A few weeks ago, I had a bit of a panic about the situation with my personal paperwork. For our business, I’m pretty good – everything even remotely related to anything goes in a folder, which goes in the filing cabinet, and promptly gets forgotten about until it’s next needed. My personal stuff – bank statements, utility bills and all that jazz – though, who knows? There was a box in the living room, a box file in the bedroom and about five separate stashes of papers in the spare room-cum-study-cum-store-room.

So a few weeks ago, as I said, I had a bit of a panic and sorted everything out. Everything is all neatly filed now and if I need the July 2003 credit card statement (balance: £00.00, charges: £00.00) from a card I never used, I know exactly where it will be. Hurrah!

But, during my sorting, as well as finding we had kept a metric ton of waste paper stored up there, I found three cheque book and credit card wallet sets. They were included in the opening-account packs of “freebies” in my bank-hopping days at university.

The cheque book one is, by the feel of it, cardboard covered in vinyl and the cheque-book shaped, while the credit card one is vinyl with semi-opaque card sized pockets.

I thought about writing recipes on the back of old business cards and using the card one as a mini cookbook in the kitchen but since the pockets are not transparent, I’d have to take the cards out to read them – which kinda defeats the point of protecting them.

So any suggestions?

We’ve had an email from Greg Charles:

I replace the windscreen wipers on my car quite regularly and hate having to just throw them away. I considered making a house window squeegy out of them but don’t know where to start.

I wouldn’t know where to start either (other than just lashing them to a pole and giving it a go) or if they would be angled right – I thought wiper blades usually had a small curve to them but could very easily be wrong.

Any advice or other suggestions?

(Photo by loyalrogue)

We’ve had an email from Arlyn:

I have two feather and down duvets which are a smaller size than the normal single, which I have had for years but not used much. I have moved house and even brought them with me but have to get rid of them. Surely there is some use for the feathers and down. It feels still in good condition inside.

Using it as stuffing for other things – craft projects or adding more bulk to cushions or pillows – is the first idea that springs to mind. Anyone go any other suggestions?

Also, anyone got any thoughts on how they would compost? They’re organic in origin, obviously, so would probably break down quite easily – but I suspect they are treated with nasty, undesirable chemicals before being used as stuffing – anyone know for sure?

(Photo by zumbari)

Christine Thompson got in touch recently to tell us how much she loves the site (in return, I love those emails :) ) and since she’s a primary school teacher, we chatted about the great primary-school themed suggestions people had come up with for school milk cartons.

She added that she’s made pirate ships out of taller tetrapak juice cartons with the triangular top, Victorian ladies out of “curvy” plastic bottles and:

I also made brilliant ‘Three Wise Men’ from Actimel bottles (saved them for months so everyone could have three!), little craft ball for head and lots of old Christmas paper for robes.

I thought that sounded like an excellent idea so let it inspire today’s post: what else can be done with those little Actimel/Yakult/’probiotic’-yoghurt-drink type bottles?

The suggestion–tastic Am (aka Delusion) has been in contact again:

Me again! The company I work at has just got rid of a number of software sets. The CD discs are shredded and recycled as it’s confidential waste however the DVD style boxes are not taken.

Is there anything they can be used for? I have used a few to replace damaged DVD cases I have but other than that, I’m a little stumped! If they can’t be reused, how about recycled?

I suspect a lot of the suggestions – like giving them to your local library – will have been covered in the CD case post from last year – but any DVD-case specific suggestions?

(Photo by heltje)