Another Way to Be Green: Recycling Design Center Out-dated Items

Design Centers around the country get annual updates of carpet, fabric, tile, window treatments and the like. Which means that the out-dated items end up being discarded. In a new approach to recycling, I've begun picking up out-dated items from a local interior design center and putting the items to the following uses. Schools, craft-classes, and creative individuals can recycle things in useful and artistic ways:

1. Fabric samples – turned into pillows and a patchwork doll-quilt.
2. Fabric samples on the card-rings are serving as Fabric Store play things.
3. Paint chip cards – are perfect for playing design store – and are big enough to draw on as individual “canvas” pages.
4. Tile samples and flooring – peeled off the original display boards they become squares for counting and pattern making. Plans include glue and paper for patterns too.
5. Carpet samples – have been turned into play house and doll house carpeting.
6. Wood Blind samples – taken out of the holder, they are now in the block-set for building ramps or roofing.
7. The 4 and 5 –ring binder/book handles from some of the big display books have been cut apart and delivered to the neighborhood Kindergarten teacher who uses such things for big-books illustrated by the kids and sent home to each house for “reading and review comments” --- These are GREAT binder/board/handle which serve as binding/spine improvements for what had been worn-out in the circulation of the kids.
8. Ongoing samples – each year Kindergarten teachers create learning centers. Some teachers include a “home building/design” center in their rotation. So, we’d love to keep getting items and be able to forward them to our school's Kindergarten classroom. Perhaps other schools would be interested too.