Recycling

There is a large pile of boxes in our dining room from the "recycling" that we do in our house. First, we buy a new toy (or are gifted a new toy from our parents). Usually this toy isn't new, but pre-owned. It arrives at our door in a box. It is unpacked with delight and all shipping contents are saved.

After some time has passed and technology has changed, we upgrade or trade-in. Much research is completed on ebay, craigslist, and other websites, and a new item of interest is decided upon for the trade-in. Then the search for the perfect buy commences. A while later UPS delivers a box to our door and the new pre-owned trade-in toy is played with and loved.

But, where does the box go? The box goes in a pile in the dining room where it will wait until it can be filled with the old toy that has just been sold. Thus the boxes get recycled. Lately there has been a glitch in the system. The number of new toys brought into the house has outgrown the number of old toys leaving the house, and along with my frustration level, the box pile has grown. There are packing peanuts escaping from plastic bags and statically attaching themselves to other objects.

It is no wonder that with the mess in our house we feel a little anxiety about the clutter. So what do we do about fixing this problem?

Find more closet space!

A few weekends ago, I was cleaning out the front closet in hopes of finding more stuff to put into the pile in the dining room for removal from the home. I found a large box full of candles. Many of the candles were 3/4 burned. They were not good enough to go to salvation army and I didn't want to throw them away, so I decided to be a little creative. Being that it is summer break for like 2 more days I had some time to kill on a Friday afternoon. And here was my adventure...

Step 1: Get the old wax out of the candle holders by placing into boiling water. Note: only use pots that you don't need, because the wax is hard to get out. I chose to use our old aluminum backpacking pots with the coating that is pealing off (into our food?).


Step 2: Pour wax into a second pot and add other wax from candles that were not in holders. Use low heat. Fish out all of the old wicks.


Step 3: Wash out the candle holders and place new wicks in the bottom.


Step 4: Pour in the wax and let it cool. Different temperatures of wax seem to make different patterns as it cools. I don't know the specifics, but something was definitely different about the wax used in the second layer of this jar candle. The top layer was liquid in this picture but dried as a dark blue.


Step 5: Cut the wicks down, admire your work, and take pictures! Oh, and don't forget to use the new candles or else they'll just sit in the closet again!