I am a Reuser

You probably know the phrase “Reduce. Reuse. Recycle”.   Well my grandmother was a reuser before that was a thing.  She didn’t do it to save the environment or put less things in the landfill she did it to save money.  She raised 9 kids during the depression so every penny she could save counted.

Even after all the kids were out of the house, she had a big ball of string and twine that was made from smaller lengths tied together.  If she got a piece of string from something, she would add it to her ball.  She reused aluminum foil. Some of you might remember when TV dinners came in aluminum trays with a piece of foil over the top.  Well, she would save that top foil and reuse it.  She probably reused the aluminum tray but I don’t remember those at her house. I have already mentioned in a blog on embroidery that she would take her empty wooden thread spools and wrap her embroidery floss on it.

She used to make little trash cans (like the kind you would put near your desk) by taking 4 empty egg cartons and stand them on their sides and with the top (where the logo is) facing outward.  Then along the long edges she would, with pieces of yarn, sew them together to make a circle.  And then using round cardboard from my cousin’s take and bake pizza place she would glue this circle of egg cartons to it  And with that you then had a little trash can.  But she wasn’t done.  She would decorate the outside of the ‘trash can’ with pictures from greeting cards she had received.  As a little kid, I thought they were pretty cool.  I am sure my Mom and aunts and uncles didn’t agree but accepted them just to please her.

Well I am also a reuser.  Now I am not raising a big family but I do reuse to save money and to save things from the landfill. If something can be used, why throw it away and go out and buy something new.  I don’t make egg carton trash cans or have a ball of string but if I can find a use for something I will save it.

 I sort my buttons in empty peanut butter jars.  I reuse containers from my margarine.  They are usually big enough for a serving of spaghetti sauce or chili that I put in the freezer.  I am using a tray from a frozen dinner to hold my piece of foam when I needle felt.   I use tin trays from the Danish I buy to keep things like my spool knitted snakes while their googly eyes are drying after I glued them or to sort beads or buttons or mini yoyos.  They are also great as a paint palette.  Remember last year I used a berry basket from the farmer’s market as a summer kid’s craft.  

Well now I have another kid’s craft that reuses items.   If you are a sewer, you end up with empty thread spools.  Here is a fun little doll to make with basically two spools and some yarn.

To start out you need two spools of two different sizes.  The smaller spool will be the head, the bigger spool the body.  Now add together the length of each spool and about 3 inches, then double that length.  This yarn will be strung through the spools and part of it will be the legs.  

Now with a darning needle or a plastic kid’s needle, thread the yarn through one of the holes at the end of the big spool.  Now go up through one hole of the small spool. 

 Now that the thread is through both spools, thread it back down using another hole.  If you have a spool that has only one hole, you might want to thread the yarn through a button or a big bead before you put it through the hole, this keeps it from unthreading. 

Once you have it through both spools a second time, knot it together.  Again if you are using spools with one hole, add a button or a bead here to hold the yarn in place.  Then at the end of the yarn, tie a knot to be the little ‘feet’. 

Take another piece of yarn about 6 inches and tie it between the two spools, knot each end again for ‘hands’. 

With another 6 inches of yarn loop it through the yarn at the top of the small spool and make a knot at the end.   This is to either hang the doll or if a child’s (or adult’s) finger is through the yarn you can make the doll dance.  It also gives the look of hair. 

You can use any length yarn for body, the arms and the top loop but this is the minimum length I recommend.  If you make it so the legs and arms are longer it does give the doll a sillier look when you make it dance.

Now you can decorate the doll.  I usually use a mail label or a sticker on the small spool to make a face.  And you can glue fabric, or use decorative tape to the big spool for clothes.  You could add another mail label and let them decorate it.  If you are working with small children it is easier to let them decorate it before you put it on the doll.  It is hard sometimes to draw on a curved surface.

©2019 Cheryl Fillion