Empty Old Boxes

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder ... Everything and everyone has potential!

One part of our basement is full of empty boxes, either from moving here, from parcels that arrive (usually from Amazon!!) or just the endless pile of 'nappy' (American's read 'diaper') boxes that seem to accumulate exponentially. 

On a recent visit to stay with us, my mum's perception was 'What a fire hazard', a disaster just waiting to happen. Being crafty, I see a 101+ craft opportunities for a rainy day or a long snowy winter in Ohio without costing me very much at all!

While I like to get creative ... there isn't much to it really! With a cardboard box and a little persons imagination ... you don't even need to do anything to it and suddenly it becomes a cave to hide in or a car to drive all round the living room ... that's without decoration! Imagine the potential then when you add a few bells and whistles!

One of our moving boxes became a little house which Abigail and all her friends loved to death, for about a year and a half! Painted with some paint a friend didn't need anymore and a few finishing flower touches by Nana when she visited ... voila ...

After Naomi was born we had an abundance of pink tissue paper and a few battered shiny gift bags ... rip them all up and add them to a large Amazon packing box and you get a life sized Abigail!

Yesterday was a rainy day ... and a very enthusiastic artistic director 'helped' me transform this Huggies box into a puppet theatre ... still a work in progress!

While we are having lots of fun with our empty boxes ... I can't imagine that in the year or so we have left living here we will ever get through the current supply of cardboard lurking in our basement (yes, there really is that much!). Maybe we should get our acts together and recycle a whole bunch of it ... and reduce the 'up in flames' factor down there!