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Tue 2 Jan, 2007 07:59 am
I may not be an expert at anything yet but the last 20 years or so have taught me the rare skill of living with clutter all around. Yesterday itself, I got another "heap" of scoldings from mum on not decluttering my room. (And a very furious glare on not cleaning up the spider webs despite repeated warnings!)
I'm real lazy at household stuff and I thought if I could forever get rid of (or at least cut down on ) this decluttering job. Well, fancy took me and I came up with the idea of saving old worthy-of-jettisoning items and putting them to some other use .
I am compiling a list of 101 (okay, that's a goal for the start) materials you could recycle, or save, and put to other creative uses when their original function is exhausted.
For a start, here are some of my initial "raw" ideas:
1. Old calenders: Calender pictures can be used as wrapping papers.
2. Tooth brush: Okay, this one I have been using since childhood. Old tooth brushes could be turned, almost magically, into spray painting brushes!
Okay, now, get going! 
Great question!
Bookmark for now.
Nearly everything I have seems to have a past life.
3. Fabric scraps.
I have a huge tub of fabric scraps that I dig into on a very regular basis.
My latest repurposing involved a few scraps of canvas I had laying around combined with some big poster frames. I spray glued the canvas to the cardboard backing that came with the frame, took out the glass and turned them into bulletin boards to display Mo's artwork.
Thanks so much Boomer!
4. Small jars: This is crazy, but I could paint them up, put on a few stars etc and transform into pen holders.
(I am doing this, for sure!)
5. Egg Cartons!
Have you all gardening enthusiasts ever wondered you could use egg cartons to plant seedlings?
6.Old newspapers: Possibly as gift wraps, especially the sunday supplements. I sometimes use newspapers to clean window panes and car panes.
P.S This is the first time I have posted on HI forum, and the response is kinda low. Well...
Screws, nuts and bolts ( and no, that is not a fetsih of mine) - you never know when you are going to need them in a hurry !
Zinda hoon. Chutti ke baad mota ho raha hoon. Mummy papa aaye huyein hain to roz parathe khaane ko mil rahe hain.
Spidergal, make sure you tell your mom what Einstein apparently said (and I'm paraphrasing): "If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is an empty desk a sign of?" There's a new book out that says clutter is a sign of creativity (my teenager pointed it out to me...).
6. Plastic mesh strawberry pint/quart baskets to organize loose objects in kitchen drawers.
Sounds like the battle cry of many a hording junkaholic.
"There will be a use for it someday! Don't throw it out!"
And I am just as guilty. I was raised by professionals and it is difficult to break learned habits.
I'm so old that dolls from my childhood are near priceless for collectors, even played-with dolls.
I'm personally opposed to the idea of Collector as career, a person looking for collectibles and thereby missing life. Still, much of what I sold in early garage sales or gave to friends for some help is now valuable.
We live differently, even within one cultural group, and much more around the world - although some folks around the world who differ on a lot of major opinions may be alike re clutter, or not clutter.
I admire pristine household scenes. Oh, the Shakers, for example, and the classic Japanese tea house for another one. But one of my old bosses said that anyone with a clean desk had an empty mind, and that rang true re my own behavior and observation of colleagues.
I don't know if you, Spider, know the US magazine, Architectural Digest - it's the magazine I love to hate. Decades have passed with no photograph with a scrap of paper out of place. Since it is a mag promoting interior designers and architects and surviving by expensive ads, there is this whole perfection thing going on. Or maybe it is not those designers' fault, entirely, but a decree from above re acceptible photography.
Virtually none of their letters to the editor are other than rather supine adorational sentences.
What I am getting at is that I, now, have no reverence for pristineness.
Pristine loving folk tend to have a superiority complex - not to knock your mother, Spider.
I happen to be of what they have called in the United States, irish extraction. Lace curtain irish to be exact. That can be taken, no doubt, several ways, preposterous efforts to cling to superiority being just one.
Being from California and quite the older female by now, I see many cultures near swimming before my eyes. Whether you follow every bit of advice you get from your culture, Spider, or your particular home, will become an issue for you, I'm guessing.
Just keep an open mind that creative folks may not care much about the orderliness of a room (I'll agree with the quibble that some may care.)
Neatening all the time is time wasted for thinking, to some.
7. Anything knitted. Some day you'll unravel the whole thing and make yourself a hat or scarf!
8. Empty spice jars because I'll buy it in bulk some day to refill them. Or, I'll make my own herb blends and need the jars to store them in.
9. Aluminum pie tins and empty wrapping paper tubes. I'll make holiday decorations with them some day like dad used to.
This is actually the wrong thread for me.
I moved just over two months ago, and sadly still have unpacked boxes from my previous move two and a half years ago...
I need many good reasons, why I should throw the complete boxes out...
But...
10. empty plastic bottles - use to water indoor plants
11. leftover wool - one day I will knit a pair of crazy socks with them
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