How to Repurpose ANYTHING (Even If You're Not Creative!) - #18

Have you ever felt like you're not as creative as your favorite DIY blogger or YouTuber? Do you struggle to come up with ideas for how to upcycle or repurpose your thrift store finds? Here are 10 questions that you can ask that will cause you to come up with tons of ideas! Download the free repurposing worksheet to keep track of all the new ideas you'll come up with after listening to this episode!

Download the FREE Repurposing Worksheet

• How to Repurpose ANYTHING! (Blog Post with pictures)

Links and Products Mentioned (may include affiliate links)

• Kreg Jig
• Jigsaw 
• Nailer

Projects and Blog Posts Mentioned

• How to Upcycle Ceiling Fan Lights
• BEFORE & AFTER: Turn a Changing Table Into a Desk
• BEFORE & AFTER: Repurposed Toddler Bed Into a Garden Bench!
• How to Use a Jigsaw
• How to Paint Your First Piece of Furniture!

Podcast Episodes Mentioned

• How to Paint and Reupholster Furniture - #11
• 5 Power Tools You MUST Buy as a Newbie - #12

Subscribe to my email list for 5 ebooks, printable, and checklists: https://thriftdiving.com/subscribe

Subscribe to my YouTube channel:
https://www.y

Transcript

Hey, it's Serena Appiah from ThriftDiving.Com, which is a podcast, a blog and a YouTube channel that helps you decorate and improve your home and maintain your home with paint, power tools and thrift stores. And we don't sacrifice our budget, the environment or style. Welcome to episode 18 of the podcast.

Today, we are talking about 10 clever questions to repurpose anything, even if you're not a creative person. This is something that I hear from people a lot. They read blogs, they look at Instagram, they check out Pinterest because they're looking for ideas. They don't feel that they have it in themselves to come up with ideas.

So today we're going to talk about 10 important questions that if you ask yourself these questions, I can guarantee that you will look at almost any object and be able to come up with some ideas for what you could turn it into. You know, here at Thrift Diving, we love thrift stores. We love taking trash and discarded items and turning it into something else.

And what I've learned is that there are certain questions that you have to ask yourself in order to come up with these ideas. And I think people who are creative, I mean, we're all creative, but I think people that do it often, let's say, people that just love spending their weekend creating, or bloggers.

You know, we do these things, but we don't think much about it. And so I started thinking, how could I "train" people to start asking the right questions so that they too can come up with ideas? Because I don't think that creativity is limited to just people on Pinterest. We're all creative.

We all have ideas floating around, but we just aren't really in touch with them. So get some pen and paper. There is a post that goes with this podcast. You can find the link down below, and actually there is a free downloadable, creative planning worksheet that I provided for you on the blog post.

All you have to do is enter your name and your email address, click subscribe, and it will get emailed to you. So let's just jump right into it. 

You know, I feel that creativity it's like a muscle. The more that you use it, the stronger it becomes. And I think a lot of people don't want to believe that. They think they're either born with it, or they feel that creativity is like this gene, and it skipped them.

Maybe their sister got it, but they didn't get it. And I don't believe that's true. I think we all have creativity inside of us. Some of us are more in tune with it and some of us are not, for whatever reason. Maybe we've just never felt that we were creative or maybe someone told us like, "oh, that sucks. Your project is ugly. Like, what are you thinking?" 

But I think, nowadays with a lot of things on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, it's easy to look at these projects and think, oh my gosh, I would never come up with that idea. And I feel that way too. I'll be honest with you. That's probably one of the reasons that I don't go to Pinterest more often because it's like when you go to Instagram and everything is so beautiful, people have  the perfect outfits, the perfect makeup, the perfect vacation. And you start questioning your own beauty and your own wealth and creativity. And you're like, wait a minute. My makeup doesn't look like that. I don't have a home that looks like that.

