Waste Less Wednesday: Christmas Cards

Ever wonder what to do with Christmas cards once the season is over? I turn them into gift tags. Simply cut around the pretty pictures and you have a unique gift tag. You can tape them onto packages or punch a hole and tie them onto gift bags.

Waste Less Wednesday: Christmas Decorations

Looking for a new idea for Christmas decorations? I love the wreath above that is made using old ties. This idea and picture came from the latest edition of Good Housekeeping and can be found online also. What a great way to use up old ties and have a unique decoration too.

Another idea for Christmas decorations is to find a large vase or bowl and fill it with bulb ornaments. It looks expensive but costs pennies when using items you have around the house. For added flair, add some pine swags to the table or in the vase. I've been told you can pick these up for free from places that sell live Christmas trees. My mom bought bulbs that cannot break and keeps them in a bowl on her coffee table. It looks nice for company and then when the grandkids come, it makes a fun toy. They spend quite a bit of time taking the bulbs in and out of the bowl.

What are some fun ideas you have seen or used to create inexpensive Christmas decorations? Feel free to share your idea or blog link in the comments section.

Waste Less Wednesday: Paper Sacks

Need quick and cheap wrapping paper this holiday season? Use paper grocery sacks instead of buying paper. Simply cut open the sack and wrap your gift using the non-printed side. You can tie with a nice bow or decorate the paper. If you have kids, have them color the paper. If you are in to crafting, stamp or use scrapbook leftovers to embellish the paper. You will have unique wrapping paper and it didn't cost a dime.

Waste Less Wednesday: Thanksgiving Leftovers

I had planned to do a post on Thanksgiving leftovers for my Waste Less Wednesday feature this week but I opened my reader Tuesday morning and found this post from beingfrugal.net. Lynnae and her readers have some great ideas on how to use up Thanksgiving leftovers. I invite you to check out her blog post and add your thoughts there too.

Waste Less Wednesday: Clothes/Toys

Is your closet full of clothes you never wear? Do your kids have too many toys but are sick of them? Then it is time to organize a swap. I find it works better if you pick one category for a swap as it can get crazy when people bring half of their house. A swap is a great way to receive new items without spending a dime. It also helps the environment because items are being reused. And, it cleans out the clutter in your house.

If trading clothes, it helps to invite friends who are similar in size to you. There are many ways to organize a swap so go with what works best for you. I like for everyone to display their items in an area and then have the guests go around the room and pick out what they want. The rule is that you cannot take more than you brought. Of course, if there are several items left at the end, this rule can be bent a little. Anything that is not claimed can then be donated to a local charity.

To make it even more fun, serve snack food and beverages. Once the swap is done, it is fun to see what everyone picked out. This makes a great girls night out too.

Have you organized a swap before? If so, please leave a comment and share about it.

Waste Less Wednesday: Food

It is so easy to buy something when it is on sale at the store and then forget to use it. This week I suggest you waste less by going through your pantry, fridge, and freezer and seeing what needs to be used up. The easiest way to use up those strange ingredients is in a stir fry, soup, or quiche. All three are very forgiving and allow for a wide range of ingredients. If this is overwhelming to you, pick one area and go through it or pick one day a week and vow to only eat from your pantry. You will be amazed at what you can come up with thanks to those random ingredients you find.

Have you found a great recipe because you were wanting to use up random ingredients in your house? If so, leave me a comment or a link.

Waste Less Wednesday: Food Containers

Have you ever wondered what to do with empty food containers such as cake mix boxes and egg cartons? Give them to your child to play with. You can give them to your child as is and play kitchen or grocery store. If you want to get more adventurous, wrap the containers in different colors and use as blocks. This teaches your child about stacking, colors, and counting. Empty food containers can make great educational toys for your child.

If you do not have a child, the boxes are great to wrap presents in. One year at Christmas, I ran out of small boxes so I used a cake mix box. Everyone thought it was creative and then started paying more attention to what I wrapped things in. It helps the environment by reusing common items and it makes for a great conversation piece.

Have you found any other uses for empty food containers? Please feel free to share your ideas in the comments section.

