For years I have looked to my house's discard pile for project components before heading out the door to buy something.
We keep a large bag in the spare bedroom and put useable discards in it for donation to one of the Salvation Army style organizations when it gets full.
If I need something I will look there before heading out.
All of my shop rags have come from my closet. A shirt or soft (sweat) pants cut into right sized peices (i like mine a little bigger than 12" x 12") makes a great grease rag. Old towels make great cleaning cloths, or used for stain on a wood project.
We have Corell dishes, we also have a ceramic tile floor, when Corell meets ceramic, ceramic wins.
Now we have several candle holders of different sizes that used to be part of the Corell set. The in-laws gave us a new ,incomplete, set for Christamas last year to replace the stuff that broke.
We used the remainders for candle holders, and one glass serving dish has become a candle holder as well.
Empty oil cases are also the perfect size to store paperwork.
My grandsons school paperwork from Kindergarten on is all in old oil cases and stored in the attic. My paperwork from owning a small business is there too. I have to keep it till 2011, then it becomes fireplace food.
When we go to the grocery store we get paper bags.
They fold back up and store easily,
can be re-used a brazillion times,
when we have too many they get fed to the fireplace,
they don't "accidentally" fly out the window af a car and float all over the highway.
As to the wrapping paper cocndrum,
we re-use as much as possible and were burning the rest.
But now,
I think I will have the boy feed it to the shredder so it can be homemade confetti. Colorful and fun too. You can have your kiddies, with adult supervision, feed the torn wrapping paper to your shredder and make your own confetti.
That's my .02,
Schultz.
What is a brazillion you ask?
O.K. here goes,
A blond is on the subway headed to work reading a newspaper,
The headline reads;
"Two Brazillion Soldiers Wounded in Bomb Attack in Iraq"
She looks to the man on her right and asks,
"How many zeros are in a brazillion anyway?"
Bwahahaha.