I’ve been exploring household items we can reuse. I thought I would stretch the whole family to use items around the house we don’t really need to create things that are either beautiful or serve a function needed to be filled. We are getting crafty. Of course there are many ways in which we already reuse items—pickle jars become Lego storage, coffee tins collect coins in the laundry room and broken terracotta pots become drainage at the bottom of other potted plants.

But let’s get creative, shall we? On our island we don’t have the option of running to a store to pick up something we forgot, so we are often forced into thinking outside the box with the items that we do have at our disposal.

 

1. Make bag clips out of wine corks.
2. Use the kids’ old baby clothes to make an heirloom quilt.
3. Make mittens out of old sweaters you may have (ahem) shrunk…
4. Transform a tiered serving tray into much needed jewelry storage.

5. A CD spindle becomes a bagel holder for the kids’ school lunches.
6. Broken crayons can be melted into new, multi-coloured ones.
7. Glue broken jewelry onto bobby pins to dress them up.
8. Cut your name off an expired credit card to make an adorable name tag for a special writing journal.
9. When ‘disposable’ wooden chopsticks get too stained from soy sauce, stick them in the garden to hold up seedlings.
10. Use pantyhose that has holes and runs to train rosebushes. The hose are much less constricting to plants than twine.
11. Use old pennies to tile a floor or make a backsplash.

Of all the 30 Green Days Challenges, this past week’s recycling goals were perhaps the hardest for my family. Turning off lights and unplugging chargers are very easy to remember, and only take seconds. Washing jars, peeling labels and taking the time to investigate our community’s recycling policies took a bit more time, and made me feel quite guilty for not recycling properly all along. Interestingly, however, it became one of the most satisfying and rewarding of all of our goals. In addition to feeling as if we had accomplished something as a family, I noticed that the kids are taking daily chores more seriously, and have become more mindful of how all of their actions affect the environment.