• Repurposing junk for home organization

    Posted on May 5th, 2009 Saver Queen 17 comments

    _mg_5231On the weekend, I cleaned out my craft room. Unfortunately I do not have before and after shots, but suffice it to say that it was a mess.

    To bet better organized, I had begun saving recyclable items that could be re-purposed for storage. This included egg cartons, kleenex boxes, tea boxes, and glass jars.  Had I used a little more foresight, I also would have washed out and saved my tin cans, which can have a rustic appeal, or can be easily covered with a homemade label.  I also fell upon this neat blog, called Repurposeful, dedicated solely to repurosing or “finding new uses for everyday things.” I particularly like the idea of turning a cereal box into a magazine holder. I figure this craft could also be used to hold scrapbooking paper.

    Many of these items, such as the egg cartons and tea boxes, fit perfectly inside the shelves of my plastic craft cupboard.  If you want to display your re-purposed storage items, I recommend following my tutorial on turning a tea box into a beautiful, decorative box.  I was going to do this with my other tea boxes, but haven’t gotten around it yet.  The tutorial can be found at orgjunkie.com.

    Above is a plastic egg carton, holding some small, miscellaneous items, perfect for hanging on to loose buttons. I always have a replacement button handy when one goes missing.  They work well for homemade cards, too.

    _mg_5243

    I used a tea box to hold stray ribbons. I collect ribbons from gifts and packaging and save them for homemade cards, gift wrap, or other craft projects.

    _mg_5240

    A gold shopping bag now holds all my tissue paper (I re-use it for gifts as well as multi-media paintings).  Another gift bag holds all my bubble wrap and packing materials.

    I hang on to all kinds of potential craft materials, such as cardboard, stickers, stamps, even cute pictures from magazines. These things tend to come in handy when I am scrapbooking, painting, making homemade cards or homemade wrapping paper.  If you hang on to all these little odds and ends, though, there is a fine line between being creatively frugal and being an utter pack rat.  I think the line is organization.  Now I feel much more organized, and happy that I have many re-purposed items doing double duty in my craft room.

    Do you repurpose any “junk” that would normally end up in the recycling bin to aid in home-organization?

    The Saver Queen

    Uncategorized
     

    17 responses to “Repurposing junk for home organization”

    1. FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com May 5th, 2009 at 10:22

      I love this idea! Thanks for the link to the Repurposeful blog

    2. Org Junkie May 5th, 2009 at 10:31

      I LOVE to repurpose…it’s almost an obsession of mine. It also helps that my girlfriend owns a thrift store and I can find lots of treasures to repurpose for something other than they were intended. Makes me so happy :)

    3. Bee May 5th, 2009 at 10:51

      I wish I was crafty enough to justify having a craft room…

    4. Jen May 5th, 2009 at 11:08

      I save all my glass jars and many yogourt tubs for saving food, odds & ends, and freezing soups, sauces and leftovers. I hope that one day I might bring myself to can, also, so the mason jars will come in extra handy then!

      The plastic containers that berries come in make great ’seed-starting’ trays, as do old egg cartons. I also save the mini-orange crates to store my envelopes and other various, office papers.

    5. Maddy May 5th, 2009 at 13:00

      Have I mentioned that *anything* can be turned into a planter? Because it totally can :)

      Really great post, and a cleverly organised craft room, too!

    6. Shopping Golightly May 6th, 2009 at 10:47

      Hi Saver Queen, I just passed a One Lovely Blog award to you: http://thethriftychicks.blogspot.com/2009/05/one-lovely-blog.html

    7. M May 6th, 2009 at 18:41

      First and foremost, this is a lovely blog.

      Wow!! I never knew this was termed as ‘repurpose’. This is something I remember doing it since childhood and I am still doing it in my 30’s .My parents always reused anything from carton,giftwraps,bottles,tins,cans etc. Of course they live in India and that is the way of life. Re-use as much as possible. Now of course the trend of use-and-throw is catching up.

      I never mentioned it to anyone before as I thought I would be branded ‘Thrifty’. But yes, this whole saving mode is helping me now to sail through difficult times.

    8. LuAnn May 6th, 2009 at 23:30

      I am always looking for ways to repurpose items…especially at work. The amount of stuff (recyclable or not) that goes into the garbage there is scandalous!!! BTW, found my way here via The Thrifty Chicks. :)

    9. Kate May 7th, 2009 at 07:36

      Not an everyday thing, but still fun…

      Last Hallowe’en we scoured the house for decorations rather than buy a bunch of cheap plastic ones we’d just wind up throwing away anyways.

      It’s amazing what a can of spray paint can do…

      We had a graveyard made of old shoeboxes, a random broken wooden stand from the basement that, combined with some more boxes, became a creaky fence, an old pumpkin-head man waiting in his chair at the top of the stairs to give the kids candy, and jars with tea lights in them to light up the porch.

      It was spectacular. All sorts of neighbours stopped by to tell us how neat it looked. And all it cost us was two cans of spray paint (one black and one silver/grey).

    10. Erran May 7th, 2009 at 09:42

      “The Saver Queen
      The Saver Queen hits a broad spectrum of frugality. Many think frugality is a personal endeavor strictly related to saving money. More progress is made and everyone wins when we approach frugality as a community in terms of money and resource consumption. The Saver Queen has a broad and open mind, “gets it,” and has a better understanding of compassion and empathy for it.”
      link: http://thethriftychicks.blogspot.com/2009/05/one-lovely-blog.html
      ——————
      That’s why I enjoy reading your thoughts…congrats on the award. :)

    11. Melaniesd May 7th, 2009 at 20:55

      Reading about repurposing made me think of some ideas last night. I was baking cookies and used up all of my cocoa from 2 cans. I was going to throw them out and had a 2nd though. I washed them well and put them away to use for gifting baked goods like a tin of homemade bits & bites etc. I’ll re-cover them with some pretty paper.

      Thanks for making me think of new ideas for stuff!

    12. Saver Queen May 8th, 2009 at 12:23

      Thanks to everyone for their positive and incredibly kind comments as well as your own fantastic, creative ideas!

    13. Jennifer May 8th, 2009 at 21:29

      Great site! Great information. Please PLEASE come over as you could do wonders here!!!

      cheers!
      jennifer

    14. Rachel May 9th, 2009 at 01:49

      I like to use cheapo clear vases to hold ribbon scraps. I can see all the colors I have and on display, the vases actually look super cute!

    15. The joys of an empty box of salt @ Saver Queen May 29th, 2009 at 10:44

      [...] box of kosher salt.  Normally I would throw it away, but as you know, these days I am trying to repurpose junk to create a more organized home. I love giving a new purpose to stuff that would normally end up in [...]

    16. Three strategies for a greener, simpler, happier holiday @ Saver Queen December 8th, 2009 at 00:30

      [...] house - think reusable glass mason jars, wire or wicker baskets, vintage tins, or - my favourite - “repurposed junk”. (Remember the tea box I made? You can find a tutorial I wrote on how to do it at Organizing [...]

    17. Spring Cleaning Hype – Re-purpose? Recycle? Or Sell? Entrepreneurial Woman Magazine April 5th, 2010 at 12:42

      [...] Saver Queen, “Loving the Frugal Life” (saverqueen.com/2009/05/05/repurposing-junk-for-home-organization) [...]

    Leave a reply

Pages

RSS Twitter: saverqueen

Powered by WordPress
Designed by My Mobiles