A pretty home makes us feel beautiful. Its in our DNA.
Alternately, women are also known to look for ways to reduce wastage. Wastage regarding food, water, money etc. Most women feel uncomfortable with the thought of splurging unnecessarily. This explains why it is so easy for us to feel guilty when we shop for ourselves.
A few weeks ago, when I got one of my brand new bedsheets washed (after using it only once) I was hurt to find that it had shrunk. Well, it didn't make me too upset cause someone had given it to me as a gift and I guess they hadn't much bothered with the quality. Anyway, the fact that something new would never fit the bed again was a little unnerving. Instead of just throwing it away though, I decided to keep it in a corner (again, something most women do) to figure out another use for it.
A few days later, it suddenly struck me that my shapeless bed sheet can be modified to be used as tablecloths - for tables of various sizes.
And why not? A recent visit to my favourite clothing and furnishin store - FabIndia inspired the idea. A simple (albeit pretty) tablecloth there was priced at over 400/- Indian Rupees. It's not like 400/- is a steep price or anything for me. But, on second thoughts (again, only women think twice before buying something) it seemed a waste, Why pay 475/- rupees (to be precise about the price) on something I was going to eat on and probably drop food on too. It really seemed a waste.
So, here's what I did with my shapeless pink and green bed sheet (weird colour combination, I know):
--I got it cut to the size of various uncovered tables around the house, got the borders stitched and voila made myself matching tablecloths that follow a similar pattern across the house. Uniformity is after all a key design element - isn't it?
The great part of this is the cloth didn't go to waste. And furthermore, I got soo many table cloths out of it! A picture of what one of those tablecloths looks like is given below!
Here are a few other ideas through which you can make your things multi-task for you:
Old Cups:
--You can turn your old cups into pencil / pen stands! If you are a woman, use them to store your daily use eyeliner / eye pencil or even combs. It will make it easier to access your things when you're in a rush.
Old Saucers:
--You can always stylishly arrange your old saucers around your music system and store cd's atop it. It may not look fancy, but it sure will look neat.
Old Dupattas:
If you have any old, worn out dupattas, before throwing them away see if you can use them as cushion covers or mini-pouches! You will of course have to get them stitched accordingly, but that doesn't take time.
Old Wine Bottles:
If you have a couple of wine or champagne bottles you can explore the option of turning them into colourful vases or candle stands. How? Well, you will need the help of a professional glass manufacturer. Once you find one - ask him to use his special glass cutting knife to cut the bottle (to get rid of the bottle's neck). When you are left with the base of the coloured bottle you can use it for several things, to put candles and light them, to put pens in, to place a few flowers....
Old or worn out costume jewellery:
Women are known to have an assortment of jewellery, from real gold, real silver pieces to even costume jewellery or as we like to call it - Junk jewellery. But, we also tend to get sick of our jewellery every now and then (especially the junk jewellery). So what do you do with them? You can't throw jewellery away so you may as well use it to accessorize your things! You can for instance string an old chain or necklace on the zip of a bag and style it a bit. Use old pendants too to make your purses and bags look unique by stringing them around the zips). You can even use your old jewellery to style your clothes! Stitch old earrings on plain coloured tees for instance.
