A couple of weeks ago I was wading through e-mails and came across my Martha Stewart Craft of the Day e-mail. I generally look at the craft and then pop over to her organizing tip of the day on her website to see what incredibly expensive/difficult/time consuming project she had planned. Well on that day rather than just glossing over it, I stopped when found this – a newspaper recycling station! 
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Now, with all do respect to Ms. Stewart (who I am warming up to slowly) and her idea, I didn’t feel like going out and buying a wooden crate and the hardware that would be needed to create her ingenious project. I knew there had to be a way to do it cheaply and with some of the things I already had laying around the house and I was right! I did it with just what I had on hand…no cost to me! Wahoo!
Check out this cheap or no cost Martha Hack. 😉

Step One – Grab a milk crate (super cheap – under $5.00 if you don’t already have one) and some Command  Cord Clips ($2). If you’ve read this blog for any amount of time you know I’m obsessed with Command products. I swear there’s not much they can’t do, so I always have them around. These were hanging out in the junk drawer in the kitchen.

Here’s an up close shot of the clips you’ll need:

Step 2: Apply the clips to the top edge of the milk crate like so. You’ll have a better idea of what this looks like in a sec.

Step 3: Shoo away Scrappy Dog, who is suddenly very interested in what you’re doing. (OK, maybe you won’t have that step.)

Step 4: Open one of the clips and thread the end of your twine through making sure to leave a tail.

Repeat. Here, you can see how I’ve used two pieces of twine, clipping the ends into the Command clips, leaving decent sized ends hanging so I can tie it up.

Scrappy’s Tip: Once you start laying in your newspapers, pull up gently on both ends of the twine so it lays flat on the bottom under your papers. If you don’t it’ll be too loosey goosey when you tie the ends together and it won’t be a stiff bundle. 
And voila! All tied up and ready to go to the recycling center or out to the curb! I was going to take a picture of our pile of papers waiting to go to recycling, but I was just to ashamed to admit how big it had gotten. Our apartment complex doesn’t have recycling and I buy multiple papers (say 3 or so) each week for the coupons. It’s a little insane, but well worth it. And now I have a great and fast way to bundle them. 

Love it! Thank you Martha for the inspiration. It was a good thing. 😉

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4 Comments

  1. OMG. I’ve never seen this idea before. I’m cefinitly going to have to make my own. Thank you for posting. I would love for you to stop by and link up to More the Merrier Monday. It is open through Wednesday so you have plenty of time to link up. http://diyhshp.blogspot.com

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