jeweledsunshine:

I totally thought about you all when I went out by the dumpster at my work.  (Yeah, that didn't sound quite right but here's why I thought of you all . . .) They had moved a new server rack into the data center where I work and each of these racks come packaged with thick wood braces on the bottoms.  They just hauled the wood braces out to the dumpster to be hauled off.  I know you all would have done something completely ingenious with them, but, alas, there was no way to get them out to you. 

I'm lamenting the lost opportunity! 

I'm going to try this link thing again...cross your fingers:

When I married DH he had the most pathetic bookshelf you have ever seen!  It couldn't be disposed of because he had made it himself and was so proud of it.  I just couldn't stand looking at it--and certainly not in my bedroom with all of my French Provencial furniture!  I finally figured out that if we turned the shelves sidways and added a small support bar in front we could have a Dr Pepper rack (kind of like a wine rack).  Each shelf will hold 4 2 liters and it has 4 shelves.  Solved a big storage problem and got it out of the bedroom!

He found one of the dividers that fit behind the seat of an SUV that rolls to hooks back the back so that you can hide the cargo at a garage sale.  The lady was just throwing it away because she had ripped it completely down one side.  It is "leather" type material.  So far this material has replaced the seat cover on a stool, replaced the seat cover on his motorcycle after the dog ate it, been an emergency patch on his saddlebags, and replaced a couple of loops on his toolbelt.  And there's still about 1 yard of it left.

My Momma found a broken down  child's play crib and took one of  the side spindles to replace the front of a shelf above a sink in one of her rentals.  She used the other side of spindles in the bathroom to make a matching shelf.  She took the large head end and made a morror frame.  The small end was used to make a frame around the house numbers on the porch.  

re-tired

My brother made me a lamp out of an old sewing machine head. He got it in an junk store and use copper pipe and bent it to hide the cord. Then made the base out of scrape wood. My sister in law made the shade with fabric of black with old spools on it. It was a great Christmas present. I keep it in my sewing room on another treadle sewing machine cabinet. I just love homemade things.

When I moved out of my parents' house at 21 they allowed me to take my bedroom furniture with me, which included a small twin bed.  Since it was the only bed I had, it worked!  Later, when I got new mattresses -- inexpensive, but it was quite an upgrade from the twin! -- I kept my old small set.  Right after that, I found out I was pregnant so I knew my old furniture would be useful in just a few short years.  When I set up my daughter's bedroom, it had a lot of mismatched furniture -- my old twin bed (composite wood); my childhood toybox and desk (dark, solid wood) found stored in my mom's attic; a small dresser (a different composite wood) that as a teen I had used to store various cds or movies or books and other misc.; and a microwave stand (composite) and found by the dumpster!  My husband is crafty, though.  He sanded everything down, primed it, and then painted it to match the colors on the bedspread her grandmother got her.  We also hit the dollar store and a craft store for some very cute and very cheap bugs & flowers stickers (meant for a wall, but this was way cuter!).  My daughter's room is the most put together room in the whole house with a theme, a place for everything she has, and room to play.  And we did the whole thing by giving my old childhood and teen furniture a makeover for about $25 or 30 and some time.  And we should be able to do this again in a few years when she outgrows her bugs & flowers theme and wants something different.

We bought DH a big yellow garden wagon for FD last year.  He uses it daily, he does lots of yard work as we just moved into a brand new house.

We also use this wagon for all our picnic stuff - food, ice chest, lawn chairs, tarp and etc.  We go to the Sunset Symphony in Memphis every May.  We have to park blocks away from the park.  We put the wagon in the back of my daughters truck, fully loaded.  Drive to Memphis, lift it out of the truck. Pull the wagon the several blocks down hill, and easily pull it back up the hill to go home.  We will never part with our big yellow wagon. 

I love this conversation!

I think you would all love the Ready Made Magazine's MacGyver challenger that they pose to their readers every month. They'll take something common -- like unused CD's, or old luggage, or an old broken umbrella, or bicycle wheel -- and challenge the clever and creative readers to come up with a new use for it. Then they choose the winner -- the most creative and useful new life for the item -- and give a full spread in the magazine with a step-by-step how-to. 

 It's awesome.  

As for me, my favorite thing to repurpose is chopsticks -- there are so many uses for those little guys! I have CD's spooled on one that's resting on two books of the same height right now, in fact.

Anyway, keep it up! 

Frugal MacGyver - I love it :D

I forgot to mention a second life for something that I use everytime I post on here.  When DH and I first got married and bought a house my parents got us a cheap small kitchen table & four chairs just to hold us over until we could get something else.  When we got another table, the first table (which looks sorta like a butcher block top) got a shelf on the bottom and curtains all around to become a kitchen island.  When we moved here to this house, we already had an island, but no computer desk, so the table/kitchen island lost its shelf and curtains and now is a computer table that holds our monitor, printer, keyboard, paper, modem, speakers....everything and still gives us space to write or lay things out we are working on.

