I've been saving the empty toilet rolls, filling them with seed raising mix and planting seeds in them. One of the things that keeps our garden going for months is succession planting, so having seedlings ready to plant regularly throughout spring and summer means we don’t have blank spots. Raising seeds in paper pots, they can go straight into the garden when they're ready. This stops any shock to the tiny plants, and I think they grow faster and stronger without having their roots disturbed.
There were some almost empty bottles of shampoo in the kids' bathroom, so they were upended and drained into one bottle. Yes, it will be a Heinz variety shampoo so if they won't use it on their hair, it will be handy in the laundry for treating stains.
Bread bags were saved to use as rubbish bags.
The boys finished a box of cereal so the liner was carefully opened up, washed, dried and put in the drawer to use freezer film.
Two small parcels were delivered, in very sturdy boxes. Normally boxes are cut down and put in the recycle bin, but these are strong so I've kept them to post the nursing home and CWA cards. They won't be damaged in these boxes, and with the "if it fits, it posts" policy for the prepaid post satchels, it won't cost any extra to post them either. Until the borders open and lock downs are lifted posting is the only way I can get the cards delivered.
I think that's about it for last week. Being conscious of how much and what and when and where things are being used is making a huge difference to the "bits" that are left. With a little more planning, in time maybe there won't be any fragments left to gather, and no money wasted!
A really good thing is happening since I started this gathering and using up of the fragments in our household - there are fewer fragments!
I'm thinking this is because I am really conscious of quantity. Of how much I prepare for each meal, of the amount of preserved food I open to use in a recipe, of making sure to use just what I need for a project so there are no leftovers or scraps.
This past week I used a little leftover sour cream in the mashed potatoes instead of milk and butter. They were so good Wayne commented on how nice they were. I'll remember to do that more often when we have sour cream.
I made a stack of greeting cards using just scraps. Really - just strips of paper and cardstock no more than 6mm wide, arranged on some cards. I think they look nice and bright.