OK, y'all - confession time. I'm a paper hoarder.
I keep scrap paper. I use old emails and letterhead to print coupons or drafts. I keep gift bags. I have a big stash of large scraps of craft paper and magazine cutouts. I almost got rid of the last of these when we were cleaning and reorganizing when I was pregnant with Elianna... but ended up keeping them because I knew that in a couple years I'd want to start doing art projects with her.
Part of this comes from when I worked at a public library during the recession. We had NO BUDGET. Any piece of paper that could be reused was. Anything that wasn't meant for public use was printed on the back of previous printouts. Old summer reading folders were cut up for scratch paper for the public (you know - you walk in, you jot down the call number so you can go find your book).
I got a full-time job in the children's department of the busiest library in the county just as we were starting to get just a wee little bitty bit of of supply budget back. I got $100 - to last for craft supplies for a year.
In a way, it was a fun challenge. What can I do with the craft supplies we already have in the closet? What can I do with faded construction paper instead of throwing it out? What can I do with the legal sized printer paper no one uses anymore? With the magazines that aren't sent to be bound or aren't sent to the book sale? For that matter, what are my coworkers throwing out that I can use? Give me your Kleenex boxes, your toilet paper rolls, your scraps of Christmas wrapping paper! I went dumpster diving in the office recycling bin for colored copy paper and lean cuisine boxes. And we made some really fun crafts, if I do say so myself.
But talking about craft projects reminds me that it actually goes back farther than the library. My mom was a Sunday school/Bible school art teacher, then a pre-school teacher, then a free-lance art teacher. She saved toilet paper rolls and those little green plastic baskets strawberries used to come in. She saved egg cartons. As an art teacher, we couldn't throw away my dad's lactose-free milk cartons after Halloween because my mom needed them as the base of the gingerbread houses her class would make in December. You threw away bubble wrap? How dare you! "That's not trash, it's art supplies!" was a constant cry in our house.
Recently, I joined a couple groups on Facebook focused on repurposing and reusing things with a mind to sustainability. One of my fellow group members proudly posted a picture of her stash of Christmas bags saved from previous years. I commented with a picture of my own even larger stash, and the caption "look upon my bags, ye mighty and despair!" It was well-received.
So now, here I sit: in the next room is my daughter's Christmas tambourine that I made with her class using rings of Coke cans. On my desk is, admittedly, a fresh notebook and smaller notepad for jotting ideas and to-do lists (but I will turn those pages over and write on the back). But on the other side of the desk is scrap paper I've doodled poetry on, a map for my book that I drew on the back of an old email, a 2020 planner that will be pulled apart next week to use for scrap paper... oh, yes, and I still have large scraps of construction paper from the cornucopia project Elianna and I made for Thanksgiving.
I also have a bag full of laminated Russian onion dome towers made out of scrap paper... but that's a topic for another post.
Snowman made with: construction paper, crayons/markers, glue, and buttons (supplies we had) and donated fabric scraps (thanks to my mom!). We only bought the marshmallows and pretzels.
Fall wreath made from glue, paper plates we had on hand, construction paper we had on hand (including faded paper that was used for the painted leaves), and donated paint. No supplies purchased!
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