Eye Opener: Photo Essay

For my photo essay I thought it would be fun not only to take pictures of things being repurposed, but specifically things I found at Mom's house while I was back home for the holidays. I found it important to find out how much my Mom cared about converging and repurposing items, because I may not have realized it over the years but these thoughts have been impressed onto me now.


As I began looking around, it was not too hard to find things that had been repurposed. The first thing I found was simply an old crappy piece of wood that had been made into a beautiful mantle above our fireplace. After seeing that, nearby I found a plethora of beautiful quilts, which of course is just repurposing of old material sewn together. Either taking small worthless scraps that would otherwise go into a landfill somewhere or taking old shirts that are no longer wearable you can create masterpieces that also have very common purposes for warmth! 
The third repurposing I found was a gourd that had been turned into a birdhouse. So not only are you not creating waste, but you are creating a home for another living creature on our planet!

The fourth item my mother pointed out to me was a beautiful painted clay piece that she turned over to show that it had been an old tile that had been pulled up from somewhere and rather than breaking or throwing it, someone had decided to turn it into art. The fifth item used to be a Japanese net anchor, which made it over to America and into our hands somehow, so it has since been repurposed into a decoration which when the light hits it just right!
The sixth item I found was this old ice chest, which clearly has some age to it, but has since been touched up and repurposed to be an outside cabinet for general storage. Rather than going out and buying some fancy new cabinet system and throwing such a beautiful item away you can restore an old piece that is even better quality than what you would buy nowadays. The seventh item is now an outdoor lamp that fits the decor of the house very well, however it used to be the chimney cap of some sort on an old house. I thought this was a fascinating use and it looks like some similar items that go for hundreds of dollars at upper end design stores. You can make the same thing by yourself if you know where to look!
The final item may be the simplest, yet one of the smartest repurposing items. The simple swing. As you can see in my picture, an old board was the choice for ours. You may also be familiar with the gold old fashioned tire swing. These ideas not only create fun things for young kids to keep occupied with, but instead of buying new swings that are made of plastic, or boards that have been treated with dangerous products, you can take an old board that serves little purpose or an old tire from the junkyard and create one yourself!

These are just a few of the brilliant things that I found around my home. If you are interested in seeing what you can do with products laying around your house, go check out my post about a site where you can search for lots of exciting repurposing and up-cycling ideas.