Thrifty Organisation – Recycling! – Australian Catholic Mums

Have you ever decided to take a second look in your recycling bin before throwing it all out?

You may be surprised. With just a little creativity you can get so much MORE use out of your empty containers. A lot of the time, you may find you have a lot of good plastic containers and glass jars, great for storing things around the home or using for craft projects.

Here a a few listed below:

Pen/Pencil Holder: With help from the kids (doing a little drawing on some paper) and cut up scraps of coloured paper. We decorated this old yoghurt container to make a handy pencil holder. You can fasten it in place with some glue or sticky tape. If you want a more stylish look, you could use contact paper or pretty wrapping paper.

Vases or Christmas Decorations: One of the more commonly recycled objects is glass jars! Over Christmas I wanted to decorate the dinner table, and was able to reuse these two jars and a vase I had. From sauerkraut that I had bought for one of our menu items. Such a simple and effective idea, using left over Christmas tree decorations and some red fabric. I also laid some some red fabric, formally a red scarf now table runner, along the table and place jars on top.

Peg Holder: Ice-cream containers are very useful and can come in handy a lot of the time. They can be great for storing left overs or other household items. I have used one here to hold my laundry pegs!

Spread Jars: So many uses can be made of empty nutella, peanut butter jars etc. You will find most of the time, they are made of good quality plastic and are air tight. I use mine for storing homemade paints for the kids! Other items that can also be stored are loose change, elastic bands etc.

Plastic Snap Shut Fruit Packet: Don’t under estimate the organisational potential for your plastic fruit containers. I have used these kiwi fruit containers, many times to store little craft knick knacks for the kids. Ribbon, cut up pieces of paper (ready for gluing on new creations), buttons, cotton balls/buds and more!

Organising your daughter’s hair supplies: I have got a few different ways to organise head bands and bracelets. It is very simple. You can create a cylinder to wrap them around by taking an old paper towel roll and covering it in some nice coloured wrapping paper, and sticky taping it. You can use this for head band or bracelets/necklaces. I have also included recycling a plastic biscuit tray from a packet of arrowroot biscuits to sort out all the bits and pieces, hair types etc. Additionally you can use a piece of card or original packaging to clip-on all of the hair clips. And attach hair ties to the brush handle.

Make an ‘Action Tray’ from an old cereal box: Do you find it difficult to keep on top of all your ‘to do’s?’ Then you might need an action tray! You can make it in two ways. You can see from the images below, you simply cut the flaps off the top of a cereal box and half of the front section. Alternatively you could cut off half of the side panel, the flaps and cut the two front corners off, to make a standing file/paper holder (See image below). Next you glue or sticky tape some pretty wrapping paper over the box and viola! You have yourself an action tray! I have put letters that need to be posted and items that need to be exchanged or refunded.