Waste Less Wednesday: Electricity

I normally focus on an actual item that can be reused but this week we are going to talk about reducing the electricity bill by using less of it. Each day, we waste energy without even realizing it but here are a few very easy ways to waste less:

Turn the thermostat down: I know you have heard this one before but it still amazes me how many times I hear "that won't work in my house". The easiest way to change this is to drop the thermostat one degree each week. Because it is such a small change, most people will never notice. We keep our heat on 69, but I'm trying to get it a little lower. If you are cold, simply put another layer on or grab a blanket and snuggle with your significant other. The same theory works in the summer by turning up the A/C one degree at a time. We keep it on 78 most of the summer.

Unplug appliances: When we began living on less a year ago, the first thing I did was go through the house and unplug everything that was not necessary. It still drives my husband crazy that he has to plug in the toaster every time he wants to use it, but it is saving us money. Appliances still use energy when plugged in, even if they are not turned on. Most appliances these days have lights, clocks, etc and those take electricity too.

Turn out the lights: We are lucky in that we live in a house with a lot of natural light. Many days, I never turn on the lights until it gets dark outside. If you are not so lucky, feel free to turn on the lights but turn them off as soon as you leave the room. I make it a habit to turn off all lights when not in use and now my 2 year old is doing the same thing. It amazes me that he has picked up on this but I'm glad he is learning now instead of having to reprogram him later.

Use a fan: In the summer, we wait as long as possible to turn on the A/C and use ceiling fans instead. It really cuts down on our electricity bill. I've been told to turn the fan on in the opposite direction during the winter in order to pull the air up. It is just now getting cold here so I plan on trying that in the near future.

Using these tips, and many others, we have significantly lowered our utility bill. In our area, gas, electric, water, and sewer all come on one bill. Our babysitter lives down the street in a very similar house to ours. She was ecstatic over the nice weather because it dropped her bill to just under $300. Our bill for the same time period was $102. A few changes do make a difference!

Waste Less Wednesday: Chicken

For those of you new to this blog, each week I take one common item from around the house and show you how to reuse it in order to be more frugal and green.

This week's feature is on chicken. Many times, I've cooked chicken to put in a casserole and had some leftover or we've had chicken for dinner and none of us could finish it. I've also been known to buy rotisserie chickens when they are discounted in order to have ready cooked meat. Instead of letting the chicken go to waste, here are a few ideas on how to reuse it.

Soup: Precooked chicken is a super easy way to add protein to just about any soup. Sometimes I gather all of the stray chicken and veggie leftovers and freeze them in a Ziploc bag. Once the bag is full, I add broth and seasonings and have a one of a kind soup.

Quesadillas: This is a great way to hide some veggies for kids too! Put chicken, veggies, and cheese between two tortillas and heat in a pan until desired crispiness.

Nachos: Can you tell I like Mexican food? Build your own nacho night is one of my favorites. Top chips with leftover chicken, cheese and veggies and cook in microwave or oven until warm.

Baked Potato: For a quick dinner, bake a potato in the microwave for approximately 5 minutes. Top with leftover chicken and salsa for a healthy meal. Cheese, brocolli, or your other favorite toppings can be added to.

How else do you use leftover chicken? Please leave a comment and share your ideas.

Waste Less Wednesday: Coffee Filters

Photo from Brenda Hyde

Coffee filters have many more uses than just to make coffee. They are super cheap too. Today we are going to focus on ways to use them for crafts. Down the road, we will look into household uses for them.

The picture at the top is made simply using water colors. My two year old even did this craft at church so it is great for the younger crowd too.

Once you paint your coffee filter, it is easy to turn it into a butterfly, flower, or holiday decorations. To find several great coffee filter crafts, click here.

If you have used a coffee filter for a craft, please let my readers know. I enjoy finding great crafts for my child and this is an easy one.

Waste Less Wednesday: Shampoo

I have several bottles of shampoo that I tried but did not like. I have a hard time throwing these away since there is still good product left in them. I've heard several times that it makes a great soap scum remover so I gave it a try a few months ago. You know what? - it works! Put a little shampoo on a washcloth and rub over the soap scum. The area I first tried was thick with soap scum and I could quickly tell it took a layer or two off. Every so often, I work on getting a few more layers off. My shower is starting to look better than ever. I could probably get it all cleaned up at once if I had the patience but I get bored easily.



I've also used leftover, gentle shampoo in place of dog shampoo. We ran out of dog shampoo one time and I turned to some yummy smelling stuff I had in the cabinet. My dog never smelled better. I don't recommend using it often as dog shampoo has special chemicals to keep your dog's skin and fur soft, but it works great in a pinch.

