Recycling--Is it always a good thing?

I just finished a project that makes me wonder if recycling is always the best thing to do.

On my last visit to the thrift store, I picked up a valance obviously intended for a child's room. I have no children, therefore no grandchildren, ergo no need for a child's window valance. But it was cute and marked down--making it a buck fifteen--and who can pass that up when the materials are obviously calling out to be something else? Besides, it had obviously been there a while for the price to be cut in half.

As usual, I forgot to take a before photo so in this shot I tried to give you an idea of how I started. The valance was a length of the background check with four animal patches affixed--a horse at each end and a giraffe and elephant in the middle--with a small print border at the bottom and tabs made of each of the colors of the animals.

As the animals were placed too close together to center onto my tea cozy pattern, I added a grass applique onto each, using the tab fabric. The elephant and giraffe I was able to remove from the valance to use in a later project. (So why didn't I simply remove the horse patches and center them? In removing the elephant I left glue behind and I was afraid I'd mess up my background fabric if I tried it with the horses.)

I used the lining of the valance for the cozy lining, simply quilting it with some batting for insulation.

Excepting the last bit of handwork still to be done, here's a shot of the finished cozy. Not too bad for $1.15,  IMHO.

I still have enough of the background fabric to use as a backing on another tea cozy, still to come, and the elephant and zebra patches. So what do you think? Was recycling a good move here?