Create: The Wii and Me

Graffiti is a way of expressing oneself by taking over someone else's space and making it your own.  Found Poetry is a way of expressing oneself by taking someone else's ideas and making it your own.  Upcycling is a way of expressing oneself by taking someone else's trash and making it your own.

Wiki says "upcycling is the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or a higher environmental value."  I like using the Reduce and Re-Use parts of the Three R's.  (Un)fortunately, upcycling has become pretty popular lately.  But I still get weird looks.

When my friend opened her Wii and I saw the kind of packaging it came with, I thought it would be perfect for a storage container.  Inside the box were two blue trays with inserts holding all the components.  My guess is that Nintendo knew that gamers like to mess with things and built their packaging to be inventive and useful.  My friend kept her box around for my idea until after xmas, and gave me her box after my son opened his Wii.  So I had two perfect boxes just sitting there.

So I finally got around to cutting and gluing my boxes and how I have a wonderful place to store all my office supplies - scissors, sharpies, stapler, rulers, crochet hooks, etc.  Now all I have to do is throw some craft paper/paper bags around the edges so that it makes a smooth surface and paint it all.  

I took out the inserts of the trays and glued strips into place to make dividers.  I also cut thumb holes to make it easier to pull open.  I opened the box itself all the way and cut out one side on each box.  Then I glued the tabs back in place.  Once that was set, I glued the boxes together so that they would stay together, inserted the trays, and threw some stuff in there!

What do you have laying around the house or trash that could be given new life?