In 1941, the NFWI published a booklet entitled Thrift Crafts. This little document was designed to offer women advice on how to put household ‘waste’ to use. It says:
There is apparently nothing in our homes that cannot, with patience and industry, become something else when its original purpose has been served.
That advice is as good today as it was 70 years ago.
However, not all the information contained in Thrift Crafts is particularly useful to today’s woman. I’m sure not many of us will be interested, for instance, in skinning our own rabbit in order to make a fur collar! But it does make for entertaining, if somewhat gruesome, reading.
In the end, though, the WI is right:
Thrift is an attitude of mind towards the whole of life, a point of view which stimulates, while it control, activity. The thrifty spirit is frequently twin sister to the warm-hearted ‘giving’ spirit. Wasteful people find their generous impulses checked because their resources are frequently at a low ebb. The really thrifty person has always something to give, something to share.
A full copy of Thrift Crafts can be viewed here.
Crowlas & Ludgvan WI 
I loved this book! and would buy it if available, particularly page 7…Motor tyre tube beds etc , and on page 18…soldering and tinkering. just don’t ask for a W/shop on these!
Oh, what a shame, Lis. I thought we could count on you!