cutting up calendars

I'm just beginning the process of lightening my load.  And you know what?  It feels pretty good.  We are moving into a much smaller home, forcing me to abandon my pack-rat ways and discard many of my treasures and trinkets.  I am a sentimental saver and did not go into this with a light heart.  However, my head was eventually able to convince my heart that I do not need to hold on to so many of my daughter's old toys, every single piece of art work she has ever created, or a slew of other things that live in boxes and seldom see the light of day.  My level-headed girl helped me go through the dizzying amount of memorabilia and save a few things.

One of the other things I'd been holding on to were pretty calendars.  The art work was lovely but I own a lot of beautiful art books and really don't want to proudly display a bunch of old calendars in my bookcase.  And so I spent an evening cutting some of the calendars into free form hearts.  I brought the hearts to school today and the littles were enchanted with the gorgeous colors. (That's one of the things I love about preschool.  Some simple paper hearts are just as likely to hold a child's attention as something from the toy store.)  I put the hearts out on the art table with glue and heart doilies and let them play with patterns (or not) and create some valentines. It was interesting to watch certain children sorting through the hearts as they would puzzle pieces, looking for the pictures or colors that went together.  When the children were satisfied with their heart placement, they added their photographs and the words Happy Valentines Day and we called it a day.

I wonder what else I can re-purpose rather than pack?