And you start comparing yourself to other people. And I think the same is true for Pinterest because it happens to me. And I know if it happens to me, it probably happens to you. You start looking at these projects and you're like, I could never do that. Like, that's amazing that she came up with that idea. 

But here's the thing. You can train yourself to come up with great ideas. And it really comes down to asking yourself the right question. So let's start with question number one. 

I want you to ask yourself the next time you're looking at something, you're like, I think that I can do something with this, but I'm not sure what it is.

I mean, it could be anything. It could be just some random thing you find at the thrift store. It could be something that you found that was kind of cool, maybe like on the side of the road, but you don't really know what to do with it. You just thought, this looks like it could be something. I just don't know what it is. 

So the first question to ask yourself, what does this item remind me of? Does it resemble something else? And I think this is probably the easiest question to ask yourself, because when you want to repurpose, you want to ask yourself, what does this look like? Sometimes it's pretty obvious.

And then other times it's not obvious. And let me give you an example. So one day I was at the thrift store, and I had seen these little chip trays. They were like $1.99. And I looked at them, there was two of them, there was one yellow and there was one pink. Now I didn't buy them because of course, when you're at the thrift store, you can't buy everything.

Otherwise your house would be like Hoarders. If you don't trust me on that, just watch Hoarders. And I can tell you that like eight out of 10 people have all started their obsessions by going to the thrift store and buying a lot of stuff. So don't do that. Don't buy every single thing. 

But as I mentioned in one of the previous episodes, go to the thrift store and just walk around and look at some of the things that are there and ask yourself, what does this remind me of?

Does it resemble something? So on this particular day, I saw these two chip trays. Now, of course, I'm talking to you, you can't actually see what these chip trays look like. Unless you go to the blog post, there is a picture there. But in the center, it was a place where you would put like your dip, right. Or your salsa.

And it's circular, it's round. And then there were little sections where you could put like your chips or your peanuts or whatever it is that you're going to be dipping in the center. Well, when I looked at them, they looked like flowers and I started thinking, wow, if I had a little girl, I've got three sons, so no flowers in this house.

But I thought if I had a little girl or if I was making over a little girl's room or not even little girl, let's not, put gender on this. If I was making over a kid's room, let's put it that way. And I wanted to do like 3d flowers on the wall, maybe. These chip trays looked exactly like a flower.

And I could imagine all I would have to have done is to take a power drill, drill in the center of that chip tray and secure it to a stud in the wall. And then, you know, just use some paint and just create a little, curvy vine and put some leaves on it. And you've got 3d wall art. I mean, how cool is that?

So sometimes you have to look at an object and think, what does this remind me of? What does this look like? And I'll give you another example. One of my older blogger friends, her name is Kim. She's from a blog called the Kim Six Fix. Well, she had taken this POM pomegranate plastic bottle, and if you've seen it, you've been at the grocery store.

You've seen these bottles. It's like. You know, a little hump and then it's skinny in the middle and then it's got a little hump. Well, she turned it into this really cute snowman. That pictures on the blog too. So find the link down below and click it, but she turned it into a snowman. When you look at this bottle, it's shaped exactly like a snowman, and it turned out so adorable.

Another friend of mine, Karen, from DIY Bungalow, she found this, old surveyor's tripod. And it looked like this expensive Pottery Barn lamp that she had seen in their catalog. So she turned it into a replica for much, much less. It cost her $20. And the Pottery Barn tripod lamp was $469. I mean, that's a huge savings.

So sometimes it may not be where you're totally changing something around, but it could be something that you had seen in a magazine, a lamp or a desk or something that you could do your own version for much less. And I think in a previous episode, I had mentioned to you about these bun feet. So there was a project that I wanted to do.

I wanted to build a little bench with bun feet. But if you go to like Home Depot or Lowe's, bun feet or $11 each, so if you're building this bench and you're trying to put decorative feet on it or whatever, that's $11. $44 plus tax just for the feet, not including the plywood it takes to build it.

