Gingham scraps become lunch bag

Someone saw my blue gingham lunch bag and asked me to make them one so I scrounged around in the fabric stash and found the last of the pink gingham and blue gingham fabric leftovers and made this cute little lunch tote bag. It is lined with the pink gingham and has a little pocket on the outside for a teabag or pack of nuts or something.  The hardest part of this little fabrication was making sure the zipper in the top was set right as I inserted the fabric handles between the zipper and bag wall.  Anyway, this is the only photo I have of this item and I'm quite proud of continuing to bust through my stash of cloth and make useful items for me and others.

Easy Peasy Pencil Pen Scissor Holder

This little project took me almost no time at all, except for the paint drying part. It starts with a nuts can -- cashews, peanuts, mixed nuts come in this packaging. Once you've eaten the nuts (!) rinse and dry out the can. Take off the plastic lid and spray paint the can with whatever leftover colored paint you have. I used the apple green left over from some other projects. While the paint is drying, punch half a dozen slits in the plastic lid with a scissors blade and then cut across them to make X-shaped openings into which you will push pens, pencils, scissors, etc.   Once the paint is dry, you can decorate the outside of the can however you like -- in this case I had some gold-colored duct tape (an amazing product you should snap up every time you see it on sale in the Dollar Store or a hardware store).  I then weighted the can with some stones and put the lid on it and stuck in the pens and pencils.  Hey presto change, another item kept out of the landfill and made useful in my kitchen through recycling and re-use.