Duct (Duck) Tape to the Recsue

I am the queen of all that is green.  Reduce, reuse and recycle/re-purpose  is my life's mantra.  I never like to replace something that still has some life left in it.  It pains me to throw anything out.  I have a giant panic attack just thinking about contributing to the already overflowing landfill.
My husband suffers no such compunction, but that is a whole other story.

When it comes to fixing up a seemingly unusable item and getting a few more miles out of it, I am somewhat of an expert.  I learned a lot of fix-it-up lessons from my very handy and endlessly frugal parents, who literally never throw anything out.  No, seriously, they don't.  Need a magazine from 1972?  No problem.  A roll of wrapping paper for any occasion?  Here you go.  A handwritten recipe circa 1985?  I know where you can find one, still stuck to the same refrigerator it was stuck to in 1985.  But I digress.  This post is not about the memorabilia floating around my parents' home, it is about getting a few more miles out of an item that to some may see like trash.

No Green Queen's tool belt is complete without a roll of Duct Tape, which by the way, has morphed into a whole brand called Duckbrand Duck Tape, after so many years of mispronouncing by so many.  It comes in patterns and colors galore these days, not just the ubiquitous gray your grandmother used to use.  I am not the first person to laud the many uses for duct tape, so I won't bore you with endless lists of all the things you can do with this wonderful roll of handiness.  I am just going to tell you one trick I employed recently, in hopes that you will think twice about throwing something out just because it's showing a little wear.  We all need to do our part to keep the planet from becoming one big rotting pile of garbage.

I love my house shoes in the winter.  If you are from 'Up North' you might call them slippers, but here in Texas they are known as house shoes - shoes you wear in the house (and sometimes outside the house as well).  Again, I digress.  I brought out my house shoes from last year and I thought I might have to buy some new ones.  The bottoms of the shoes were all torn up.  The insides and the tops were fine though, so I just couldn't bring myself to trash them.  Besides, this week was a particularly lean one as far as cash-flow was concerned, so it seemed perfectly reasonable to fix them up for some more wear.  Duct Tape to the rescue.  I now have a perfectly comfy pair of shoes that will likely last me at least another couple of months if not the whole rest of the season.

Before

After

Hey, don't judge me.  I am only doing my part to save the planet.  My feet are warm too. :)  What are your reuse-it plans for the season?