We’ve had an email from Flannery, saying:

i would like to suggest : pointe shoes.
i have ten trillion old ones and they’re just hanging around

We’ve already covered shoes in general, Crocs and high-heeled shoes – so there maybe some suggests that’ll apply to these shoes too.

Flannery’s “ten trillion” of them suggests they’ve been worn as much as they can/should be so giving them to, say, beginners or other dancers might not be an option. I suspect like with high-heels and other “pretty” shoes though, they might lend themselves to crafts, especially if they’re “shabby chic” slightly scruffy rather than completely trashed. A display like the one in the picture might be a wonderful decoration for a dancer, former dancer or ballet-fan’s house.

Any particular suggestions or other ideas?

(Photo by crisderaud)

We’ve covered old jeans before – and again when speaking specifically about making bags out of them – but these are a bit different.

I was sorting through my “in storage” clothing last week – stuff that’s in limbo, I don’t really think I’ll be wearing it again but can’t bring myself to take it to the charity shop/fabric recycling bin just yet – and I found my favourite work trousers from back in the day when I actually wore trousers for work. These were THE BEST WORK PANTS IN THE WORLD. They fitted me perfectly – hanging low, with long wide legs just as I like, had deep pockets at just the right place/angle and given the heavy, woolliness of them, they looked suitably work-y even when teamed with a never-ironed black shirt. I remember being really quite distraught when the fabric wore through at the bum. *nostalgic sob*.

So, anyway, I found these trousers last week and it was fun remembering all the good times we had together – all the time we ran up the stairs together, or sat at my desk together, or even those times when we soaked up puddles together – so it felt heartless to just send them off to be recycled.

Even with the worn/holey bum being out of action, there is quite a lot of good fabric because of the wide legs. I thought they might make a fun clutch purse or something – but wanted to run it by you crafty people first, in case you had any more awesome ideas. I am thinking crafty stuff primarily but any reuse suggestions would be great.

So ideas?

Apparently, Victoria Beckham has pledged to reuse a pair of fan’s underwear that was thrown onto the stage during a Spice Girls gig the other day.

While I’m somewhat sceptical of her promise, let’s see if we can come up with some non-“shower-cap” ideas for how she can recycle them.

Our old pants usually go in our cleaning-rags bag but any more creative suggestions?

(On a related topic, we featured old bras a couple of years ago – lots of ideas for those babies!)

(Photo by nilob)

Continuing on from the tidying “rampage” mentioned earlier in the week, I’ve been sorting through our old clothes in the bedroom.

In addition to the clothes we wear regularly, we have a couple of boxes of old clothes on the top of the wardrobe. These are the clothes that we will wear again just as soon as we lose the required weight, height or fashion hindsight that caused them to be banished to the boxes in the first place. Periodically, these boxes get sorted through again and the “nah, I’m not going to be a size 10 again in a hurry” cast-offs get sent to the charity shop.

But there is some stuff that isn’t really suitable for charity shops – because they’re damaged or stained, or hideous travesties against everything that is good and/or pure — like these old ties of John’s.

Aside from sending them to be recycled for their fabric, any reuses?