We buy all our tea and coffee from Just Coffee People. Contrary to one interpretation of their name, they don’t just sell coffee – they sell tea (black and herbal), sugar and hot chocolate/cocoa – and it is all AWESOME. The Tanzanian tea is the best we’ve ever tasted – it’s spoilt us for every other type of tea – and I’ve heard the same thing said about the coffee by other caffeine fiends. Plus, as well as helping growers overseas through the Fairtrade programme, it’s a socially inclusive company focused on community regeneration, providing trading and employment for people with all sorts of disabilities.

(Unfortunately it’s a Yorkshire-only operation at the moment – they’ll either deliver your stash to your door or you can buy it at various places around Leeds.)

Anyway, the reason I’m mentioning it here is because of the packaging: like lots of fresh coffee these days, everything comes in plastic bags. Whatever can be done with them?

I know my favourite wire woman Alison Bailey Smith uses coffee bags (as well as other random packaging) in her work – and the Just Coffee People ones are a lovely dull gold so crafty ideas are a definite possibility – any other ideas?

(Some details about the type of coffee bags I’m talking about in case you’re unsure: they’re quite a thick but flexible, heavy duty opaque plastic. Most are gusset type bags, around 8-10cm (3-4inches) in width, just less than that deep and about 15cm (6inches) or so tall. Most of the ones I’ve seen aren’t ready resealable – we just use a peg on ours.)

A bit of a no-brainer this one since a piece of string is a cat toy but I’m currently getting major head rubs from one of our cats (Boron) so have cats on the brain (literally).

Ok, so we’ve got the piece of string. Or the piece of ribbon you get on new clothes (that holds it on the hanger in the shop but isn’t needed on drawer-dwelling clothes once you get them home) – we’ve got those tied to every door handle about the place wanting to distract a passing cat. Ours also LOVE a piece of ball chain I got with a name badge once upon a time – if Sili hears us moving that anywhere in the house, she’s there in a second.

On a similar level, my mum and dad’s cat Holly goes nuts for little chocolate wrappers and the aforementioned Sili loves the idea of receipts (but quickly gets bored of them as soon as she has them).

A little (but not much) more involved, I often stuffed one old sock with another torn-up old stock, thrown in some cat nip and added a few stringy things on it to be legs/tails, et voila! a mouse/octo-mouse.

So what are your favourite recycled/reused things to make cat toys from?

(Photo of a manic eyed Boron, some string and a whole lot of movement)

A question from my mum – something she mentioned on instant messenger a few weeks ago but I forgot until now ;)

The night we were chatting about it, she had just found a collection of them in a drawer during a clearout. The bottles she has are brown glass, about 6cm (2.5inches) tall but pretty narrow, with a plastic cap and a plastic thing at the top to make drips happen. Other, equally small bottles, come with a pipette instead of the drip thing.

So basically we’ve got some very small bottles that will be tricky to clean out – any suggestions?

Mum thought kids could use them for playing shop – since they’re more kid-size than adult-size – but couldn’t think of anything else. Ideas?

We’ve had another email from Lyndall, asking:

i was wondering if you knew what i could do with the foil top of milk bottles?

I remember a Blue Peter fundraising appeal from circa 1985 that involved us collecting them for charity but now charities – like Southampton’s Gift of Sight appeal – seem to collect plastic ones instead.

Since they’re just foil, they can be recycled along with other foil products – we can include it in our doorstep recycling.

But what about reuses?

(Photo by LHMike)

An OMG-how-haven’t-we-featured-that-yet!! post today: tissue paper.

I just came across a giant sheet of it as packaging in a Chinese Chequers box and as I was folding it to put in my craft drawer, I realised we hadn’t used it on the site.

So I can keep it around for future packaging purposes and combining it with a comb might win me a place in a popular music combo – but what else can I do with it?