Recycling can take on many forms. To reuse an item is not a new idea, as a
matter of fact until recent times nearly every item was used and reused as
needed. Kitchen scraps fed the animals,
bottles and jars were washed and used again, sacks became napkins, window
treatments and even clothing. At one
time this was done because we had no choice, throwing away perfectly useful
items was unheard of. As time passed we
had more money, cheaper items and a consumer based economy. We daily toss items our ancestors would have
used.
Of course
as the pendulum swings, it is now trendy and modern to recycle. It is also very easy as many neighborhoods
offer services to pick up recyclable materials.
Composting, cooking regular meals from scratch, the buy local movement
all help to cut back on what is dumped into our landfills. A simple lifestyle is cheaper and easier on
the planet as well.
Today I
recycled Christmas cards. I saw the idea
on a blog I follow about simple living.
Every year I save my Christmas cards because they are just too beautiful
to throw away. When my children were
little we used the cards to cut out pictures for collages, to make post cards
and once we tried to use contact paper and create placemats. This year I made gift tags. I cut out shapes, a main picture or a
colorful section from each of my cards.
I left a spot to punch a hole for a ribbon, and tossed them in a box
with my cheap sticker tags. Next year at
Christmas I will have designer style tags, and I won’t be hoarding stacks of
Christmas cards anymore.
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