So, as I’ve mentioned once or twice, we moved into our new house three weeks ago.

I do apologise for mentioning it a lot but it’s pretty much overwhelming my life at the moment – I’d lived in the last place for nearly a decade and hope to be here at least the same amount of time. It needs a lot of work doing to it – considerably more maintenance-type work than we’d thought (every floorboard creeks, every tap drips…) but also a lot to make it our own. It’s a lot of work but mostly very satisfying.

As we’re getting past the bulk of the “must do instantly” jobs, we’re starting to combine chores and fun tasks and one of the fun tasks is filling all the blank walls with pictures and other creations. I’m definitely going to use a lot of the frame ideas you wonder people suggested when I was asking about mirrors a few weeks ago but I also wondered how people have made the actual surface to paint on – what works well instead of actual canvas? I imagine other lighter cotton such as t-shirt jersey or bed linen might be too thin to hold the paint but would denim from old jeans work as a heavy textured alternative?

I’ve heard about the underside of hardboard being a good surface. What else?

• dancingfarmer over at Not Dabbling In Normal pulled together a comprehensive list of ways to make starter pots for seedlings out of newspaper – different methods to suit different uses. (The dancing one has also written a great article on how we often kid ourselves about how much time our “convenient” lifestyles save us and also how what at first seems overwhelmingly difficult and time-consuming, can quickly become internalised and easy peasy.)
• Crafty Nest featured a cute tote bag tutorial last week – made using old tank tops/vest tops. Two different methods are used, drawing on the style of two different tops.
• It’s a few weeks ago now but Kate over at Living the Frugal Life wrote a great article about alternatives for feeding chickens – using what the land provides rather than just using always store bought food.
• Dollar Store Crafts linked to this fab necklace made from pennies – I like the idea of making a holiday memories one with very low value (so not worth changing) coins from a trip.
• And Junk Jewelry‘s Jane has added to her list of other junk jewellers – her list now totals 53 – lots of ideas for reusing and recycling lots of things to make fun and interesting jewellery.

I guess this is more of a straight “reuse” and less of a “recycle” than normal but it’s Monday morning and I’m tired, and I can’t think of anything else ;)

We had a ham the other day and it was the fattiest piece of meat I think I’ve ever seen. There were inches of the stuff.

I usually keep the bone and use it to make a stock/soup but the fat would completely overwhelm said stock or soup. There are some suggestions here for rendering it and some recipes to use it in too – anyone done anything like that or got any other suggestions?

Also, what do you use ham bones for? The stock doesn’t seem to me that it’s as versatile as vegetable stock or chicken stock because it’s pretty strongly flavoured in its own right. I’ve used it, with chunks of the ham, to make ham-centred soups (mmm, hearty ham & bean) and the bone itself in the pot with rice while cooking at add a bit of flavour. What do you do with them?

Do they have a name? Those plastic pocket things used in ring binders or lever arch files, for paper you don’t want to or can’t hole punch? If there is a name, I don’t know it, which makes it might hard to find a photo of them ;) UPDATE: Jack sent over a photo for me to use – thanks Jack!

Anyway, they’re great for reusing for their original purpose time and time again until you overfill them one time and the hole reinforcement strip tears/pulls out and from then on, it constantly, annoyingly, falls out of the folder every time you lift it up.

What can be done with the rest of the plastic then? It’s usually smooth, flat and clear – there must be some practical and crafty reuses for something like that.

They’re usually made from polypropylene apparently (plastic code number 5) which can be recycled but isn’t collected as standard in all places. So how can they be reused instead?

Next up in a mini-theme week on heating and energy:

It may have been sparked by the turning of the seasons but there seem to be a lot of people in my life buying new boilers at the moment – my mum & dad’s 28 year old one is getting cranky and is going to be replaced by a much more efficient one; my best friend Katherine’s is slightly newer but even less reliable, which isn’t ideal given she’s got a 22 day old baby at home (hi again baby Joe!); and our boiler at the old house won’t make it through another winter and will have to be replaced by either us or the next people in there. (Both my mum & dad and Katherine have immersion heaters/tanks, we had a combi.)

They’ve got a high scrap value at the moment because they’re usually made from a whole lot of metal but are there any good reuses for them rather than just sending them for recycling?

Anyone turned them into giant barbecues or woodburners/stoves? I’ve seen metal barrels and gas canisters used for those things… I guess the immersion heater type tanks could be used for water butts in the garden, maybe?

Any other cool reuses?