Single Use?

This is one of the "Words Of The Year" for 2018. We are all being urged to avoid 'single use' items, and rightly so. It is not good to buy water and throw away the bottle after drinking it. Our whole planet is littered with...litter.
But 'single use' can also apply to the way we use tools, or the purpose to which we put objects. Yes, I still have my treasured mini Swiss Army knife on my keyring [a present from Liz about 16 years ago] which is the archetypal multi-use, multi-purpose tool. But there are other things I use in unexpected ways.

This is the PopPunch which I got over 30 years ago when I first got my knitting machine. It is for making holes in plastic punch cards so you can knit repeating patterns. it is years since I had the KM out, and I am seriously debating whether to get rid of the machine. 

But the punch? definitely not! It makes beautifully neat holes, smaller than the regular hole punch I use for file papers. 

And it is easy to position in exactly the right spot. It really comes into its own when producing gift tags. 
 These are for our 2018 "Angel Blessing" project, and I will be sharing  more on that soon.

The other item which I have found a new use for is a little more unexpected. I was out in the garage and noticed Bob had a large bag of Jointing Biscuits.

No these are not edible. They are what woodworkers often use when joining two pieces of wood [the 'biscuit' is glued into a slot in each side of the joint.

I looked at them and realised that a biscuit in a paper cup cake case would be a great baby Moses in his basket, floating amongst the bulrushes.
So that is what the children produced on Sunday morning, under the careful supervision of my good friends Ali and Pete.

And yes, I have realised we can make Baby Jesus in a manger with these...but that won't be this Christmas though!