I'm so used to it being a computer table now that I had forgotten everything else it had been!

there are so very remarkable ideas here . we use a wagon for laundry we use it to move things in the garden

plastic coffee cans I use as storage container for cookies, candies, or other holiday goodies,.

little inexpensive items like trial sizes or things I get in the mail for free.,great for school supplies,

I save mayonnaise jars, wash and store them. I use them, with the lid, to mix up flour and water, shake it, to thicken soup or stew, or my roast beef drippings for gravy when I make potroast. I also save them to store old cooking oil in. When I cook something with oil, and the oil has cooled down to close to room temp, I pour it into a mayo jar, screw the lid on and store it in the fridge (to keep it from having an odor). When it gets full, it gets tossed in the trash, to save on costly clogs in the sink.

Right now on my desk is an old orange juice can (from frozen concentrate) that I covered with wallpaper and use it to store pens and pencils in. I made it about 9 years ago and it is still pretty today. After I put wallpaper around the can, there was a top and bottom rim, very thin metal rim that showed, so I painted it with some craft paint that I already had. The wallpaper is blue rose, so I painted the top and bottom metal rim with a light blue paint. It hasn't chipped off yet.

I think someone else mentioned this one, but when socks, towels, old teeshirts, and other cloth items wear out and aren't good enough to donate, I cut them into squares (my husband asks for washcloth size squares) for him to use outside as rags, for working on the car, or when he has to do something really messy and needs a cloth. 

One of my luxuries is that I subscribe to a couple of magazines. This isn't really a "reuse" tip, but I just thought of it. Before I toss one out, I always go through it carefully not reading articles (that would sidetrack me) but to scan it for any coupons or recipes I may need before it gets tossed.

I think this is an old tip that everyone knows, but I go through junk mail and find blank areas that I can cut square shapes out of (about the size of post it notes) and stack and store them in a corner of my desk. If I need it to adhere to my monitor (a reminder) I use a tiny bit of scotch tape, which comes right off if you remove it by pulling the note upward and off. If a small box to keep them in is important, I used to keep them in a small decorated margarine container.

One more..  I use the very small wastebaskets in our bathrooms, and I line them with the grocery store bags. Saves a ton over buying bags. There are sometimes bags that have holes in them, or ripped and can't be used for that. Those I set aside and keep to use when I'm cooking. I will lay one flat on the counter next to my cutting board, and use it as a "garbage bowl" if there are any Rachel fans out there. I scrape carrots onto the flat grocery bag, put onion peels on there, etc. When I'm done with all my veggie prep, I just gather up the corners of the bag and toss it. Keeps me from having to lean over the trash can, which is low.  Those items would be good for a compost pile, but we dont have a garden right now, and not sure when we will again.

hope this helps someone!
Cheryl

Cheryl:

I save mayonnaise jars, wash and store them. I use them, with the lid, to mix up flour and water, shake it, to thicken soup or stew, or my roast beef drippings for gravy when I make potroast. I also save them to store old cooking oil in. When I cook something with oil, and the oil has cooled down to close to room temp, I pour it into a mayo jar, screw the lid on and store it in the fridge (to keep it from having an odor). When it gets full, it gets tossed in the trash, to save on costly clogs in the sink.

I like this tip a lot especially the flour & water mixing idea.  I save those jars, too, not just mayonnaise, but other types of jars.  I reuse them for jellies (topped with wax), homemade candles, leftover tiny craft supplies, and odds and ends in the wood shop or garden shed.  As for the grease like you mentioned...I save my cans from various canned foods and put the grease in there until it fills up.  I cover it in the fridge with a piece of foil that I reuse over and over.  Other uses for cans from canned goods - a can in a (non-teflon) pan can be a makeshift double boiler for chocolate or wax, a holder for small tools in the garage (small screwdrivers, automotive mirrors, etc), and a place to hold the tags in the garden shed for any perennials with 2-yr guarantees (a sharpie in the same container lets you jot on the purchase date and where you bought it).

Pringle's can reuse idea...maybe you've all heard this one for the wax-lined cans...make homemade power-out candles.  Put in a wick and pour in the wax that you've melted (see double-boiler idea above ) and after it cools you can simply peel away the cardboard Pringle's can.  I don't get to use this tip much unless I can get the Pringle's virtually free - those things are pricey!!

There are a million and a half reuses for those plastic buckets that ice cream comes in.  I've probably already mentioned some, but to put it all in one place...I have two under the sink in the kitchen - one for compost (the lid cuts down odors) and one for small cleaning jobs, I have one near my rain-catch system for watering the small garden, I use one to carry pond plants back and forth in the car when I'm trading them with my parents and also to put the fish and pond water in when I'm cleaning the pond out, and I keep flour, sugar, cornmeal, dry milk, and any other dried goods in them to keep out bugs in the pantry.  I hit the jackpot on these at the end of the school year when they had ice cream for two different parties for the kids, so now I have a bunch on a basement shelf just waiting for me to put them to good use.  I can't believe they were just going to throw them away .

I guess the thing is - you've already payed for the packaging...keep it and use it instead of throwing it away!