31 Days of Repurposing - Leaves and Boxes

 Today was a fun day and a busy one. This morning - ON A SATURDAY! - we got up just as early as normal and were out the door by 7:30 am (so for the kids it was earlier than normal) to join in a community leaf raking for Seniors. They served us breakfast at the Boys and Girls club first and then we were given our assignment.

We raked for a few hours and bagged up the leaves and that yard was done. It was a fun family activity. :-) Then we got to go back for to the Boys and Girls club for lunch. It was a great community event. It helps the Seniors, it is fun for us, businesses join in with donations and so we also get some yummy food.

 We also got some nice leaves out of the deal. We were needing to put leaves on our septic area so I was glad that we had all these leaves for that purpose. We also put some leaves in our chicken coop which makes that much nicer. Leaves are lovely to look at on the trees and then they are pretty useful after they fall. We will also be putting leaves on our garden.

I asked about all the doughnut boxes at breakfast this morning and they were more than happy to give them to me. I will repurpose them to put boutonnieres and corsages in for the wedding flowers that I do.

So that is my repurposing story for today. :-) I also was able to repurpose a few of the bags but most of them got holes in them.

 Do you like to use leaves in the fall?

31 Days of Repurposing - Making Envelopes for Calendars and Magazines

Today I found time to work on a simple and fun repurposing project that I like to do fairly often - making envelopes.

They are simple to make and people seem to enjoy getting them. I enjoy sending them too and we have also found that the mail men find them fun as well. AND - they repurpose one of those common things to have around the house - calendars. So it is a win-win!

 Do you ever make envelopes? What do you do with your old calendars or magazines?

31 Days of Repurposing - Paper Bag to Drain Apple Fritters On (With a recipe)

 So, this morning I decided to make apple fritters for breakfast. Yummy!

These are deep fat fried so they are really a health food and they can be rather messy but they are good. :-) Today I did some repuposing for the purpose of having something to set my greasy fritters on. I used an old trick that my mom had done when I was a child. We don't keep paper towels around the house (I never really have we use cloth rags instead) but I needed somethign to drain my fritters on. I cut open a paper grocery bag and I used that. This was something my mom did with doughnuts and I was thankful the idea came back to me.

Some might question the sanitation. I agree it probably isn't perfectly germ free but I am not overly worried about that. We need to get exposed to a few things anyway to keep our immune system up and working. :-) I would wonder just how sanitary paper towels are too. When you start thinking on anything like that it does start you to wondering. Any way I used a paper bag that had probably had groceries in it before but then it was neatly folded and put away.  I do absorb the fat nicely.

And here is the recipe:

Apple Fritters
3 1/2 cups flour (I used mostly whole wheat and a little white flour.
5 tsp. Baking Powder
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 t. Salt
1 cup milk (or whey)
4 eggs
2 t. Vanilla
4 T.  melted butter
2 c. chopped apples

Combine all the dry ingredients. Then mix in the wet ingredients. Lastly add the apples and stir them in.  Drop by the spoonful into hot oil. Brown. Turn once. Drain (on a grocery bag if you desire). Serve hot with cinnamon and sugar, powdered sugar, syrup or honey.

I hope you enjoy them!

31 Days of Repurposing - Living Revived

The Bible talks quite about about revival and being revived. That is a lot like having a repurposed - fresh again - life, I believe. I want to share with you a few verses on that subject:

"For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite." Isaiah 57:15

"The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;" Psalms 19:7

"Then we will not turn away from you; revive us, and we will call on your name." Psalm 80:18

May you seek God's revival in your life this week!

31 Days of Repurposing - What to do with old jeans

    Old jeans are probably one of my favorite things to repuspose. They usually have a lot of wear left in them and I like the way things that are made with them look. Here is a post where I show 24 different ways you can use old jeans.

I think that the most popular (meaning the most people visit it) post I have written ever was the one where I told how to make this fluffy denim rug. You can visit it if you like.

What do you do with old jeans at your place?

31 Days of Repurposing - 16 ways to turn old t-shirts into new clothes

I haven't had a chance to get any new repurposing projects done this week - I have been doing oodles of canning instead (I think I am almost done for the year!) so I am going to share some repurposing posts from years past. I hope you enjoy this one where I share a bunch of different ideas for repurposing t-shirts. It is so easy to get a bunch of t-shirts laying around but sometimes they have some issue that makes it so they aren't a favorite (maybe advertising an event long past or a candidate or maybe there is a stain or it is to small - you get the idea) but you can make them into something else. What fun!

Here is the link to 16 ways to turn old t-shirts into new clothes.