From Trash To Treasure

     I am a big believer in reduce, reuse, recycle. Why buy a new pair of jeans that I am going to wear and get dirty when I tend to all my fur and feather babies; I buy them from the thrift store. This means less wasted money and not supporting the idea behind constantly purchasing new when there are so many items out there available for used purchase with a lot of life left in them..... at least enough for me. Also I try to find a use for everything I purchase, down to the last drop or thread. For example: I buy bulk meat that is less lean than I would prefer. I cook that meat for use in a recipe and end up with the drained of fat. I put that fat into a bowl and from that I receive two products that I use in its entirety; the tallow for soap making and many other great uses and the bone broth for gravy another night of the week. I have effectively used every bit of that meat. That being said I have provided a list of all the things I save to be upcycled and reused, thus reducing my environmental footprint on our beautiful Earth. P.S. also doing this means less trash bags less waste less money. Once you start to reduce, reuse, and recycle you'll find yourself doing it constantly and saving money and the environment in the process and all it costs is a little bit of storage space!

Things I Save for Upcycling & How I Use Them:

• Spice Bottles   -   Glitter jars, homemade spice blends, rubs, and toppings
• Milk Jugs and Cartons  -    Emergency water storage & other large liquid containers such as homemade laundry soap, essential oils, the caps I have used for my DIY spice rack project I made for less than thirty dollars! ( check back soon for full tutorial), cap containers, stabilizer
• Soda Bottles  -  Cooler ice packs, garden self-waterers, rockets
• Bread Clips -  Flip Flop repairers, stitch counters
• Twist Ties   -   Training vines
• Body Puffs  -   Fruit support netting
• Plastic Caps  -  I am constantly saving recyclables and my family sometimes throws out the caps so even if I don't save the container I always save the caps for containers with misplaced lids.
• Glass/Plastic Jars & Plastic Food Containers - Leftovers storage, odds & ends, savings containers; I save these the most because once upcycled you would never know that nifty looking decoupaged sugar jar on your counter was once a Ragu spaghetti sauce jar
• Used Paper Towels & Dryer Lint  -   Fire Starters; We have a fire pit so having an easy way to light up our pit is very convenient
• Meat Package Trays  -   Paint Pallets; I do a lot of painting and decoupaging and hate wasting a perfectly good paper plate why not use something that was going to be thrown out anyways
• Chemical Spray Bottles  -  Homemade household cleaners
• Water Bottles  -  Tie Dyeing, lunch box ice packs, exploding sonic boom slingshot targets         ( follow this link to one of my favorite Youtubers Grant Thompson   https://youtu.be/7rDRFFSUrPI )
• Glass Beverage Bottles  -   Everywhere you go you see the new trend of glass being used in reusable water bottles. Every so often when I am away from my homemade kombucha at home and I have that craving for this addictive, tangy, fizzy drink; I'll buy them at the store... bam!!! reusable water bottle that's BPA free.
• Pharmacy Bags & Bottles  -  Bead storage or craft storage; I used to do a lot of resin crafts making toys which left me with a lot of rejects that required work to get them good enough for painting; while they are in storage right now when I put them there instead of grabbing gallon size ziplocs I grabbed the bags I get from the pharmacy why pay 10 cents to store those     items .... save those bags!
• Tallow - Soaps, leather conditioner, conditioning baseball gloves, healing cracked skin, impromptu emergency candle and many more great uses
• Broken Crayons - Candle dyes, emergency candles
• Beef Bone Broth (from rendered tallow)  -  Gravy base
• Parmesan Cheese Rinds -  Onion soup flavorer
• Citrus/ Apple Peels - Homemade pectin
• Citrus Peels - Homemade candies
• Used Coffee Grounds -  Sprinkle around yard to reduce mosquito activity
• Day Old Coffee -  Ice cubes for ice coffee
• Canned Goods Cans - Lanterns, ashtrays, feed cups, feed trays, seedling planters
• Toilet Paper Tubes - Seed Sprouters
• Powdered Creamer Containers  - Travel dry goods containers.

I'm sure I'll find more uses for more cast away items. Remember one man's trash is another's treasure, and the possibility and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Don't forget to subscribe in order to be alerted as this post is updated and share with me any of your upcycling ideas I'd love to hear them!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle In Every Project I Do.