Green Minded Wallet

I’ve been avoiding my local Freecycle list lately for two main reasons. First, the community has grown tremendously over the past year and as a consequence there is a lot of correspondence (and I just can’t possibly keep up with all of it). Secondly, I have found that since joining I have acquired more things than I’ve managed to give away. To make matters worse, most of what I’ve acquired doesn’t really fit into my main hobbies or lifestyle, so I don’t even have time to use it. Personally, I think that there’s something about ‘free’ that draws people in; why else would you (well I) do a flexed armed hang for a Marines larnyard? I can honestly say that I would not have spent any money to acquire one, and I really don’t have much use for it (though it might make a nice gift for one of the little kids in my family). Perhaps once school’s over I can take some time and find someone who can actually use some of the stuff that I’ve acquired. There are two benefits to that scenario: (1) it won’t end up in a landfill and (2) I can stop tripping over it.

No Comments »

Maybe you’re thinking about upgrading your bed or you have old sheets that are ripped, worn, stained, etc. If the sheets are nice you might consider freecycling them. But if not, don’t despair, they can still be salvaged. I’ve found a number of ways to give new life to old sheets.

• Curtains – sheets make great curtains, they’re light and airy and can be pretty and decorative. All you have to do is fold over one edge and make a pocket for the curtain rod, you could also get really fancy and make tabs for the curtain rods, but that really isn’t necessary. If your sheet has a decorative trim on the top you can hang it upside-down and use the decoration as a nice border. Sometimes your sheets are in pretty bad shape and probably would be an eyesore hanging up in your living room. In that case you can use the sheet as a liner, or you can cut it up for …

• Material – sheets are great material to use in smaller projects like tablecloths and potholders. Because these items are so much smaller than the original sheets, you can (probably) just discard the ripped, torn, faded parts and have a lot of material left over. If you feel weird about eating off of your old sheets, you can always use the material for the insulating layer. And if you do that you don’t have to worry about removing the bad pieces. So now you’ve made some nice flowered kitchen curtains with matching potholders and tablecloths but you still have some material left over. Well you can always take those scraps and make …

• Stuffing – take all the soft, ragged material you have left over and use it as filling for a pillow, a doll, or a pet bed.

I’ve made curtains from sheets and hope to make some potholders and tablecloths this summer. Here are some other ideas of what to do with an old sheet (if fact it’s worth checking out the whole page). Know of any others?

No Comments »