Repurposing Contest

A little while ago, I learned about the Blue Yonder First Monday Contest. The challenge is to tell her about your creative repurposing. When I first read it, I thought that it was a great idea but didn't think I had anything to enter. The other day when I made my dress into a skirt, I thought, "hmmm, I could enter that." The more I looked around my house, the more I realized that our house if full of repurposed items. From our front door with the antique church pew that we shortened to be an entrance bench to the antique humidor that holds toilet paper in our bathroom, we have quite a few repurposed items. I wasn't going to enter but today I thought, "What the heck, I'll give it a go!" So, this post is my entry in the contest. There are tons of other really great ideas in the contest. Go to Blue Yonder and check out the great things others have repurposed. It will get your creative gears turning!


Here's what we've repurposed:




First of all, the dress. It was unusable as a dress due to armpit holes and not being the right size for me. So, I made it into a skirt.




My husband and I made this play kitchen for our daughter. The sink is a dog bowl and the faucet is a soap dispenser. All the dark wood is scraps discarded from a local woodworker.



This bag began it's life as a pillow sham. I got my hands on it and turned it into my first bag.



These thrifted plates are repurposed as artwork with silhouettes of both of my children. The mirror between them is repurposed from an old, broken vanity that was being thrown out.



Thrifted molds embellished with fabric statements of love below our wedding picture.



A clear plastic mailing tube repurposed with cat toys placed inside to be a toy for my baby.


Left-over fabric scraps make an Eye-Spy mini quilt for a toddler.


I love working with broken pieces of glass and pottery to make mosaic pieces. My glass is all from a local art school's stained glass class. Their broken pieces are too small for making stained glass but perfect for mosaics. The following are some of my repurposed mosaic pieces.



A thrifted pitcher with thrifted china and glass.



Left-over glass brick block window made into a mosaic night light with left over maple flooring for the base and push pins for feet.


Toddler chair embellished with pieces of a thrifted Candy Land game.


China repurposed on a picture frame.


China repurposed on a thrifted heart cake pan.


Glass repurposed on a thrifted tree cake pan.


So, that's some of what I've repurposed around here. Thanks Blue Yonder for hosting such a fun contest. I've really enjoyed reading about all the other repurposing projects.