Lately I have found it challenging and invigorating to my little frugal heart to find ways to refresh, re-use, and re-purpose what I already have to make it usable and purposeful. I do this to save money, obviously. But there is also this little bit of a “ooo, look at what I did” rush that I just love! (Know what I’m talkin’ bout?)
Here are a few of the things I’ve done to bring new life to what I already have:
1. Cheap shoe fix-up:
Our dress shoes were looking pretty shabby! I knew we would not have the money to replace them, but I felt embarrassed about wearing them. I picked up a little shoe polishing kit at the Dollar Tree and looked up “how to polish shoes” on the internet. I got some great coaching videos and now our shoes look as good as new!! By the way, if you don’t have a shoe polishing kit, you can use the inside of a banana peel to polish your shoes! Apparently the potassium in the peel refreshes your shoes just as a can of polish would! I’m going to try this next time and compare results. (Fits in with the whole going organic thing Nate and I are going to try in October.) Check out this fun little how-to video I found on polishing shoes with a banana, the actor is pretty funny! Go Here to watch.
Here’s my before shoe… notice the worn out toes? Yuck!
Here’s the after shot!
Not bad, eh?
2. Cheap Shoe Fix-Up 2:
I have another pair of high heeled, black, “pointy toed” shoes. They are not leather and the tip wore off the shoe. So at the tip of my shoes, there were spots of white where the black stuff wore off. I just took a black sharpie marker and colored the spots in. You can’t tell! It’s amazing!
3. Extending the Lives of Your Jar Candles:
I love my jar candles. They rank up there on my top 10 favorite things to have in my home. Unfortunately, jar candles can run on the pricey end. I read somewhere online that if you put your candles in your freezer for 24 hours or thereabouts, your candle will burn slower and have an extended lifetime! I gave it a shot with two jar candles I got as gifts and they both have barely burned 1/4 way down and its been since Christmas of last year that I’ve had these! I burn jar candles on a regular basis too! Try it!
4. Re-arranging Your Stuff:
Whenever I get the urge to go buy something to fill a “need” in my home as far as decor is concerned, I look at what I have first and use a heavy does of creativity to help me fill in the gaps. We needed a coffee table, so I pulled our bench off of the wall and put a little tray on it to serve as a hard surface. Problem solved! But wait, the wall where the bench was is now all empty! What ever shall I do? Go to Target? No!! There has got to be something in this apartment that would work! I found this old wooden bench/potting storage piece that my parents passed down to us. I think they found it at a garage sale for $5. I put some candles on it that I had in lesser seen area of the house and I set them on the bench all in a row.
I learned from watching way to much HGTV that repeating an element over and over creates a dramatic statement. Well, it worked and we love it! We have a coffee table and a well decorated wall.
I filled a need in our office by creating my own artwork using a cheap frame from a yard sale and my scrapbook supplies! Read more HERE!
5. Found Storage Space:
We were running out of storage space in our home and I had a need in my classroom for storage bins. I decided to tackle two birds with one stone. I went purge crazy! I dumped a bunch of stuff I figured we would never need because we never think about it– most of it was notes from education classes back in college and former class projects. I kept the stuff that meant something and tossed the rest. I emptied 4 storage bins!! I did the same with my craft stuff, and emptied one more storage bin! PLUS, I sold a bunch of the stuff I didn’t need anymore on craigslist. What were the results of my purge? 5 storage bins for my classroom, more storage space in my home, and $26 in cash from my sale! Nice!
Before you go out and buy something new, use some elbow grease and creativity to breathe new life into what you already have!!
Have fun!
2 Comments
September 19, 2008 at 9:07 pm
I have heard of putting jar candles in the freezer too but you have to be careful that you don’t have them in there too long or the wax will crack apart when you take them out. I think it also depends on what type of wax the candles are made out of too.
September 26, 2008 at 1:24 pm
[...] Polish your shoes yourself to extend their life. I wrote about this topic before HERE and even included info on how you can polish your shoes with a [...]