both for that month. On the left we have a little word game, where each lid has a sticker letter stuck to it and kids can mess around with spelling little words. In both cases I covered the Pringles container with scrapbooking paper.

A little side story here. Last fall I was at my chip-loving sister's house and with an empty Pringles container on our hands, my nephews and I made noisemakers for the Wisconsin vs. Illinois football game by filling the container with coins and pebbles (not a terribly pretty noise, but it worked, in that it made noise). My youngest nephew, who was two at the time kept bringing the noisemaker to me and asking for a chip, despite the fact that we had covered the outside with decorated paper, it still had the unique shape of a Pringles container. I had to explain several times that all the chips were gone and that there were just rocks inside, much to his (and my) disappointment. When my dad came over to watch the game, my nephew took it upon himself to break the sad news to his grandpa by bringing the noisemaker to him and saying "no chips, no chips" with a very sad look on his face. So, the lesson here is, only tackle these Pringles projects if your kids can handle the heartache of opening the can and finding, not chips, but juice lids.

Where to take donations

My first load of purged items is ready to be taken to their next destination, so where should I go with what? Here are my go-to places for taking donations:

Lake Country Caring
603 Progress Dr., Hartland
262-367-6670
Donation Hours: 9:30 – 11:30 Monday through Saturday
What they will accept: Almost anything that isn’t food. Household goods, furniture, clothing and kids gear are all needed. Computers are NOT accepted unless you have a complete, working system (see the bottom of this post for where to go with computers).
www.lakecountrycaring.com

This amazing little organization is completely volunteer run (I also volunteer there, so I may be a bit biased about how awesome it is) and helps people who are truly in need. I like to explain it as a Goodwill where no one has to pay. Clients who come to Lake Country Caring in need of clothes, household items or furniture fill out an application and then they can visit LCC three times a month and never pay a cent. Personally, I think this is a great system, people can donate items and know that they are going directly into the hands of others who really need them and know that they won’t be charged for them.

St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store
W369 N5848 Brown St. Oconomowoc, WI 53066

(262) 569-0761
Donation Hours: M-F 10:00 - 5:30; Saturday 10:00 - 3:30
What they will accept: click here for a link to a pdf

As someone who prefers to buy used rather than new, having a St. Vincent de Paul resale shop come out to Lake Country was fabulous. Like other St. Vincent de Pauls they accept donations of clothing, supplies and furniture. Check out the link above to see a complete list of what they will and won’t accept.

Habitat for Humanity HomeStore (ReStore)
222 W. St. Paul Ave. 
Waukesha, WI 53188
262-521-5711
Donation Hours: Call ahead to make an appointment
What they will accept: used or new building materials, check out their website for a list
http://homestore.hfhwaukesha.org/

While not in Lake Country, this is the closest ReStore we have… and ReStores are so, so cool (about half our house was remodeled with items from the Madison ReStore). The Waukesha ReStore is not open for shopping yet, but they are accepting donations of new or used (but usable) building materials. This is the perfect place to donate items left over from your latest remodeling project or items you have cleaned out of your workshop during our purge challenge. A complete list of what they will accept can be seen here. Make sure you call ahead before you bring items to donate so that you know someone wil be there to accept your donations.

U'SAgain Drop Boxes
Various Locations
Donation Hours: anytime
What they will accept: used clothes, shoes, textiles
http://usagain2.com/

When I have clothes or other textiles to donate I separate them into two piles, one pile of good, quality clothes, sheets or towels to bring to Lake Country Caring and then a second pile of items that are ripped, worn, dirty, stained or totally outdated which I bring to my nearest U'SAgain box. The beauty of U'SAgain is that it accepts items of lesser quality and it makes sure these items get recycled into other products. Items that one would typically think that no one could use U'SAgain has the connections to get the items to a place that will recycle them. Unfortunatley their website doesn’t have a list of all the drop-off boxes in the area, and the only one I can think of off the top of my head is the one at Health and Happiness in Hartland at 230 Pawling Ave. Does anyone else know of other U'SAgain boxes in the area?

We will add more donation places over the next couple weeks, so if you know of a place that you think we should highlight, leave a comment for us on this page. Until then, two last links for today: If you have a computer that you need to recycle, check out this link on the Waukesha County Recycling website. It has a list of all the places you can bring your old computer. And if you have an odd item that you don't know what to do with check out the "Where Do I Go With?" page on the Waukesha County Recycling website.

Day 7 - Crafty Reuse

I'm a sucker for clipping things out of magazines, so as a result I have binders and binders full of ideas. The binders were all in varying stages of decay: ripped covers, questionable binding, years of doodling on the front (clearly a sign of my rapt attention in college lectures). So today I gave them a makeover in two stages. First I covered all of them in matching fabric to make them look at least somewhat set-like (and to cover the aforementioned shabby covers and spines). Then I made labels for the binders out of bobby pins and bottle caps (I have dozens of both... the bottle cap collection is a given in Wisconsin, the bobby pin collection I can't quite explain since I haven't used a bobby pin since my high school prom). I secured the bottle caps to the pins with little glue dots and then put a picture inside the bottle cap to depict the subject of the binder. The bobby pins (why are they called 'bobby' pins?) then slide right on to the fabric covers. While not exactly Pottery Barn-esque, they look much better than before and I was able to salvage, rather than toss, several binders that were much past their prime.