So, one day I was at the thrift store, and I saw the stack of wooden bowls. Crazy enough, they were shaped just like bun feed. Of course these were hollow, but they were bun feet. Well, I took my drill and some screws and some wing nuts and just made my own bun feet. And they were literally like a $1.49.

 So just by looking at something and having it remind you of something else just generates tons of ideas. So write them down. Write them down on the worksheet you can get just by signing up on my blog and  come up with some creative ideas. And I'd mentioned this in a previous podcast episode.

Sometimes you don't even need to buy the things at the thrift store. You can just spend the afternoon looking. We here Thrift Diving, we love thrift stores. We love just going and browsing. So plan an activity where you go, and you're just like, okay, I'm going to find three things that I could turn into something else.

It doesn't mean I'm going to buy them. But I'm going to turn them into something else in my mind. And I think the more that you start coming up with ideas, they just come to you. You don't have to specifically say, okay, question number one. What does it remind me of? It'll just start coming natural to you.

Question number two. Can I add something? If you look at any DIY project on blogs or on Pinterest, you realize that many of the things that people create, they're adding something to it, right? Some of it's common items that people, add when they repurposed furniture. For example, let me just give you a list of some things that people add.

A lot of times they're adding legs, they're adding wheels or casters or hinges, or they're putting holes or handles or pulls. They're maybe adding a lampshade or hooks or ribbons. These are some common things that you can buy for not a lot of money. And really dress things up. They're adding decoupage paper or wallpaper, or maybe even chicken wire or wires or cords or ropes and scrap wood, or just adding extra wood onto something that already exists.

So again, there's pictures on the blog post, but let's talk about some of these things, like, for example, rope. I know you've seen these projects where people are taking, old tires and they're hot gluing rope all around the tire. So by adding rope, now you've taken this ugly thing and you've put some legs on it, right?

You can buy prefabricated legs, just go to the home improvement store, maybe add a piece of wood on the bottom, but you've got some hot glue and you're just winding that around the tire and putting another piece of wood on top. And now you've got a little stool. Another idea is putting wheels or casters on things and of course legs.

So one of my friends had taken like this old vintage, I think it was like a Pepsi wooden crate or whatever. We'll she puts some legs on it and made a side table. And it's pretty cool. It looks very vintage-y cause it's worn out and it's authentic and she just put some legs on it, painted it, tried to distress it with some white paint to make it match the rest of the, the little Pepsi. I think it was Pepsi or Coke crate. 

So just remember you can always add legs to things you can always add casters and sometimes just putting pulls or handles on things can change it around and make it look different. Those are just a list of common things that you can add. And once you know what those common items are, you can start looking at your furniture, your thrift store goods, your thrift store finds as something that you can add something to.

Question number three is the opposite of this. Is there something that I can take away? So this is another great question to start thinking about when you're repurposing or upcycling, because a lot of times you can remove something, and it totally changes what it looks like. Okay. I know that you have seen these. I guess it's a chair.

People remember how this was quite popular. I don't know if people really do it anymore, but it was very popular where people were taking like dressers, and they were removing the top and maybe some of the inserts and they were adding some fabric and turning them into like chairs. I mean, it's so freaking creative.

I don't know who started that idea, who came up with that, but it was brilliant. So when you look at it this way, what can I take away? They decided, you know what, I could take away the top and I could take away some of the drawers, the inserts. And the wood on the inside and just add a little seat, right?

So question two and three kind of work together, like in tandem, what can you take away? What can you add? One of my projects that I really, really love, it was a dresser that my mother-in-law had given to me, but one of the drawers stuck. Now I could have sanded it down. I could probably have done some things to get it, to slide in there better, but it was so stuck, and it was not coming out.

I just decided to remove it all together. And this was the bottom drawer too. Thankfully it was the bottom drawer. It wasn't the top or the middle. I ended up removing the bottom dresser drawer and just using it as a bookshelf. I just put books on the bottom, and it was just a creative way to have storage in the room, in my bedroom without having to bring in like a small bookcase or hanging something on the wall.

