Waste not, want not

Searching for an idea to reuse items around your home to prevent waste?  Here we show you how to use items left over from another project we completed.  

We try to use everything around our home to prevent waste.  Sometimes you just have to get creative.  I think this started for me about the same time I started crafting for stress relief... I started keeping scrap paper, collecting decorative pieces, always thinking I could reuse it for something else.  Here is where my competitive nature comes out... you know, against myself... trying to come up with ideas unique to only our home and our projects.  

You saw this week how we wallpapered our niche' in our living room.  We had left over wallpaper once it was completed.  It was not really enough to use for much of a project though... I have been wanting to do a book craft and I decided the wallpaper would be an easy project for me to complete. 

The plan was to apply the wallpaper to the book, but then I started feeling guilty covering a perfectly good book with lovely coloring... my days used to be filled of buying up every book I could get my mitts on years ago before Kindle existed... I am still an avid reader, but no longer purchase the actual books... just uploads to my iPad... less things to store, and when I am finished with the book, I just return it...

I was planning to throw the book jacket away, but then I started thinking in a different direction.  I decided to cover the book jacket.  I did not think about the print from it coming through the wallpaper, but it is ok.  It is just going to be put in with other books, so it doesn't need to be perfect.  

I cut the wallpaper so it was just slightly larger than the book jacket.  Then I peeled back the paper and started applying it slowly to the book jacket.  If I was smart, I would have painted the book cover so nothing would have shown through, but I do this stuff by trial and error... you can learn from my mistakes.

You can see where the author of the book's name does show on the spine where it is embossed, but I wasn't going for perfection here, just a little sprinkle of color on the roll top desk.  Teal is sprinkled throughout our living room... 

I thought it looked cute with our vintage 1934 dictionaries... 

Do you enjoy reusing items around your home before you purchase new?  Since we started this blog in November, we have been using items around the house, and picking up things online here and there.  I am hoping one of these days I can get back out there and shop the thrift and antique stores to keep adding that vintage goodness to our home, but for now, we will keep making over what we already have... and you know the best part?  We save money too!  We all know how much I enjoy saving money and just making small purchases here and there... 

What do you think?  Have any old books lying around you could do this to in your home?  I scope out local shops online all of the time, do you know I saw a stack of old books for $35?  Wow, I thought, why not just cover some old books I have around the house which are free to me?

Also, when I was purchasing books all of the time, I would visit Half Price Books and purchase them for $1.00... yep, that's right $1.00!  Check your local area to see if you have a similar shop so you can see if you can pick up old books to pull off this look in your home while also being frugal.  In the past, our local library was also known for having a free section of books they no longer decided to keep in circulation.  It's worth a shot to check it out... I do love sharing the free ideas with you all.  One more, the dollar store also sells books for $1.00, they may not be something you would want to read, but if you are just covering them, who cares?  No need to overspend when you have things around the house or places where you can find items for pennies on the dollar that you can use to decorate your home with.   

Loving our newly covered books... and you know, my OCD is not even minding that I can see the cover through the wallpaper... I still could not bring myself to cover the actual book...