Free for the Taking (and Making)

Anybody who knows me, knows that I'm cheap. Not the kind of cheap that tries to get you to buy my dinner (in fact, I'll probably try to buy yours), but the kind of cheap that hates to buy expensive things when I can get them for less or even free. I especially get a thrill when I can make creative use out of used or free stuff. You can imagine my huge joy when I discovered that our new town has a wonderful institution called the "Swap Shop." It's a little shed right next to what's rather euphemistically called the town "Transfer Station." Other towns might simply refer to it as the "Dump and Recycling Center," but no, not here in Berkshire County! The Swap Shop is where people (many of them second-home owners from NYC) drop off their used books, toys, home goods, clothing, etc. so that others might take them home rather than having them go to a landfill. Whoever came up with this idea is a genius, as far as I'm concerned! And I wonder, why doesn't every community have something like this???

Just for fun, here are a few photos of stuff I've found, and how I've repurposed them:

This is a lovely old porcelain light fixture. I taped the bottom with duct tape, poked a few holes, filled with gravel and soil, added a narcissus bulb and topped with moss. I found 3 of them at the Swap Shop, actually. But I don't know why the middle guy won't sprout like his brothers...

The little bird houses came from a gardening store. They were Christmas ornaments and half-off in early January. I added a couple "found items" to make them more interesting, like a pretty moth that had been hanging around near my favorite reading spot by the window for days, then eventually keeled over. A couple of fairies that had been passed down by the girls' cousins, found themselves "relocated" from their fairy home upstairs down to our dining room. I don't think they really minded the move.

 Another fun find at the Swap Shop was this bird cage. I still haven't decided exactly how I want to use it, but for now it houses a pot of herbs and a little white stuffed bird (a half-off Christmas ornament.) Unfortunately, the cage adds some not-needed clutter to this corner of the living room...

This one may have been our most valuable (to us) Swap Shop find yet: a pair of black Elefonten shoes, in exactly my big girl's size! The toes were fairly scuffed and she really wanted to have sparkly shoes to wear to church just like her little sister, so that's what we made them into, with a little help from Modge Podge and some polyurethane varnish:

Finally, last but not least, I was still feeling the glitter love and wanted to make something with a bunch of bottle caps we had collected during all the holiday festivities. With these, I was also able make use of some excellent images from a "Great Courses" catalogue that had come in the mail. I covered the images in contact paper, glued them to the inside of the caps and stuck a self-adhesive magnet strip to the back of each. Now our refrigerator is looking a lot more interesting, what with these and the rocks I wrapped in gold and silver wire!

It's pretty clear to me that these images are of the Parthenon, Buddha, Sphinx, and an old map of Euope and Africa, but I can't figure out who the other dude is. His statue was featured next to a Great Course on Italian History, but that didn't help me much since I studied African history in school. Is it Julius Caesar, maybe? This guy has on armor, and I always picture Caesar in a toga for some reason, but whatever. I guess you can't wear just a toga all the time...

Happy Last Year!!!

One thing I always have trouble with is getting rid of the last year's calendars. After all, we pick them because we love the pictures. And after seeing them up on the wall for a year, it feels like they are part of the family, in a sense. Especially when we have a Peace Corps calendar up in the house -- the gorgeous vistas, market scenes and playful little children stay with me long after their picture's month has passed. Year after year, even through house moves, I've held on to these calendars rather than recycle them. But never gave much thought to what to do with them until now, when I've got more free time. So my first project is making calendar picture gift bags. Probaby there are other DIYers doing the same thing out there in the blogosphere, but I haven't checked. It seemed like a novel idea to me, and while it's rather time consuming, it's definitely a labor of love. I can't wait to match the bags to their future gift recipients! (Picture of kittens to the cat lover, etc.) Basic directions below.

Okay, so you start with two calendar pages, ideally with the photos oriented the same way. Decide how deep and how tall you want your bag to be. You will want to mark the sides and bottom of each page so that you know where to fold. Ideally, there will be a significant overlap between the front and back, as well as the bottom flaps so that the bag is sturdy. You also need to decide whether you will fold down the top for extra handle stability. Alternatively, you can just glue small pieces of paper to the inside where you plan to punch holes for the handles.

Attaching the bag can mean glue, tape, stapes, lacing or a combination of these. I like the look of lacing down the sides, but it takes more time and having the sides end up the same height can be dicey. It's pretty cool if you have saved some curly ribbon from holiday gifts and can reuse that. Glueing, then stapling at the edges is a good option but it gets messy. Certainly, taping is the fastest method but it does use up a lot of tape.

Handles can be cut from the same calendar, maybe from the heavier paper of the front cover. Or they can be made from reused holiday ribbon. Strips of fun fabric would be another nice option. When I finally recycle old gift bags that can't be used anymore, I always remove the ribbon handles (since they are not paper). I have used some of these on the bags I made. (This falls in the category of perhaps extreme item re-use, I know. But there's a certain elegance to them going back to their original purpose. :-)

And there you have it, a fun way to upcycle one of the many items hanging around your house in the post-holiday season!