And it just looked cool. It was a different way to express myself. 

So number four is what if I turn it upside down or sideways? You know, a lot of times when we look at something, we're used to looking at it in the way that we're used to using it, right? So if we see like a cup, most likely we're not turning a cup upside down. We're just thinking of it as a cup.

It's just a cup. But maybe if you drill out the bottom of it and you add a little light bulb to it now, maybe you've got some lights with some cool cup shapes. There's just a lot of things that you can do with objects when you rotate them in a different direction, and not think of that object in the way that it's always been used. 

So here's a good example. I was at the thrift store one day and I found these ceiling fan lights, and it reminded me of pretty candle holders. Now just imagine a like 1985 ceiling fan, right? It's very outdated.

Well, anyway, the thrift store had tons of them stacked up and there was something about it that just spoke to me, and I thought, well, what if I take this ceiling fan light? Which, you know, normally they're pointed down with the wider part pointing towards, you know, let's say the living room, but what if I turned it upside down?

And if I installed a new base and put some stencils on it, I could actually make a candle holder with this. Like, it's kind of a cool idea. And that's what I did. And that project is on my YouTube channel.

It's on the blog post. You can actually see what that looks like. And it was an amazing,  project. Now. Yeah, I did run into some challenges with that because once you burned the candles, you have to have a way to make sure that the candle wax does not go  all the way through. So there were some improvements I could have made, but basically this was a really pretty way to make a candle holder on a base.

It could maybe have been used as a display on a bookcase, anywhere, anywhere, really, but it was, it was beautiful. It was a fun project. It was probably one of my most creative upcycles and I love it. I still have it. Do I use it? No, it's in my dining room sitting up on the buffet, but I look at it and I think, wow, that was really a creative project. So just turning those ceiling fan lights in a different direction, made me think, wow, these look like beautiful candle holders, and I was able to repurpose them. 

Another project that I wanted to point out to you was the time that I turned my youngest son's toddler bed into a garden bench.

Oh my gosh. This was such an amazing project. So this bed,  I may have bought it from the thrift store. I don't even remember. But I got to the point where he was too big to use it. And I thought, well, it's time to donate it. And I don't know about your thrift store. My thrift store sometimes is very iffy about donating, like beds and things like that. You cannot donate cribs to a thrift store. They just won't accept it. Right? Like if a child injures themselves, because of that crib, they could be held liable. So they don't sell cribs. They don't really sell I think kids' beds. Certain kids' beds. They may not sell. It's one of those kids' beds that have the little arm rails, right, so the kid doesn't fall out. 

So I put it into the back of the van. The thing was all shaky. It might've been missing some bolts. And I just thought to myself, you know, they're not going to accept this. Why don't I just take this out? Let me just do something with this. Maybe I'll just use it for parts. So I pulled it out and when I set it down, it looked like a garden bench.

And I thought, oh my goodness, this is a freaking amazing project. But it was a little too small. It was too short. I was like, well, maybe I'll do something for the kids. Right. It's kid height. But after I did the project, I just built a little platform for it so that it was raised up.

And then by building the platform, there was some extra storage underneath. I absolutely love, love, love this project. Now, unfortunately, the project didn't last, I mean, it lasted probably about three or four years. And then of course just being outside, you know, it was not the type of wood that would hold up.

And I think even for the base, I don't think I even used pressure treated wood, which you should use, but it was all painted. The paint and held up for a number of years. And then it just got to the point where it's like, okay, we need to throw part of this away, but I still have part of it sitting out on my patio. 

But as I'm going back to, as I'm trying to relate this to the original question is if I turned it upside down or sideways, what does it remind me of? Like, what could I do with this? And by turning that bed upside down, it suddenly just popped into my mind, oh my gosh, this looks like a bench, like a gardening bench.

