JB12:09a & b - Peace on Earth(Day)

As you know, April 22 was Earth Day and keeping with tradition (it is tradition if you do it more than once, right?) we were asked "to create a holiday card which re-uses, re-purposes, re-cycles, up-cycles, or in some way "rescues" a bit of... well, SOMETHING... which you'd've either thrown away, or perhaps just overlooked in terms of card-making?"  Read all about it here.

Let me think - do I have anything that I could re-use, re-purpose, or recycle?  Are you kidding me!!!!   There is a multitude of "stuff" hanging around here that I would love to put to good use.   How about some saved Christmas packaging.  There was a plaid box, a piece of red foil box, and a vibrant green piece of cardboard backing from some presents.  A dive into the ribbon scrap basket found the knotted ribbon already knotted and ready to go.

Over the last couple of weeks I have had several conversations related to this very subject.  It has taken me 8 years to realize that I will never use up all that I have accumulated for my crafting.  The 8 years being the time I have been working full time.   Every once and a while I will purge a little of it - mostly stuff that is easily replaceable - but it gets to the point of being overwhelming.  No, I am not living like someone you might see on the "hoarders" programs, although HWNSNBP and the kids might argue that point when they open up the closet door in the bathroom upstairs and find practically one whole shelf full of empty toilet paper rolls which I tell them are going to be obsolete soon according to the tv commercials, but it could easily get that way.  We do recycle as much as we can, but there are a lot of recyclables that can have another more artistic life.  The problem doesn't seem to be materials - it's time.  If only I could recycle those lost times of the day into productive times. 

When my sister passed away ten years ago, we had to go through her things and let me tell you, there was quite a lot to go through.  She was single and had 8 cats and many birds also.  And when it came to shopping, she never passed up what she thought was a good bargain.  However, there weren't enough hours in the day to possibly use all that she had accumulated.   She had a barrel, yes a barrel full of needlepoint kits.  They went to a recreation program.  She had scads of fabric and yarn, and paints, and beads, and well, practically a craft store of her own.  It was too much to assimilate into my stash so I had to be picky and choosy, but sadly, some of that stuff is still sitting, unused, 10 years later. 

I need to not be like that.  I'm not planning to leave this world soon, but when I do I don't want to leave a craft mess for someone to have to deal with.  That being said, maybe it's time for a bit more purging.  But in the interim, I am glad to have challenges like this where I can put some of the stuff to use.

This card below I like a lot better than the first one, if only for the colors.  The "snow" is a piece of that foamy wrapping stuff that I just tore a piece from and the solid trees are a bit of the leftover from the same package I used on the tree above.  Those printed trees are the inside of my dental benefits envelopes.  The swirls in the sky were made with VersaMark ink using a stamp from the $1.50 bin at Mike's and I couldn't find the longer punch so I just stamped PEACE on the turquoise punch. 

So let me ask you, what do you save to repurpose?