Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

At our house we take reducing, reusing and recycling pretty seriously and as a result, we haven't had to take our trash can to curb in over a year! Reducing the things we buy and use, composting and recycling have the biggest impact. 

The other day I was about to throw away a graham cracker box when it occurred to me that the negative leaf cut on the front would make a cute card accent. 

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Since I've started crocheting, I'm also saving little bits of left over yarn to use for my cards like the bit I chain-stitched and tied to this chipboard tag. Because I use 100% cotton yarn, I plan to leave a bunch in a suet container for the birds this spring...

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...which would make a cozy and colorful little nests, don't you think?

If you're interested in learning ways to reduce your trash, visit the Zero Waste Home blog.

In addition to my recycled items, my card was created with the adorable new Garden Party collection by Pebbles. And guess what? This line is 30% off at Scrapbook.com! 

Well, I've got some projects I'm working on to share with you real soon so I better get to them! 

Have a super day! :)

From Trash to Treasure

Reduce, reuse, recycle...the three 'r' words that reside in the forefront of my mind. Even though my husband and I have brought our own grocery bags to the store for the last 10 years and have driven fuel efficient cars since the purchase of our first Honda Civic in 1992, and have been avid recyclers before we met one another, there's always room for improvement and we made some big ones last summer. We switched all our paper products from toilet paper and facial tissue to paper towels and napkins to brands made from 100% post consumer recycled paper. We also started buying natural household cleaners and make some of them ourselves. There's been a lot of little changes made along the way and we keep discovering more ways to live a greener lifestyle.

With that said, I decided to take this old chocolate heart shaped box that my husband gave me a couple years ago for Valentine's Day and dress it up to be used as a Valentine decoration. I covered the top of the box with this pretty glittered heart patterned paper and then used some wide rick rack along the underside of the lid to give it a scalloped shape. The top is then decorated with a wide white grosgrain ribbon bow, some mini rick rack and a strand of faux pearls. The tag is made from a Sizzix die cut machine and features a cute three dimensional glittered sticker from K & Company. I found this big white button in my stash and used it to attach the tag. So there you have it...from trash to treasure.

What to do with those Christmas Cards?

Here's a few environmentally friendly ideas for your Christmas cards now that the season is behind us. Recycling them provides companies such as Seventh Generation the post consumer paper it needs to produce their toilet paper, facial tissue, paper towels, and napkins. Whole Foods market makes their brand of these products under the 365 label. Even Staples sells printer paper made of 100% post consumer recycled paper. Don't forget to buy these items or it does little good to recycle.

Reusing your Christmas cards and to/from tags is an even better option. If you have to/from tags that open like greeting cards, keep the front of the tags and cut off the writing portion. Most of my tags this year were from the year before which also saves money. As for your holiday cards, you can cut out some of the pretty images and glue them onto a new piece of card stock to send out next year. This is a fun project for the kids to help you with.

If you like to keep your cards and all the photographs that come with them, the photo above is a scrapbook page made of Christmas cards. I saw this project a couple years ago on Two Peas in a Bucket. You cut up some of your cards into 1 1/2" squares and apply them to a 12"x12" piece of scrapbook card stock. This page has a pocket in it to hold all those cards with photos or handmade designs that you want to save. Now you have a beautiful scrapbook page and a safe place to keep those holiday cards and pictures.