You know, like a bench top where I can do my,  gardening. I can set my flowers here, put my garden boots underneath. And it was just a fantastic project. I just remember loving that project so much. So remember, turn it in different ways and see  what else can you do with this just by turning it into a different direction.

All right. So question number five. Is, can I borrow or reuse pieces or parts? Don't ever feel like you have to use the entire item that you're repurposing or upcycling. A lot of times people feel that everything has to be used. Right. 

Here's a good example. So I had gone to the Restore and I found this piece of wood. It looked like it was a piece of wood railing, and it had these little spindles, and these spindles were probably no more than maybe an inch and a half, two inches, two inches max, but they were so cute.

I thought if I just buy this piece and cut those spindles out, I could use these spindles for something. I didn't even know what I was going to use them for, but I just knew they were cute. I like the way they look, and I ended up turning them into Christmas tree ornaments. I drilled some holes through them, put some, I guess it was like a fishing line or whatever,  some sort of plastic string that wasn't going to break and just did like a hook on the top and just made some cute, Christmas tree ornaments  by using those pieces of wood. So never feel like you have to use the whole object. There might be something specific that you could use. If you think of it that way, you'll come up with some ideas.

Question number six is, could it carry or support items inside? On top? On the side? This question is kind of related to number four, but it gets you into thinking a little differently about what you could do with the item, if you flipped it in another direction. So I've seen really creative projects where people have turned filing cabinets onto their side and actually used it for storage or storing gardening items on the inside of the compartments in the garage.

So, you know, a lot of times when we think of filing cabinets, I mean they're tall and we're thinking, oh, well maybe we can store files, but maybe we can store gardening things. But if you turned it on its side, now it's a little bit different, you know, maybe you put legs on it. You know, maybe you've got a work bench.

I mean, there's so many things that you can do with this. So ask yourself, what could you store or hold inside of the item that you flipped over? 

So my friend Jeanie from Create and Babble, she took a $4 cabinet door and she used pretty knobs and painted it and then turned it into a coat rack.

So if you think about this project, most cabinet doors are rectangular, right? And we usually think of them in that orientation, especially if we know they're cabinet doors. But if you turn it on its side, now you've got something that's longer than it is taller. And adding some decorative knobs,

now you've got a pretty coat rack. So just turning things into a different direction. Again, related to question number four, but thinking, you know, if I turn it in a different direction and add pretty knobs, I could carry or support something like my sweaters, my bags, or maybe a wreath. So sometimes it's not just a matter of asking yourself one question. It could be a combination of questions, right? What if I turn it in another direction? What can I add? And could it carry your support something inside or on top? 

 So those are just some questions that you can pile on top of each other to come up with some ideas. 

Question number seven. What if I made this taller and I already sort of alluded to this. I was telling you about one of my friends, Debbie from Refresh Restyle. She took, it was a Coca Cola. I was thinking it was Pepsi, but it was a Coca-Cola crate. And she made the cutest little end table for her patio for entertaining, just because she made it taller.

And I've actually seen these, I've gone to salvage shops, and I've seen these vintage Coca-Cola containers or whatever. And a lot of times you think, well, what would I do with this? But if you add legs to it, made it taller. Now you've got a little side table that you could put on your patio. Just by making it taller.

So ask yourself, what if I made this taller? If I add legs to it, what would this be? What could I stack on top of this? Could I use it in a different way? Another one of my friends, Gail, from My Repurpose Life, this is one of my favorite creative projects relating to this question, because what she did was, she took an old 1990s desk.  Think of the desks from the nineties, right? They're like these big wooden pieces that nobody really buys anymore. And it's got four drawers on the left, four drawers on the right and you've got your desktop, right? You might even have a center drawer. Well, what she did was she actually cut the left side and the right side. She took those four drawers from the left and the piece that had the four drawers on the right.