Feel free to share your ideas on to use leftover shampoo.

Waste Less Wednesday: Newspaper

We recycle our newspapers, but there are plenty of uses for the paper before it hits the recycling bin.

Make a hat: There are several versions of this, but this one offers pretty easy instructions.

Use as packing materials: Use several layers of paper between plates or breakable objects when packing. If shipping items, shred the paper and use as filler. When I sell on eBay, I will sometimes fill newspaper bags with shredded paper and use this to protect whatever I am shipping.

Protect your table during messy projects: If painting or doing another messy project, newspaper can make a great barrier between the project and the table.

Wrapping paper: The comics make great wrapping paper. I've also used other sections of the paper, such as a cooking article for someone who likes to cook. It makes a great conversation piece and costs nothing extra.

Feel free to leave a comment with other ways you reuse newspaper. Also, do not forget to enter my first giveaway which is for three redbox codes. We love to use redbox for cheap date nights and sometimes family night. The contest ends tonight and I will post the winner tomorrow.

Guest Post

I have a guest post today over at Thrifty & Chic Mom. It takes my Waste Less Wednesday posts and reviews the ones I have done so far. Check it out here.

Also, do not forget to enter my giveaway for Three Redbox Codes. The contest ends tomorrow (Wednesday) at 9 p.m. CST.

Wasteless Wednesday: Bread

For all of my new readers, every Wednesday I pick one common household item and show you how you can reuse it in order to waste less. Feel free to send me an email or post a comment for ideas for this weekly feature.

Today, we are going to talk about bread. First of all, I buy most of my bread from the bread outlet and then freeze it. I know I will always have bread and buns available by doing this. Sometimes I have problems using up the thawed bread before it starts to get stale though. Here are my favorite ways to use up stale bread:

Bread Crumbs - Put bread on a cookie sheet and bake at a low temperature until crusty, make sure not to burn it though. Once cooked, crumble up or put in a food processor to make finer crumbs. These can be stored for weeks and make a great coating for chicken or potatoes. You can make your own version of Shake n Bake by mixing various spices with the bread crumbs.

Croutons - Cube the bread and toast in the oven similar to bread crumbs. Feel free to season them before or after. My favorite is to rub garlic on them.

French Toast - This is best made with stale bread so that it will soak up all of the egg mixture. This is our favorite Saturday morning treat and it is very cheap to make.

Feed the animals - If you have a lake or zoo nearby, this is a fun treat for kids to feed the ducks.

Feel free to add your favorite way to use up stale bread.

Waste Less Wednesday: Paper

As much as our society is trying to get away from using paper, there is still plenty of it that comes into my house each week. Here are some ways I reuse it before putting it in the recycle bin:

Use for coloring: My child loves to color but not in coloring books. I save paper from work and let him color on the backside.

Messy projects: Craft projects are fun but can be messy. To protect my table, I put scrap paper on the table.

Filler for shipped packages: Every now and then I get in an eBay mood and sell a ton of items, but I usually run out of filler for my boxes before I'm done. Shredded paper makes a great filler. I find it works best if you stuff it in a newspaper wrapper to create little pillows.

Print on the back: If I'm printing something for my eyes only, I put used paper back in the printer and print on the unused side. We buy a lot less paper now that I've started doing this.

Lists: My husband says I'm the queen of lists so I use envelopes and paper from junk mail to write my lists on.

How do you reuse paper or what do you do to reduce the amount of paper in your life? Feel free to leave me a comment or send me an email.

Waste Less Wednesday: Crayons

Crayons are taking over my house and it seems like they break in two seconds flat. I hate to throw away a new crayon though so I turned them into crayon cupcakes. Our son thought they were a blast and I was able to reuse something that most people would trash. My mom used to make these for me when I was little and I loved using them.



To make these, peel all of the wrappers off the crayons. This is a great project for kids since they seem to love to do this anyway. Then, take all of the broken pieces and put in cupcake liners in a muffin tin. You can sort by color or put a rainbow of colors in for a fun new crayon. We chose to do one color per cup since we are working on naming colors right now. I also used the mini muffin tin because I didn't have enough of each color for the regular sized one.

Put in crayons in the oven at 250 degrees for 10-15 minutes. You will know they are done when all of the wax has melted. Let cool for about 30 minutes and then pop out of the liner. This is what ours looked like:

While searching online for tempurature to bake these at, I came across several articles saying they put red and green in one cup for holiday crayons. This could be an easy way to have something special at Christmas or another holiday or it could even be a fun stocking stuffer.

