We’ve had an email from Hester, asking:

what can I do with a teapot with a broken spout?

You could give gluing it back together a go — it’s not quite as much of a safety worry as say, gluing a broken handle back onto a cup/mug but there is still the risk of scalding if it comes off again at an inopportune moment.

So other less hazardous suggestions? Almost needless to say, teapots make very fun plant pots or utensil/pen pots. Depending how much of the spout remains, you could use it as an indoor watercan too.

The china/pottery from completely broken teapots can be used for drainage at the bottom of plantpots – although if the lid is intact and you’re buying another similar size teapot to replace it, keep the lid as a mix-match spare.

Any other suggestions?

We’ve had an email from Rachael, asking about:

Curtain tracks. The ones curtain hooks run along. What can I do with the hooks too? We’ve replaced the rails with poles all around the house and now have quite a lot to get rid of.

Get thee to your local Freecycle/Freegle group or charity shop immediately – chances are, there is someone new you who needs curtain paraphernalia, especially at this chilly, drafty time of year.

I also have half a memory of seeing a wardrobe project using curtain rails – used as tie racks on the inside of wardrobe doors, allowing easy flicking through the collection – but my Google-fu is failing me. Anyone?

Any other suggestions?

I meant to post this on Tuesday – the start of advent – but after being away, I didn’t have time to do it justice so here it is now.

I haven’t celebrated Christmas for about a decade. Because I’ve got a tiny-small family, Christmas was never a big deal in our house and my participation in it has waned as the years went on until I stopped celebrating it altogether in about 2001-2002. I’m not a Christian so all that side of things is lost on me, I see my family whenever I want to, and I give gifts when I see/make something for someone rather than waiting until a date in December. For the last few years, I’ve worked on Christmas day – a perfect low-traffic day for new introducing designs or features for websites we run. True, part of it is a somewhat cynical reaction to the huge amount of waste and excess at this time of year, but it’s not that I’m particularly bah humbug about it: I just don’t participate in it in the same way many people don’t celebrate, for example, Eid or Hanukkah.

The gifts thing though is still a bit of a problem. In previous years, we’ve had long, difficult arguments with our families over gift giving. Giving is a big part of Christmas for them and as much as we’ve tried to push them that way, giving to charities on our behalf just isn’t the same for them. We end up feeling selfish for not letting them buy stuff for us and ungrateful for not willingly accepting the stuff they inevitable do buy for us. But we spend all year trying very hard not to buy stuff we don’t need, to reduce our consumption and our waste output, and then get a selection of random unneeded things, often novelty items wrapped in one-time-use shiny paper and bows. I realise they’re gifts given out of love but it’s not just that – there is so much pressure to give commercially bought gifts at Christmas – last year, my mum said she felt she had to give me things because she’d bought stuff for my brother and it wouldn’t be fair otherwise. (I didn’t care about “fairness” but it was a big deal to her.)

Has anyone else been in a similar situation on the giving or receiving end? What strategies have you used to deal with it? I always thought Christmas lists to family as an adult were a bit snotty but I guess that would solve the unwanted/unneeded problem. I realise that the whole issue is a bit of a snotty, my-diamond-shoes-are-too-tight one but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

(Photo by Vanessa Fitzgerald)

We’ve had an email from Diana:

What can I do with the plastic pots my moisturizers and hand creams come in? They’re round plastic with screw lids but because they’ve had chemical creams in them, I don’t want to use them for food.

Why not check if you can bulk buy your favourite moisturiser/hand cream and refill the existing pots rather than buying new ones each time?

You could also make your own creams – or give them (possibly via Freecycle/Freegle) to someone who does.

As for other reuses, they’d be perfect for storing small things like beads/button or nails/screws — and would give you an instant maraca-type instrument too ;) . They’re also pretty water tight so might be useful for small emergency kits – you could probably fit a pack of matches, a few tea lights and maybe a mini LED torch/flashlight in there.

Other suggestions?

Righty, we’re back in Blighty now and if I have to leave the house today, it’ll be a disappointment. We arrived back home about 10:30pm last night after an elaborate performance of airport security theatre, and boy, were the cats glad to see us again. It’s freezing cold here today but I don’t mind because I’ve got three furry hot water bottles attached to me :)

Anyway, this recycling thing. As well as noticing the great procedures in place for recycling glass bottles in Madrid, we also noticed a great love for lotteries in the city – every official office had a queue 90 miles long outside it (at all times of the day, every day) and there were lots of street vendors selling scratchcards too. Of course, because I’m a recycling nerd, I started to wonder what the options are with recycling scratchcards.

Once all the scratchy stuff has been scratched off and hopes dashed again, they’re just normal cardboard – right? So they can be recycled with other card – right?

If they’ve still got a lot of the scratchy stuff on them, can they be recycled? It’s typically latex based apparently.

Any fun reuses for them? Anyone doing any crafts with them? Gift tags perhaps?