Being Resourceful

I belong to an artist's message board that has a weekly blogging topic to help keep us bloggers writing new posts and thinking about new projects. So far, I think I'm keeping up with everyone else and blogging on the topic every week, but don't always post on the same blog every week. It seems like different topics fit better on different blogs.
This week's topic is Resourceful. I've always liked that word- it's something I try to be a lot of the time, using my resources well and not wastefully. I save a lot of stuff, thinking- "I like this (insert item here), I think I can use it for another purpose someday, I don't know what right now, but someday it'll come in handy" OK, that's probably the same thing every pack rat tells themselves while they are saving the twist ties off the bread wrappers, but seriously, I do reuse things a lot!
Being an artist and crafter, I save pretty little bits of this and that, things that are just too pretty to throw away, or perhaps useful to incorporate into some art form. In fact, the jewelry I am selling right now in my Etsy Store is made mostly from things I already had in my studio- watercolor canvas, small amounts of paints, scraps of fabric and yarns, random beads, and some polymer clay. The ACEO cards are made using some faux finish samples I didn't need- I just layered more paints and designs on top of them and created tiny works of art.
I am particularly resourceful in my garden- I save the fourpacks from the annuals I buy every spring, and use them to start my own varieties every spring, and just this afternoon, I potted up 6 flats of impatiens and annual phlox using seeds I saved last fall. I keep them on some old shelving I set up to grow plants on- you can read about how I did that in my gardening blog In the Garden. Especially in gardening it pays to be resourceful- finding interesting containers for planting, repurposing tools for garden ornaments or structures, recycling gallon jugs into water carriers, or as frost protection in the spring, beat up chairs into porch decor by adding a coat or two of pretty paint. I even took a chair that I decided I was never going to get around to re-upholstering, stripped off it's remaining cushioning, covered it with chicken wire (saved from another purpose it had the year before) and filled it with a variety of plants. Since I paid $5.00 for it at a garage sale, it at least had a use as a decorative planter instead of taking up space in my garage. It's starting to fall apart now- it's joints can't take another year of moisture, but I have my eye on an old 3 speed bicycle out in the garage to repurpose into a yard ornament to take it's place- add a couple of baskets lashed to it's handlebars and back wheel, and I think it'll look really cute! I may even save that chicken wire for yet another purpose.
Being resourceful can save a lot of money too, re-using things until they have nothing left to give, cooking with leftovers in mind to make some other dish another night, taking old clothes and giving them a new life by combining them in new ways, adding different accessories, changing the hemline, maybe even making something completely different witrh them, just because you love the fabric! There's a dress I found at a resale shop- beautiful floral rose pattern, but horribly out of style (for now at least) - I have visions of the fabric being incorporated into a new sylish jacket, perhaps in a crazy quilt design with a couple of other patterns, along with some bits of old jeans. The fabric is just too pretty to give away, or toss out even if I just can't wear that out of style dress any more.
Time is a resource too- and it's good to use that wisely as well- multitasking! Do the laundry while working on the computer, while waiting for the paint to dry, so the baby plants can be potted up, then back to the next step in the artwork, hop over to the jewelry table to string more beads on some necklaces before dinner!
Gotta go! I hear the timer on the dryer!
Ellen Leigh