Things You've Salvaged

[Craft Chick]

Recently I found a set of three bashed up coffee tables just resting against a skip on my street. I felt a bit cheeky pilfering them but I did, they were in awful condition but I rubbed them down and painted/varnished them and then painted an ivy motif like 'climbing ivy' up the legs which actually came out really well. I'm so glad I did, the finished result is actually really good, even if I do say so myself, and the overall cost was about ten pounds for the paint and varnish. Every time I look at them I feel really proud of my achievement.

I also rescued an old cardigan from my sisters junk pile, added a bit of vintage lace and some gorgeous diamante flower buttons and now it's one of my most worn items. I'm always buying 20p strings of beads from bootsales or junk shops, cutting them up and making new things from it: my Mum was chucking out an old brooch so I nabbed it and threaded it onto a strand of plain black rounds and it looks really good.

I'm just curious as to what you guys get up to and whether, like me, you have the urge to rescue and repair pieces!
Sorry if there is a thread already on this, I did a search on 'salvaging items' and nothing came up....

[craftdancer]

I view everything with the possibility that it can be used for something else. It's the way I was brought up!

At the moment I have huge amounts of Christmas cards to re-use. I put a notice out at work for unwanted cards for recycling and got an amazing response. Those cards that I couldn't find anything useful on have gone to the Woodland Trust recycling boxes, those that have something useful on I am cutting into component parts.

I bought three boxes of Christmas cards from Tesco's the other day and now have 150 square envelopes for just over a pound! I can also use the cards as the base for new cards and tags, which I will sell next Christmas to raise funds for charities.

Any bits of fancy packaging from gift sets, presents, crackers etc I save for using on cards.

Cost to me - nil
Cost to planet - nil (saves on the recycling costs or landfill)

Result - a happy crafter!

[Memories4ever]

I get loads of stuff from our local scrapstore, to work with our youth club.
If you're a magpie they're brilliant. You can't just drop in though, you usually have to be a member via an organised group. (and you can't use any of the stuff for business)

You wouldn't believe the kinds of things companies throw away:
Foam
fabric
huge printed pictures
Ribbon
bottles and boxes
paint
cereal packed toys
& loads of other 'things'

[swirlyarts]

When I was a teacher there was a huge scrapstore near us - I used to drool when I walked in!! I haven't taken anything from a skip - yet - but have been known to pick up coloured plastic bottles off the street - you get funny looks for that! My dad is a dustman so I've always had stuff lying around that he found (you would not believe what people throw away!) and I now put in requests to him!