Recycling

I come from a long line of hoarders (sorry mom, you know it's true), and tend to bounce wildly between getting rid of everything (especially when I'm moving and don't want to pack it all) and keeping every little item I could possible use again one day. Since we moved and I have my own craft "lair" I've definitely favored the latter. Every once in a while this "keeping" comes in very handy, and I feel a little better about reusing and recycling than tossing out.

Case in point: I have this pile of "whirls" from a 60th wedding anniversary party we threw a couple years ago - they're foil swirls that hang from the ceiling, bright fun colors, with little "60" numbers on the end. Well, it was probably a safe bet I wouldn't be doing another 60th anniversary for a while, slightly more probable that I could do a 60th birthday, but I kept them anyways.

I also have all these Halloween whirls that I've used for a couple years now - same deal, but in Halloween colors, with bats, pumpkins, and spiders on the ends:



Clearly, I like shiny colored foil whirls :) So, I decided it was time to "upcycle" the 60th anniversary ones, which was pretty simple: I cut off all the "60" tabs so they are just swirls.



Snip/snip = a whole forest of whirls! Perfect for Wonderland, don't you think? And I saved a nice chunk of change over buying more.