Today we’ll hear again from Ashely Hurteau, our fabulous new intern and fellow lover of all things green.

As we embark on 2012, many New Year’s resolutions will involve kicking bad habits. In the spirit of going green, Real Simple has shared some ways to re-use items that you might have otherwise shunned. For today’s Green Thought Thursday, we’d like to share a few of those ideas with you.

• If you can’t kick the habit of sweets, at least kick the waste. Take old candy wrappers and use them to wrap small presents. Aren’t they adorable?
• Clean the air and your lungs by quitting smoking. Then use your old ash trays as cute little soy sauce dishes!
• Cutting back on TV and don’t know what to do with the remote? Remove the batteries and make it your new hide-a-key compartment or emergency cash holder!
• Give up gambling and use the numbered cards as gift tags. They’re great for birthdays, and the Queen and King of Hearts are perfect for Valentine’s Day!

I loved these tips from Real Simple so much that I decided to come up with one of my own: as a self-proclaimed wine connoisseur, I vow to re-use the corks by collecting them to make a cork board.

So whether you do it in stiletos or boots, in 2012 make one of your resolutions to reduce your carbon footprint while kicking your vices, and stay tuned as we share more ideas from Real Simple. In the meantime, we’re kicking it over to you. Please share your ideas in the comments section.