Here are more ideas for reusing items for storage and décor.

Plastic Bags

Use tissue boxes as plastic bag dispensers. You may want to save several sizes of tissue boxes for different sizes of bags. In that way, you recycle both the boxes and the bags and keep the bags from becoming clutter.

Some people use plastic bags for crafts. Plastic bags can be braided into rugs. They can also be braided and used like Styrofoam bases for crafts. One way to use plastic bags for wreaths is to braid the plastic bags, then shape them into a circle. Next, hot glue a brown paper bag to the circle to form a wreath base. Use more hot glue to glue pine cones and other Christmas decorations on the wreath base. Soon you will have a beautiful Christmas wreath created from recycled materials. But beware! Store the plastic bags for crafts appropriately, or the bags turn back into clutter.

Rubber Bands

Do you have thick rubber bands lying around the house? If so, you can use them to help keep the straps of spaghetti strap dresses or blouses on their hangers. One source of closet clutter is the blouse or dress that has spaghetti straps and won’t stay on its hanger.  Rubber bands wrapped around the ends of hangers keep straps from falling, and keep you clothes off of the closet floor.

Jewelry Organization

Organizing jewelry can be done using several different recycled objects that you might find around the house. You can hang necklaces from decorative hooks on the wall or from a closet door. Hanging your necklaces from decorative hooks keeps them from becoming tangled, as well. Untangling necklaces takes time that you could spend better elsewhere.

Clips and Clothes pins

Magnetic clips and clothes pins can double as clips and holders for many different household items. Both work well as recipe card holders. Magnetic clips can be attached right on to the hood of your stove for easy reading. Clothes pins can be put at the top of you rolled up potato chip bag and help keep them fresh.

Jars

If you found pretty jars while decluttering, you can use them for storage and even sometimes for décor. Glass baby food jars are frequently used to store small items. But don’t keep lots of them around just in case you might need them some day, or they turn into clutter. You can use glass baby food jars to store anything from pins to beads to nails and staples. If you decide to use baby food jars or other jars for candles holders, put a few drops of water at the bottom of the jar. The wax will come out of the jar much easier if you do.

You can use a small collection of glass jars or vases that are a similar color for decoration. Group them together for a designer vase look. This color scheme idea makes even the most unusual items look like a collection.

Small jars are frequently used to organize bathroom clutter. Bobby pins, hair ties, cotton balls and tons of other bathroom or make up items can easily be sorted into small jars. These containers make good organizers for the home office, as well. Rubber bands, paper clips, and staples sort into these easy to store containers and are easily put into drawers.

Boxes

Small boxes and small plastic containers make excellent storage containers for bathroom items such as ear swabs and cotton balls. One example of the type of containers you can use is berry boxes from the produce department of your grocery store. Depending on what the box was originally used for, you might need to spray it with disinfectant. Grouping similar types of boxes together makes those recycled boxes look more like a fashion statement and less like an accident, as well.

Vases

Vases are good storage for many household items. You may have a cupboard full of vases from flowers you have received down through the years. It is always nice to keep a few of these around for flowers from your garden. But after a while, vases too become clutter. You can use vases to hold office supplies such as pens and pencils. Crochet hooks and knitting needles can be stored in vases for a decorative look. And a very large vase may just be what you have been looking for to use as an umbrella holder for your front entry.

Need Shelves? Try This!

An easy way to give yourself some extra shelving is to use crates or smaller shelves inside larger shelves to give you more storage. Remember those plastic milk crates? Stack them and use them as shelves. Put crates or boxes on closet shelves or on the floor of a closet and use them as shelf space. Boxes work for this as well, especially if you need shelves in a closet or place where no one will see the boxes.