Creative repurposing: yogurt container to mini wastebasket

When I am making tiny chapbooks, 

... or handbound journals or notebooks, 

... or the mini notebooks that I like to give away with orders from my Etsy shop (in an attempt to remind people to come back and buy again), I always have little snippets from the ends of threads and other small bits of trash.

And so for convenience, I started placing a yogurt container on my table as a mini wastebasket so I could keep my workspace free of debris. I empty it into my main wastebasket, so I only have one to empty on trash day. (As you can see, there's also a small bag with R for recycling for paper scraps.)

Well, one thing about photographing your workspace to share with the public because you read somewhere that that's a good thing to do to promote yourself, is that when you look at it through a camera lens you notice things like a yogurt container sitting on the table, and you think, well, that's not very attractive.

And if you already have spray paint leftover from a previous project, it's a pretty simple matter to bring it all out to the garage and have a little fun with it.

Above-mentioned previous project—repurposed mint tins

I figured why not paint three of them while I'm at it, especially since I have more than one "work station" in my office-studio. The other work station is for preparing orders for mailing, which, wastebasketwise, mostly involves the little strip that I peel off the adhesive part of the flap on my mailing packets. The third container is just because why not? I'll find another use for it.

First I placed them upside down on a box so the color would cleanly cover across the bottom. I sprayed a few coats of the green, which has built-in primer, until all was covered, then sprayed a little of the red-orange and blue to get a splotchy look. I didn't bother to use bubble wrap and other materials, such as I used on the mint tins above to create interesting textures, because I wanted to keep this project quick and simple.

After the paint was dry, I turned the containers over and lightly sprayed around the top to paint the rim, without concerning myself about the insides because they were plain white to begin with, so no need to coat them with paint, but nothing wrong with a smattering of color, right?

I kinda wish I had thought to lay down a nice piece of cardboard to take advantage of the colors and shapes that resulted on the surface around the containers. Maybe I'll think of that next time I have a spray-painting project. (I still have some of this paint left.)

So now I have a pretty mini wastebasket on my work table (and I fixed up a "new" bag for recycling, from an old gift bag). 

(And I suppose I should get back to assembling the new notebooks I designed recently so I can add those to my shop.)

In case you really like those colors and are wondering what they are called, here's a pic of the paint cans. The blue is called "safety blue," the green is "Eden," and the red is "paprika."

Making your own polish for wood and other things

One of the toy sets from Arty Didact

The little tins of "stuff" that I assemble as quirky amusements for kids usually include a few wooden objects, as do my "respite boxes" for adults.

In order to give these wooden components a nice luster and to  provide a pleasant tactile experience, I have taken to rubbing them with a beeswax-and-oil polish. It's a simple homemade concoction that's quite versatile—you can use it on stones and on your skin, as well—and it's a good way to reuse beeswax candle stumps and bits of beeswax cakes that have become too dry and brittle to use on thread anymore.

I thought I'd share it here for others who, like me, derive some satisfaction from finding a practical reuse for something that would otherwise be discarded.

Expecting to find that the process of making one's own polish is somewhat complicated, I was pleased to come across Amber Dusick's charming blog, where she offered her simple recipe using only two ingredients: oil and beeswax. My adaptation is to use scrap beeswax and whatever oil I have on hand at the time. The first time I made it I used grape seed oil, which resulted in a very green polish. My current batch is made with olive oil, which did not alter the color of the beeswax in any noticeable way. Neither polish changed the color of the wood I rubbed it on, other than to darken it, so I don't think it really matters what oil you use.

As a frequenter of estate sales, I found a nifty little metal pitcher with a long handle, which seems to be made for just this sort of thing. I put my beeswax bits in it and added olive oil, attempting for a ratio of 2–3 parts oil to one part beeswax; but as I don't actually measure anything, I don't know whether that's quite what I've got here. That's a lot less oil than Amber's ratio, which is 4 parts oil to 1 part beeswax, and I do end up with a rather stiff polish. I'll probably try getting closer to her proportions next time, for a softer polish.

I also don't bother to grate the beeswax as she does, I just break or chop it into chunks. For the small amount of polish that I make at one time (about a half cup), that seems to work just fine. I place the metal pitcher in a pan of water on the stove and let it simmer until all the wax has melted.

Since the wax has bits of thread in it—and if I were using leftover bits of candles, there would be a wick and that little metal thingy that's in tea lights—I pour it through a tea strainer into a small canning jar.

A little thread lint captured by the tea strainer

Then you just let it sit until it cools and sets. The outside will set first, of course, which will insulate the center and keep it from cooling as quickly. 

You could go have a cup of tea and read the paper while you wait for the rest of it to cool, I suppose. 

Or, if you're impatient like me, you can stir it to speed the setting process. 

Here are a few wooden cubes, half rubbed with the polish and half not. See how it brings out the wood grain and generally prettifies them nicely?

Oops. Better put the cubes away before they disappear under the furniture.