Unexpected Uses

 Today I want to share with you three "mini-blessings".  I love to find good deals at second hand stores or to find new ways to use objects rather than just having them go to waste.  I am not a hoarder and don't like clutter so I'm sure others have way more that they are reusing but these are a couple ideas that I found so I thought I'd share.  I encourage you to think outside the box and see if you can find ways to use objects in unexpected ways; are there ones that you would like to share?

This first picture is something I've shared a bit about before.  I found the book at a second-hand book store years ago and it has become a tradition to read it every year.  Each day Benjamin Bear opens a door on his advent calendar and then his mom tells him about little bear's journey to Bethlehem.  I looked online and one site mentioned that there was originally an advent calendar that came with the book but I haven't been able to find one; or even what it looked like.  Last year, before Christmas, I made it my mission to figure out how to make an advent calendar to go with this book.  Some of the things listed are different (a robber, a pear tree, a giant) and since I had bought this cute advent calendar for a good price, whatever I used needed to fit in the drawers.  I looked at a few different options and eventually settled on jewelry charms I found on etsy that would work.  Not every charm is exactly matching; for instance for a giant we have a larger viking head charm, but they are close enough.  The charms are small enough that I can even fit a lindt truffle in each drawer.  

This next picture is something that "randomly" came to mind today.  Tomorrow night our mom's group at church is having our annual Christmas party and this year we are doing an ornament swap.  I found an adorable ornament at a local second-hand store (that is actually owned by some friends of ours).  It's delicate and so I wanted to figure out a way to protect it.  I was planning to go to the dollar store to see if I could find a box that would work.  Today Amy made some tea and finished the bag from this Teavana container.  I decided to see if the ornament would fit; and it does, perfectly! I'll wrap it up in a nice bag but now I don't have to worry about it getting crushed.  I also saved the other Teavana container that was emptied today and will keep it through the Christmas holiday in case I find something else that needs packaging.

This last picture is a loaf of oatmeal bread.  The other day I made oatmeal (regular old fashioned); several of the kids decided they wanted oatmeal and I hadn't really made enough.  Last night I decided to make a large batch of steel cut oats in the slow cooker; well of course, only a couple of the kids wanted oatmeal today so we were left with quite a bit of leftover cooked oats.  I remembered seeing recipes that use leftover oatmeal and a quick Google search turned up this recipe. Since I had so much leftover oatmeal I quadrupled the recipe.  My oatmeal must have been much wetter because it took a lot more flour than the recipe indicated.  I ended up with six loaves of this bread; some of the kids have tried it and said it's very good.

I'm always so thankful to find frugal, fun and unexpected ways to use things.  I don't believe things are random and thank God for bringing these things to mind.