Hoarding redemption: Oatmeal boxes

(Sorry for the missed post; Monday turned out to be extraordinarily hectic, and it just slipped my mind!)

Ordinarily, I am not a hoarder -- in fact, I am the trash-happy member of this household. ("What did you do with my whatever?" "Oh, did you want to keep that? I pitched it. Sorry!") But every now and then, something takes hold of me and I hoard. The strangest things, too -- butter tubs, hangers, cardboard toilet paper tubes. This goes on until R teases me, at which point I realize the extent of my foolishness and stop. Usually. (When we moved into this house, with us came a large moving box full of nothing but empty hangers. Seriously.)

 

Lately, it's oatmeal boxes. I eat oatmeal like crazy now -- I go through about a carton a week. And I have been keeping those cartons, because they look cool. I'd thought I would make flower arrangements in them, since my salt box arrangement turned out so well. Which was fine for one or two boxes, but my collection was a bit bigger than that. The problem is that once I save one box, I have a hard time justifying throwing away subsequent boxes. If I needed that one, why don't I need these five?

Yes, I have issues.

I started scheming about a collection of seasonal arrangements. However, the arrangement wasn't quite tall enough for the carton, so I moved it to a vase and repurposed the covered oatmeal box to an advent present container.

Which left the rest of the stack. Thankfully, inspiration struck: I could use them to pack gift boxes for the homeless at the Memphis Union Mission. They ask that you put toiletries, gloves, and little treats in a wrapped shoe box, but I don't have any shoe boxes. However, the oatmeal container is about the same size as a shoe box, and can be wrapped in such a way that the paper need not be ripped off.

Cover the bottoms and tops.

Wrap the sides, leaving a small
overhang at the bottom.

Curl paper over the bottom edge.

Fill!

So I made a bunch of packages, which we will drop off sometime in the next week or so. And have depleted my hoard, which is also nice. 

But I'm almost through with this week's box of oatmeal, so the pressure is mounting.