DIY on a budget: Dumpster Dive In Your Own Home

The hot days of Summer have officially started indicating it’s yard sale time.  I try to get rid of items that I no longer need so now I have the daunting task of cleaning out closets, dressers and any other place that I’ve managed to hide this and that.

Even though I’ve decided to part with some of my ribbon for my upcoming yard sale, my collection is still taking over my current storage containers.  I’ve created some ribbon on a roll storage before but I have odd and end loose pieces of various sizes that are currently all jumbled up together in a tote.  A neat storage system for this is a ribbon box that you can buy at most craft stores but they can be very pricey.  I decided that it will only take a few objects that I already have, such as an ice cream bucket and scrapbook paper, to create a similar products.  The task was simple.  After I polished off the ice cream and washed the bucket, I used scrapbook paper and ribbon to cover it up the ice cream brand logos on the bucket and lid.  I cut the scrapbook paper in a circle to fit the lid and I used doubled sided tape to adhere it.  I used coordinating ribbon to cover up the logos on the bucket and like with the lid, I used the doubled sided tape to adhere it as well.  You can spray paint the bucket and lid if you prefer, but I found the method that I used was faster.  Next I used a knife to cut slits into the top of the lid to pull the ribbon through.  To add a little something extra, I tied ribbon on the handle and used sticker letters to spell out the word ribbon and attached them to the bucket.  For about $1, I created my own ribbon box with supplies that I already had and a couple that I was going to throw away.

Often when I buy pants or shirts, they will come with a couple of extra buttons just in case you lose one. I can never throw the extras away and discovered my forgotten stash while cleaning out my closet and was pleasantly surprised to also find my missing pants from six months ago.  Instead of donating them all to my yard sale pile, I decided a couple would come in handy.  I like to hang dish towels from my stove’s oven handle to dry hands but they are constantly falling off.  I solved that problem by sewing two alike buttons onto each side of the back of the dish towel.  Then I cut an opening the size of the button on each side of the dish towel that faces out.  To make sure the cut openings don’t unravel, I lightly stitched around the openings.  Then the last step was to hang the towel on the handle and button it up.  Presto, instant stay put towel.  It was “sew” simple.

Last but not least is my simple fix for my jumbled up earrings.  I can never find matching earrings because they’re always in a mess in my jewelry drawer.  An easy fix for this was to take some ice trays that were going to the yard sale pile and repurpose them as my new earring sorter.  My ice cube trays were a little wider than my jewelry drawer so I took some scissors and cut the ends off.  They were then the perfect fit and work fantastically to keep the pairs together to never stray again.

Before you go out and spend money for some organizing and decorating solutions for around your house, you may want to dumpster dive in your own home.  You never know what you’ve tossed to the side and forgotten about.  The perfect solution may be only a hot glue gun away.

 Carleigh Carmichael is a local writer whose philosophy is why buy it for more when you can make it for less.