My daughter is a born repurposer! It seems that every time I place toys or doll clothes or hair bows, etc into a container, she dumps it out and uses the container for something else! It kind of drives me crazy but at the same time I’m like, that’s my girl!

She passed a lot of this on, and I was glad she did when I had to left a career (main source of income and all benefits) due to health issues.

Those milk hugs hold everything – make up a gallon of cleaning solution and store in those gallon jugs. If you have “smell” issue with cleaning with vinegar, try a filling a clean milk jug with a bottle of rubbing alcohol, 1/2 cup of non sudsy ammonia, and a couple of drops of dish soap – fill the the jug the rest of the way with water. You now have a gallon of cleaning solution to refill your spray bottles with. Cost, about 75 cents per gallon.

Cut a hole(about the size of your fist) in the top of a milk jug or empty soda bottle and a rectangle near the bottom. Use it to store your empty plastic grocery sacks. You stuff em in the top and pull them out the bottom. They keep them clean and tidy. Or, use an empty square tissue box to store them in, much cuter but they don’t last as long.

Cut a hole in the top of several, but leave the handle intact, they are awesome for sorting and storing things like nuts and bolts, sewing supplies, small kids toys (if you are worried about sharp edges, wrap the cut areas with duct tape) almost anything you can think of – and they are cute when painted with that Krylon spray paint.

Clean cat litter buckets are great while painting. Plenty of room to mix your paint, and a cover to keep it fresh during jobs. Also great for storage, toys, etc – again, especially if you whip out the krylon spray paint. (hubs uses them everywhere in his workshop)

Speaking of paint. Old furniture can be updated with a new coat of paint and spray painted hardware. (Same with ratty looking kitchen cabinets – which I’m doing right now)

If your paint store has a “Ooops” paint clearance area, (paint that was custom mixed but not quite the right shade for the customer) you can get gallons for next to nothing.

When my daughter became a teen, she outgrew her “kids” bedroom. With a gallon of gloss black paint, all of her furniture became “black lacquer”. A door with a hole in the back and two old night stands became a black lacquer desk – along with an old ladder back chair I got as part of a set at an auction years before (5 bucks for both)

A can of spray paint refinished all the hardware – and some more of the gloss black and stone look spray paint refinished her ceiling fan.

Our own photos became black and white on the computer, they were printed out and framed in her old “art” frames (also repainted)

Her lamp became “stone” with another type of spray paint

We ripped out 30 year old disgusting carpet, and painted her floor (pine planks – in too bad of shape to refinish). And threw down a 15 dollar 4x 8 carpet remnant with bound edges.

Total items purchased to completely remake her bedroom – 2 sheets to make a duvet cover for her old comforter(Penney’s online clearance center), two bamboo look window shades – a home depot clearance find, and the carpet remnant which came from our local furniture/flooring store which binds and sells their left over remnants. Two gallons of “oops” paint and two cans of spray paint.

We spent about 60 bucks total and she went from a kids room to a room any teen would be proud of.

She’s now married and moved out – but that “black lacquer furniture” is what they use in their bedroom, and you should see what she’s done with their home! It’s darling and you’d never know to look at it that it was all done with “oops” paint, spray paint, clearance and garage sale items and a lot of sweat equity.

With the internet and sites like Home ec 101 at our fingertips giving us tips, ideas and step by step instructions for just about everything – there’s almost nothing we can’t do, saving a ton of money and passing some pretty solid skills on to our kids while we go.

But, my husband is in college, and I hate shopping, so I instead found cardboard boxes from recent Christmas gifts that came in the mail and covered them with a huge green fabric remnant. They’re cute now! And functional!

I reuse quart glass jelly jars for refrigerator storage. Plastic peanut butter jars make great freezer containers for soups and sauces. What really works on DH’s nerves is the set of 10 fancy spaghetti sauce jars that I use as drinking tumblers.