One of the things I enjoy the most about blogging is sharing thoughts and ideas with others. As is the case in the “real world”, like minded people are drawn together throughout the blogosphere, sharing inspiration from all corners of the planet.

Yesterday, Robin, from Bogs of Ohio, told us the story of “The Scrounger’s Garden” which is one of the garden displays at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. In the garden, various items have been recycled, such as old boots and shoes, and even an unused bicycle has been included in the display.

Robin is a wonderful photographer and has included a number of photos in her post, so do pop on over and have a read of the story and admire her photographic skills. And make sure you scroll all the way down to the last photo, where you will see a lamp, made by Robin’s husband, ingeniously sculpted from old used books. I love it! 😀

One of the links in Robin’s story takes us to The X Facta, where Kel shows us how she has made a keepsake journal, by binding together plain old brown paper bags. It’s another ingenious idea and Kel’s artistic talent is apparent when you see the beautiful artwork on her journal. Go on over to Kel’s “Art Attack” and admire her work for yourself.

Another link included in “The Scrounger’s Garden” takes us to the site of Kathy, at “Lake Superior Spirit”, who is another one of Robin’s bloggers friends. Kathy has written an article about the benefits of reusing old cards and calendars. You will find this story at “Taking Back the World, One Card at a Time”.

Kathy’s story really struck a chord with me. It reminded me of my childhood days, when I would save all of the old cards given to my family for birthdays, Christmas and Easter. I had a box full of cards stashed under my bed and when the new school year began, my elder sister and I would cover my new school books with old brown paper, then we would choose a picture from a card to glue on the front of each book.

My sister also taught me how to press flowers, just as Kathy describes, by squashing them for a lengthy amount of time between heavy books.

When my own two daughters were just little girls, each had their own flower press, a more sophisticated manner of pressing flowers than the heavy book version, although both methods work beautifully.

You can imagine my delight when Hayley, my eldest daughter, presented me on Mother’s Day this year with a framed picture which she had made herself. She had found a verse on the internet “How God Created Mother”, which she printed out, glued to a sheet of pretty purple paper, and added pressed pansies along the side.

Here’s a photo of Hayley’s creation ~

Be sure to run the mouse over the photo and click on it, for a closer view.

Hayley apologised for using a second hand picture frame! Can you believe it? It’s such a beautiful gift, from my beautiful daughter, which I will treasure always. 🙂

There’s a lot to be said for saving old cards, calendars, magazines and left over fabric pieces, along with pressing pretty, colourful flowers from your garden. The possibilities are endless when considering the number of hand-made projects we can put together, if we just give some thought to recycling, as opposed to discarding.

And think of the amount of joy which can be spread when the time is taken to create your own personalised gift for a friend or family member, just as Hayley did for me.

Between Robin, Kel and Kathy, I have been pleasantly reminded of gardening and craft projects, involving the reusing of old items, that I have enjoyed myself throughout the years, not only from childhood days but also more recently. I’ll make a point of telling you about them, another day.

Right now though, I’m off to get some sewing done. (Which reminders me…I must tell you about the quilt I made, many years ago). 🙂

Thank you, Robin and Kathy, for sharing your stories and inspiring not only my day, but also my intended future posts here. 😀