Newspaper Bags

I was just reading rest is not idleness (yes I finally looked up how to make a clickable link)and came across a link to make newspaper bags. Such a great idea!

I'd like to make one at least for the sake of making one, I really don't need any. I try my best to use reusable bags when shopping but do have to break David of the plastic bag habit. It's hard when he does most of the shopping - he took over when I was finding it hard to get out when pregnant with Thomas and found he really liked doing it. I also have about 300 giftbags - no really I do. There were cartons of them left at David's work, they often get things donated, he managed to get me one and a half cartons. They had already tossed the rest out, such a waste. Usually he does the tip run but these were put into the skip along with the other waste. Hundreds of perfectly good bags gone to waste. I am going to use them for our stall at the fete in November as well as for Christmas gift bags.

Speaking of waste, this is how wasteful David's work is. Last week his boss decided to have a clean out, so went around marking things to be tossed out. There were 34 framed pictures (limited edition prints) that had originally been donated by a hotel undergoing renovation, square foam blocks - these David brought home instead of taking to the tip. My father is a painter and is always on the lookout for frames so he happily took the frames, Mum took the blocks, she is making giant dice for the kids to play with. Dad is thinking of just cleaning up some of the frames and glass, they are pretty grubby and selling them as is, it would be great way to boost his income without any outlay and not a lot of work.

There were also a couple of cartons of unused talc, new regulations state that they can no longer be used in aged care, ceramic bowls (unused, they can only use plastic now - 6 dozen of those), a brand new commercial sized Chef Inox frypan and the biggest ladle I've ever seen, again brand new. The talc and bowls are going on the fete stall, the frypan I'm thinking of selling online and I may keep the ladle just for the novelty of it. She also threw out 2 digital cameras! Told David they didn't work and to throw them out. Of course he brought them home to check them. The only thing wrong with one was that the battery was flat. The other one had obviously been dropped, there was a crack in the battery cover and the screen didn't work. But you can still take photos - the old fashioned way - by looking through the viewfinder - after the photo is taken it then shows up on the screen. One of them came with the printer dock.