What things do you reuse & how?

[Gailete]

I've been reusing plastic grocery bags for a long time and when I have way too many, I take the surplice to our thrift store for them to use as bags.

I use maybe one roll of paper towels a year. I recycle old clothing and towels, wash cloths for rags. This year has been a bit strange as I got an 8-pack of Bounty towels to use and review as well as a 10 pack of micro-cloth dust rags. I still have about 6 rolls of towels left over, I gave one to my cleaning lady, and I have dust rages that haven't even been used. I guess I got those last year as I put them in everyone's stockings - I have grown kids that have to clean their own homes.

I do so many things as a matter of course that I don't even think about it until I see someone checking out at the store and see all the cleaning products they are buying.

I use cloth hankies, except for needing to 'blow' and have found that they are much kinder to your nose than tissues no matter how soft they are.

We use cloth napkins instead of paper and it is much cheaper than paper as we can just throw them in with the towels. I have found many wonderful, formerly horribly expensive, damask napkins as well other cloth napkins.

I reuse donations to our thrift store as gifts, such was when I when I found a hand embroidered tea-tablecloth with matching napkins, in brand new condition, clean and starched. I found some cute post-it type notes, grocery pads, even a Bevis and Butthead pencil pack (for my oldest son's stocking as he has a great sense of humor). I look all year for new, intact items that are stocking worthy for my grown kids - boys 37, 34 and DDL 33. Hard to know what to put in their stockings! My son and DIL live near her family with lots of nieces and nephews so always kids around to use the silly things that they don't want.

I sell things on line and I also get things to review so have boxes coming and going frequently and will reuse them and their air pillows to packing things safely.

I reuse other quilters scraps that they donate to the thrift store. I can buy packets of them when they are available for 25-50 cents which usually gets me anywhere from $5-10+ worth of quilting fabric! I cut the scraps to the size pieces I need and then the colors I don't usually buy help to have a more well rounded batch of scrap pieces - I almost always make scrap quilts. I haven't been able to afford to buy quilt fabric at full prices, but I will pick it up for 5-10 cents on the dollar. One of the ways I can still participate in my hobby without spending too much. I also pick up other crafting supplies when I find them to recycle them either for me or for resell or to gift to someone just starting out with quilting.

[rob62521]

Like many of you, I reuse bags, especially those wonderful paper bags with handles.

We have purchased cloth grocery bags and they are very handy for other shopping, not just groceries.

We use cloth napkins and I go through quite a few cloth kitchen towels in a week.

I knit hats on a loom and use the leftover yarn to make dish cloths and covers for the Swiffer handle.

I sewed some pillow covers and table runners and used some of the leftover material to make cloth gift bags.

I have put my used coffee grounds in the garden for fertilizer. If I don't drink all the coffee, I put it in a jar in the fridge and have iced coffee later.

We save our egg cartons and cottage cheese containers for a gal who has a small restaurant. She has chickens so she reuses the egg cartons and they take leftovers home in the cottage cheese containers.

I am constantly saving glass jars of all sizes. They are handy for a little of this or that of leftovers. Plus I have canning jars that I use for other things besides canning. I brew a lot of tea for iced tea and put it in the fridge. I make apple juice and apple sauce and use the canning jars to store this in the fridge if I don't can it.

I use vinegar bottles (gallon size ones) when I make a big batch of laundry detergent. I reuse an small Dawn dishwashing bottle to put some of the laundry detergent in to pretreat stains.

I use envelopes from mail for grocery lists.

Our church has been donating to a ministry that uses postmarked postage stamps. So, I carefully trim them and then put them in a part of an envelope that I cut off of a letter to donate them.

I would say my glass dishes like Pyrex are used and reused numerous time. I have one from my grandmother and the rest I have purchased at thrift stores and rummage sales and they get a work out. I like them far better than plastic containers.

When I worked I carried a Thermos for coffee. I broke a couple through the years, but would replace them with the older ones from thrift stores. Saved a bunch of money using them.

[jacklpalmer]

Wow... so many good ideas in here. Most of my reusables end up for gardening. I guess I get that from my mother.

Have an empty cardboard egg carton? I say you have a dozen biodegradable starter pots. Cut them up as necessary. Put them right in the garden when they're ready to grow.

Glass jars from jams, pickles, tins, etc, can easily be reused to grow herbs in.

Used popsicle sticks are good garden markers.

An old paint bucket serves as a good compost bin... among a lot of other things.

[Gailete]

I just went on a small rampage in the fridge and pulled out outdated items. The ends of james and jellies, we cleaned out and when she is done washing them, my cleaning lady can take them home. She grows and cans or freezes a lot of the food they eat year round and she can always use canning jars. She has 6 kids when they are all home so she has to feed a bunch year round. I always try to share any of my spare stuff with her. Makes me feel better about the fact that I haven't been able to give her a raise since she started cleaning for me.

I also make or hubby does some of our cleaning products. I can't handle a lot of the smells of comercial cleaners.

For those that are facing this problem at this time of year. I make fruit fly poison by squirting some dish detergent in a glass and then some cider vinegar into it. Replace every 4-7 days as needed.

I reaized lately that some of our cloth napkins are getting rather nasty looking so picked up some pretty embroidered ones at the thrift store the other day. Those napkins will become rags now!

[jamesg1]

Lots of great ideas here!

I re-use plastic takeaway containers, they are so versatile you can store anything in them. They are great for making up batches of food and then freezing the leftovers.

We also use them for jewelry, pens, small toys, and lots of other things.

[GrimJack]

Any glassware that I break, I melt down and cast into various objects. I broke a glass pitcher and have been casting it into skulls, turtles, and other objects.

[Keshet]

junk mail -- I used the envelopes for my grocery lists. let dd play post office with them, can use some of the paper in conpost

I write my grocery list on the envelope and put my coupons in them.

[Gailete]

I write my grocery list on the envelope and put my coupons in them.

I used to always do this when I was heavily into using coupons and doing refunds and rebates. Now if I make a list based on store sales, I end up not being able to go and so things don't work out the same the next week.

[Gailete]

I picked up a new sheet set at a thrift store. Brand new with the sipper on the package still sealed shut. The bottom King sized sheet was fine and that is what we needed, plus no problem getting more pillowcases, but the top sheet had a tear in it already, so instead of cutting it in half and sewing up the cut edge so we would have two seperate sheets so hubby wouldn't choke me in the night, the sheet went to my sewing room. I can get lots of fabric foundation squares for doing what is called string quilting. I have made several quilts like that and usually have had to use newspaper as the foundation. Using fabric means no wasting time picking newspaper out

String quilting for those non-sewers or quilters, refers to using those leftover strips of fabric left over from cutting out blocks. You sew them onto foundation pieces such as newsprint, fabric or whatever lightweight fabric you need to get rid of., cut them into squares or whatever sizes you like, so you can make an entire quilt top with fabric that would go to waste otherwise.