Giving things a second life

So much of the craft here is about turning things ordinarily considered trash into something beautiful.  

Eliza once told me that before she discards anything, she always asks herself, can this be used again in some way?  Can I give it a second (or third or fourth) life? I really loved this and what’s fascinating to me about this is how naturally it comes to her. I could see, as someone who had just moved and thus was in the process of buying new things for her home and then discarding the trash, how quick and eager I was to toss things in the trash in hopes of wanting to purge things and just be done with it. I had not yet trained my brain on the art of giving things a second life. To be clear, I consider myself a conservationist! I’m the person who’s always keeping unused napkins and ketchup packets from the restaurant so they go in the trash, or saving boxes in case we need them in the future. So, if I’m not quick to throw things away, then I imagine this way of thinking must be even more foreign to people who are less aware. 

Let me be very clear though, I am not talking about hoarding. Eliza shows a healthy degree of nostalgia/sentimentality for certain life things (her daughter's old drawings or gifts from grandma etc), but she is not hoarding things in excess. She simply has a wonderful system for reusing things. She turns them into art. She turns it into therapy. She has a home where these would-be discarded objects can go, which she calls the orphanage. It’s actually quite clever. In an ironic sort of way, it helps with keeping things clean and organized, because there’s a place for everything.