by Jeanne Gibson

Created on: December 10, 2008   Last Updated: December 15, 2008

Junk mail is unsolicted mail that is delivered even though the addressee has never contacted the sender or requested any communication from them. A lot of effort has been made to slow down the ever-increasing flood of junk mail that invades the average American household every single day, but, even with a large number of people now using e-mail for much of their communication, still the junk mail continues to come.

My favorite way to take care of the problem is something I discovered when I was in charge of an intermediate girl scout troop. There were 11 girls in the troop, and keeping them busy was no easy chore, until I ran across a craft project called, make your own exotic notepaper. The title intrigued me so I read on. It seemed that the variety of notepaper you could make yourself was endless. The article showed pictures of smooth notepaper in a variety of colors; masculine rough textured cream-colored notepaper; dainty notepaper with little flowers embedded down one side; and just plain notepaper. My girls could do this, I thought, and began to read on.

The project called for scrap paper-any kind of scrap paper. Fortunately, at one end of my desk was a huge box of scrap paper, or, as most people would call it, junk mail. No problem there. It looked as though I had enough scrap paper to supply my Girl Scout troop for months to come. If disposing of some of your own junk mail interests you, you may want to turn out some unique, one-of-a-kind notepaper for yourself or to give as gifts to your friends. If my girl scouts could do it, so can you.

Most of the supplies needed to turn your junk mail into notepaper are found around the home and include such things as a kettle, a blender, bleach, a rolling pin, an empty pint cottage cheese container with a lid and a margarine container, and some vinyl screen cut into 8x8 squares.

If the idea of beating the junk mail people at their own game intrigues you, as it did me, check out an earlier article I wrote on the subject for a more complete list of materials and detailed directions. www.associatedcontent.com/article/109636/great_junk_ mail_crafts.html?cat=24

The satisfaction you will receive from completing such a project will be more than worth the time and effort involved. And, if yours turns out as well as ours did, your friends and other recipients will be begging you to send them directions on how to do it. Maybe you can include a free bag of junk mail for them when you do.

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