Putting Boxes to Good Use

Boxes Everywhere........Finding A Good Use.

Cardboard boxes come into our lives daily it seems. Boxes from the toys, boxes from the mail, boxes from presents, for presents, and even the garden shed comes in a box now! So what to do with all these boxes?

I save a lot of our boxes and often friends give me boxes because we try to use recycled boxes when shipping things for Little Green Booties products.

But we recently had birthday party, and this particular little boy was wishing for a big red fire truck with a remote control. After unsuccessfully looking at several stores I decided to look online. Wala......there it was. So, I ordered it. It came to my door in this very large box. We opened it, just to check it out and there it was neatly packed in it's own box inside. Two boxes, but well, it had to be shipped so I guess it is okay I told my self. Then came party day. I normally don't not use wrapping paper for our gifts. I try to use something other than paper. I love the little bags by Simply Green Solutions that fold up after you use them. They come in lots of colors and make the perfect "gift bag" for just the right price. Then the person, or the parent has a bag to use again. They make great library bags by the way. When you are done the bag goes right back in your purse ready for the next event!

Anyway, back to the truck. So the fire truck was not going to fit in this bag, way to big. What would we wrap this in? Then it came to me. We'll have "it" be the paper. So I took it outside and got out the paints. I wrote a big "Happy Birthday on the top with a big 5 in his favorite color and let the kids paint the sides. We put everyone's name on the side as well. Love Auntie, Uncle, etc. etc...therefore no card either (because a 5 year old really cares about a card, right)? We then topped it off with some ribbon, that was saved from our own birthday! Totally recycled/reused gift wrapping! Love it!!! When we showed up at the party the kids were like"woooaa...whats in that box"? The birthday boy loved his box and his present inside as well. Another recycling success story.

Go crazy, go eco- with your gift wrapping, use a little blanket, scarf or a bag. Gosh, use old school Sunday comics form the newspaper. I think gift wrapping today doesn't have to be right out of Hallmark. Try it, its contagious.



Now the next box was a HUGE success as well. A few weeks ago my friend posted a picture of her kids making a" drive through" out of her treadmill box. What a cool idea I thought..........and then the shed boxes arrived. Our shed was crushed by a rather large tree that fell in a winter storm. We had been pondering what to do and what kid of shed to replace it with. We decided on a shed and it was delivered in two huge boxes. Immediately my eye was on those boxes. "Don't throw those away", I said to my husband, "we have to make something out of those"! The kids were excited and played in just the boxes for a few weeks. Then we decided on a project . A school! We play school/teacher a lot, so a school would be perfect! We dug out some old red paint and a school it was. With windows a door and a flag we were set for the first day of school .



Weeks passed by with the other box sitting in our garage taking up major "car" real estate as my husband would say. I could read his mind thinking, "when can we get rid of these boxes". So, with the cold weather coming soon I knew we had to act quick. A school bus was the first idea , but our best friend loves to play pirate, not school. So we agreed it would be a cool pirate ship! It only took maybe an hour and we were ready to sail. At the last minute we deiced to add a large sail to the ship to make it authentic! "Argg....we are ready Matey"! So the ship and the school are major attractions for the block kids and make for a very fun afternoon at our house.

On another note when you are actually looking for boxes, say to move or store or ship there is a great site called usedcarboradboxes.com. "UsedCardboardBoxes.com, the Nation's cheapest, easiest and most earth-friendly way to get boxes for packing, moving, shipping and storage". Many people think using a cardboard box once and sending it to the traditional recycler is the most responsible way to help the environment. In fact, most boxes that are sent to recycler are actually being prematurely terminated! The process of recycling cardboard boxes requires a great deal of energy, chemicals and emissions that have their own negative impact on our environment not to mention all the trees that still have to be cut down to make new boxes. At UsedCardboardBoxes.com, they feel strongly that is it better to reuse a cardboard box at least once, before it is sent to a traditional recycler". (usedcardboardboxes.com)

"UsedCardboardBoxes.com takes an innovative approach to providing low-cost, earth-friendly moving boxes. They "rescue" truckloads of quality used boxes from large companies that might otherwise recycle them or simply throw them away. So if your in the market for boxes this a a great low cost way to go!

So be creative with your boxes, they don't just have to go right to the recycling truck!