Re-purposing

I thought I would take a few blog posts and talk a little about re-purposing things; all kinds of things. I love to re-purpose because it is creative and often cost effective. (Cost effectiveness fits my blog title.) And, I love to be creative and often cringe a little inside when I get onto my daughters for "not using things appropriately". I really want to teach them to be creative and re-purpose things, but I also don't want them hanging on the sides of carts or climbing to the top of our mini van. So, I am trying to teach them to think outside the box on things like what to do with an afternoon or how to reuse something for an art project, (but I don't want them thinking outside the box so much that they topple carts onto themselves-which has happened in our family before).

Some of the things I re-purpose: furniture, wire twisty ties, cardboard boxes, and lotion are just to name a few. For this blog post, I'll give you some of my lotion tips though. Not only is lotion good for rehydrating skin, but it is also good for rehydrating hair and taking mascara and eyeliner off.

Ever since I had my daughters, my hair has been really weird. I have a very wavy patch in the back of my head, and a super frizzy spot on my right side. Up until I had kids, my hair was as flat and straight as could be. But, now it has multiple personality disorder. (I always wished for wavy/curly hair. I wish it wouldn't have come in patches.) So, sometimes when it's being particularly weird, I get my hands wet, get a tinsy bit of lotion on my hands and smooth out my frizzy patch with the water-lotion solution. It's cheaper than detanglers, and it works great for traveling too. I don't like carrying tons of bottles of hair product with me. I also like this quick fix because my hair doesn't look greasy, and afterwards it brushes nicely like normal hair would.

Like I said above, I also use lotion to take my eye-makeup off at night. I think it works great, and it isn't harsh on my skin like some of the make-up remover wipes are. I just get a cotton ball, put a little dab of lotion on it, tightly close my eye and then erase the black. If I have a particularly large amount of make-up on, I do it twice, but usually once is plenty. Then I wash the rest of my makeup off regularly. Works like a charm!

Before Picture...

Date Night (Yay!) with Makeup on

After dinner and a show, I was ready to get my makeup off and head to slumber land. So, I took some pictures to show you how I take off my eye-makeup.

lotion on cotton ball to remove makeup

I smear it

One eye with make-up, one eye without

the aftermath; eye shadow, eye liner and mascara is off

one eye "clean"

Oh, and if you are putting make-up on, and smear your eyeliner, accidentally make your eye shadow too thick, or get mascara on your eyelid, you can put a dab of lotion on a q-tip and take the unwanted makeup right off. This way, you won't have to wipe all your make-up off and start from scratch. :)

Reducing, Reusing and Recycling are important because they keep God's green earth green and beautiful, but I think re-purposing is just as important. If there wasn't already a perfect little triangle logo for the R's, I would ask that re-purposing be added. But, since they already have a logo, I guess I will just consider myself reusing--just not in the same way as it was originally intended to be used (or reused).

Have you re-purposed anything lately? Please, do tell! I'd love your tips!

Thanks, Amber