And she actually stacked them on top of each other. This was so creative. And she turned it into, it actually looked like a jewelry box. But, you know, not a small jewelry box, I'm talking about  like a tall jewelry box, right, with all these drawers. She painted it, but she turned it into a completely different piece of furniture just by removing the center section and stacking it on top of each other.

So essentially what she did was she made it taller and it's amazing. So you can find that link in the blog post if you want to hear more about these projects that I'm referencing. 

So then question eight of course, see you're on the right track. You already know what it is.

What if I made this shorter? See, look, you already said it didn't you. Right? So if you can make things taller, you can also make things shorter. This is what I did with my son's changing table. He outgrew it. This is something I actually found from the thrift store as well. 

And instead of just donating it back to the thrift store, I decided what if I cut a little bit of the legs off to make it a little shorter? And if I removed the two shelves and turn this into a desk, yes. I turned a little kids changing . Table into a desk. It was a creative idea. I'd never seen anybody-- now, I have seen people turn cribs, so, okay. I'm not going to take full credit for that. I don't even know if that was my inspiration, but I do know that I have seen cribs turned into desks, but this was a changing table.

And what was really cool is that one of the shelves that I removed, when I flipped it over, it actually had like a white board material on the bottom. And so I was able to  secure that to the back of the changing table and use that as a whiteboard. And if you can believe this. My son is 14 now. And I have been using this desk.

He's been using this desk for at least; I think it's been six years. Maybe, maybe even more he's been using this desk and we're still using it. Like I painted it, I painted it again. And yeah, we've just been using this desk and you'll see those pictures on the blog posts. But it's really cute. And I think it was probably one of my more creative upcycles.

So again, the takeaway is, what can you, what can you do to make this shorter? What if you were to take this object or this piece of furniture and made it shorter, could it become a desk? Could it become a coffee table? Maybe you add a little bit of fabric to the top. So there's just a lot of things that you can do just by asking yourself these questions. And again, taking these questions and piling them on top of each other to add other ideas, right? Can you make it shorter? What can you add? 

Question number nine is, can I hang this on the wall or the ceiling? Now, no one ever looks at a pair of thrifted skis and thinks, hey, these skis would look great on my wall, but my friend Kim, from the Kim Six Fix, she did this. She took a pair of skis from the thrift store and hung them on her wall.

She did like a light sign that says NOEL, and she took the skis and she crisscrossed them. She painted them and hung like a pretty wreath next to them. This was so creative. Who would ever think of buying a pair of skis and painting them and then hanging them on your wall, but she did. So think of the items that you want to repurpose, look at it and think, okay, if I hang this on my wall, maybe I painted or do something creative to it. Where could I hang this on my wall? 

And question number 10 is, what skills or tools do I need to do this?  You can come up with the most creative ideas, but if you don't have the right tools and materials or skills, you're not going to be able to do it. If you're somebody who has never painted furniture, down below in the section with all the notes, there are links to where you can get started with painting furniture. There's some tips and tricks for you. And if you've never used power tools, I always tell people definitely, definitely start with a jigsaw.

It's the easiest, least intimidating power tool to use. And surprisingly. It can cut a lot of materials, wood metal. Now, of course, it's going to be thin metal. You're not going to cut big thick pieces of metal, but it'll cut wood. It'll cut metal, it'll cut plastic. And this is a good tool that you would be able to use to maybe cut off little sections here and there.

And of course, you're going to need a power drill, but there's a podcast  which you can find in the show notes, that actually tells you the five power tools that I recommend you definitely get started with for your DIY toolkit. Because the reason why is when you come up with these creative ideas and you will come up with creative ideas,

if you ask yourself these questions, you have to have the tools in order to do these projects. I love, love, love the Kreg jig pocket whole system. I haven't done very many videos, or I don't even know if I mentioned that. I think I may have mentioned that in the podcast regarding the tools, but anyway, I'll leave a link down below.

