One Man's Trash is Another Girl's Dress

I am the 8th of 9 kids in my family. I remember one time growing up when I grew out of one of my pairs of shoes and finally convinced my mother that I would need new ones. She took me to her storage closet in the basement and pulled out a trash bag FILLED with shoes. Some were hand-me-downs, some were from garage sales, and some were brand spanking new (the strange-looking rejects on the clearance rack at department stores). Besides the fact that I didn't like a single pair of the shoes in that bag, none of them fit me. Nonetheless, those were my choices, so she suggested picking the pair that was closest to my size. Let's just say my old pair of shoes didn't seem so small after all.

This story has almost nothing to do with this blog post except to illustrate the fact that I come from frugal roots, and I find great satisfaction in re-purposing something that I have no need for anymore. I know there are lots of tutorials for how to make cool stuff with an old t-shirt, so I'm not including any instructions, but here are a couple of things the Mrs. has done to re-purpose old stuff:

This is from an old blue t-shirt of mine. I believe she even cut the collar and bird out of an old pale yellow t-shirt and hand-stitched the legs with some yarn she had on hand.

 

Baby formula canisters, scrapbook paper and Mod Podge:

I'm not quite sure, but these leggings my daughter is wearing either came from some old women's leggings (referring to the leggings as old, not the women) or tube socks:

I don't know if this constitutes "re-purposing" something old into something new, but my wife made this headband (and a matching one for herself) out of a few scraps of lace she had from another project.

 There are actually quite a few other things I can think of that my wife has done to re-purpose used items, but I could find any pictures of them...and nobody wants to read a blog without pictures. :)