Waste Less Wednesday: Plastic Bags

Plastic bags from the grocery store and other places seem to bread in my house. Although I now use reusable bags for most of my grocery shopping (except the times I forget and leave them at home), I still seem to have an abundance of bags. Some grocery stores (I know Wal-Mart and Dillon's do) now have a place to recycle them just as you enter the door. In case you are like me and forget to take them when shopping, here are some other great ways to reuse those plastic bags.

* Donate to a flea market or food pantry. Every few months, my family and I load up and spend a day hitting the flea markets. Several along our path accept used bags and are grateful when they see us coming through with the bags. This saves them the expense of buying bags.

* Use as trash can liners.

* Use to line the tray when painting. It saves a ton of time and frustration to do this because then you can just throw away the bag and the paint tray is still clean.

* Save several for your next garage sale. Customers will be happy to have a bag to carry all of their goodies home in.

* Take a few on vacation to store dirty clothes or dirty shoes in so the rest of you items stay clean.

Waste Less Wednesday: Bananas

It seems like bananas go from green to brown on my way home from the grocery store. They never last as long as I would like them to. Instead of getting upset that they are browning early, I've started freezing them as soon as they start to turn. I learned the hard way, don't freeze them with the peel on. The first time I did this I spent about 30 minutes trying to peel it.

I keep whole frozen bananas to use in banana bread and banana cake. Thaw out about 3o minutes before you want to bake and they will be fine. I keep the little bits my son doesn't finish in a separate and labeled bag for smoothies. He is pretty picky about fruits and veggies but he will eat anything in a smoothie as long as there is some banana in it. My basic recipe is frozen banana, milk, a little sugar or honey if the fruit isn't very sweet, and any other fruit on the verge of going bad. I usually make this in my mini food processor so the cleanup is easy and the portion is just right. On warm summer days he thinks he is getting a treat and I am happy because he is eating fruit.

Waste Less Wednesday: Toilet Paper Rolls

Today's Waste Less Wednesday topic is the cardboard rolls that toilet paper and paper towels come on. I know, this seems like a strange topic, but they have some good uses. I am always looking for ideas on how to keep my son entertained and these are great. He loves it when I make binoculars out of them. Glue or tape two rolls together and then let your child decorate it with markers and stickers. Sometimes I punch a few holes in the sides and tie on a string so he can wear it around his neck. He has a blast going through the house looking at things with his binoculars.

Another fun craft is to make party poppers with them. Put a small prize on the inside and then wrap tissue paper several times around the outside, leaving an edge on both ends. Tie the ends with a string or ribbon. This can be a fun party favor. My aunt once gave these out at Christmas and everyone had a blast pulling the ends to see what was inside theirs. Here is a picture of the finished project:

A more practical use for the paper towel rolls is to stuff them with plastic bags. I try to reuse the bags but they seem to overtake my house. Stuff them inside a roll and they take up little space though. It is easy to pull them out when you need one. You could even decorate the roll and attach it to the inside of a cabinet or the side of a refrigerator.

Do you have any other creative uses for these rolls? If so, feel free to leave me a comment.

Waste Less Wednesday

I'm starting a new series today on how to use up things around your house in order to waste less. We all have little bits of ingredients left or an abundance of plastic bags and wonder what to do with them. This series will help us all come up with ideas on how to waste less. Being "green" is the in thing today, but many times being green is also being frugal. Let me know if there is topic you would like covered in this series and I will work my way through the list. I will post a new topic every Wednesday and look forward to hearing your ideas too.

Today's topic is pizza sauce. Do you ever find yourself with just a little pizza sauce left in the jar and not have a clue what to do with it? My favorite way to use up this leftover sauce is to make pizza pasta for one. I boil whatever pasta I have on hand and then add pizza toppings such as pepperoni, sausage, onions, etc. Top it off with the pizza sauce and I have a delicious and quick meal. Of course, you can use the whole jar and serve this as a quick dinner for your family.

Another way to use it up is mini pizzas. Spread the sauce on an english muffin, pita bread, tortilla, or whatever else you have on hand and top with your favorite meat and/or veggies. I like to then add a little cheese and stick it under the broiler for a few minutes. It makes for a yummy and quick lunch.

How do you use up your leftover pizza sauce?