If you see a lot of DIY bloggers building things or doing repurposed things, a lot of times they're using a Kreg pocket hole. And what that is, is where you're basically just using a power drill. You're drilling into a piece of wood at an angle, and then it allows you to use the pocket screw to attach it to another piece of wood, right?

So you don't have to do any like crazy woodworking.   It's literally just drill a hole. It gives you the template connected to another piece of wood. And I've done a lot of projects myself using the pocket hole. And I definitely definitely recommend you add that to your system.

 Also get a nailer, an orbital sander, and some furniture paints. We talked about furniture paints. I will leave a link down below to some of the furniture, some of the furniture paints that I have used that I really like, but it's not all encompassing. Like there's so many furniture paints. And over time you just tend to find the brands that you like.

But I will tell you that I love using Fusion Mineral paints. They're not sponsoring this or anything, but I like that it's got a little bit of sheen. It gives you full coverage and it also has a topcoat that's built into it. That means you won't necessarily have to put a topcoat, but I won't go into too much details on that, but I will leave some information for you to research that down below.

So the last few questions that you should ask yourself when you're brainstorming is, will this project take a lot of work, or will it be quick and easy for me? Now, this is in part of the 10 questions, but this is just something to think about in addition to those 10 upcycling questions, but ask yourself, well, this project take a lot of work, or will it be quick and easy for me?

And as I mentioned in my last podcast, whatever time you think it's going to take multiply that by three, sometimes even more, because most times projects will take you longer than you estimate. It just happens. It just happens that way. 

The second question is, do I feel inspired by this item, but I'm not sure what to do with it yet?

I do think that that's okay, to hold onto it for later. But again, don't start hoarding things because then you'll have so many projects on your to-do list that you never get any done. So if you're inspired by it, buy it, but don't be inspired by too much. 

And then the last question, just one of the extra questions to ask yourself is, has this project been done before?

You can always check Pinterest, check Google to see if the project has been done before. Personally, I don't like to check this before I do a project. And the reason why is because I never want to be influenced by anything that anybody else has done. I want it to be an "original" project. I will usually Google it afterwards or check Pinterest after I've done the project.

And then I'm like, oh, okay, somebody has done something similar, but don't let it deter you if you check it first and then you see somebody else has done it. Sometimes you may just get an idea and it's already been done, but they didn't do it exactly how you would do it. So it's okay to Google it, and that might even help you, that might even help you move forward on your project.

But the biggest thing to remember is that not every project will be just one repurposing question. And I said this before, a lot of times you can ask yourself multiple questions. What can I add? Can I make it taller? Can I make it shorter? What if I turned it? Because sometimes you will make something shorter, and you might rotate it.

But if you stick to these 10 questions, plus the few bonus questions, but those 10 upcycling repurposing questions, I can guarantee you are going to come up with some brilliant ideas and then you're not going to be  able to contain your excitement. You are going to be so proud of yourself for being so creative. I can guarantee it. 

 So before I tell you what we're going to talk about next week, let me tell you if you are on Instagram, definitely follow me. I'm trying to get to 10,000. It's like every time I go in there, I see that I've lost followers. Like you've gained followers and you lost followers.

So one step forward, two steps back. So let's connect on Instagram. You can look @thriftdiving. Find me there. If we're not connected, definitely find me on YouTube. If you are not already subscribed there, I would love to see you in the comment section because I do respond to as many comments as possible, personally.

And you can always email me serena@thriftdiving.Com. Now, next week, we are going to be talking about how bloggers make money.  I'm saying bloggers, but when I say bloggers, I mean content creators. So whether you're blogging, whether you are doing YouTube videos or maybe you're just on Instagram, how do people make money on those platforms?

I don't think I've spent a lot of time talking about that over the course of the nine years that I've been doing this. But I definitely want to share that with you in case you are someone who wants to share your projects with the world, how can you actually make money doing that? So we're going to talk about that next week.

I will see you next week and thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next episode.