Give it the old Reuse!

While I love finding things second hand, even better is when I can reuse something that I've had for a while in an entirely new way. Halloween generally allows all sorts of creative reuses of items. The old riding boots that I salvaged from my grandpa's closet after he died have worked wonders with several costumes. Hell, those boots fit right in with today's boot obsessed look. Probably not what my grandpa thought during his years of wearing them at the race track.

Don't worry - it was washed. Twice!

Anyway, I've been excited by several good examples of reuse that I've seen lately. First and foremost is the cute Halloween costume worn by the almost one year old son of my friends Sarah and JB. Doesn't he look cute like a cute crocodile? Well he should. He's in a an old Halloween costume worn by their chocolate lab during the pre-children years of their marriage. Yes, that's right. That baby is in a dog outfit. LOVE IT. Share and share alike, I say!

For me?!!?

A potentially less cute but more hilarious reuse was Steady J's costume consisting of a sport coat, slacks, sunglasses and a strategically placed wrapped gift. Cost? Nothing. He reused everything he already had. Curious to what he was? Here you go. Just remember, I had nothing to do with it.

And finally, totally unrelated to Halloween but still one of the coolest things I've seen: Wrapagain! It's a square of pretty fabric that has ribbon strategically placed so that you can fold the fabric around an item, tie it, and have a beautifully wrapped gift! The fabric wrap can be reused as many times as you want and it even has a tracking number sewn in so you can see how far your fabric has traveled as it has been reused. Too cool!  Taking it a bit further, it would be really easy to make these out of scrap fabric and old ribbon. Don't have fabric or ribbon? I find a ton of it at second hand stores. Goodwill always has lots of spools of ribbon and some of it is quite nice. Or cut up some of your old table cloths or runners. Or even those old t-shirts! These wrappings look so much classier than the paper I salvaged from the recycling at work and the bows I made from holiday candy wrappers last year. Guess it might be time to take it up a notch!