In my former life, the one where I bought whatever looked cute without considering whee it came from or how it was made, I acquired a lot of stuff. Now, as I try to reduce the amount of clutter surrounding me I am trying to look at things in new ways to see if they have a useful purpose beyond what they were made for, and if not, if I can make the old things into something new.

A post over at Crafting a Green World got me thinking about it even more. Jackie detailed taking some old, boring Thank You cards and adding some fabric and a stamped message to create a whole new card. It reminded me of my high school practice of taking old magazines and cutting out interesting pictures to collage the front of my boring notebooks.

Lately I've been looking at everything with new eyes to see if it can be spruced up and used in its present form or if I can break it down and use it for something else. If you starting thinking this way, you will find lots of possibilities in your own home and become conditioned to looking at what you have for solutions before going to the store and buying something new.