How to Recaulk a Bathtub or Shower

I solved my bathroom mold and mildew problem with a permanent non-toxic solution. I installed a larger bathroom exhaust fan.

The new fan made a world of difference! My bathroom doesn’t smell like a locker room two days after I clean it like it used to.

The photo isn't out of focus. That's drywall dust and a 

shining example of why I should have worn a dust mask.

Unfortunately, the caulk around the shower is stained. I scrub it with hydrogen peroxide based bleach. It doesn’t help much. It still looks gross.

   You don’t know how embarrassing this is for me to show you. YUCK!!!

Removing the caulk and caulking, the shower with new caulk is the only solution.

Glitter Tennis Shoes

 For Valentines Day I got:

• A dozen sustainability grown roses 
• A half dozen Godiva dark chocolate covered strawberries as big as a baby’s fist 
• And a kidney stone 

That explains why I’ve been carrying this kidney infection around like luggage for the last month. It won’t be gone in time for my Blissdom conference trip.

 Boo.

Needless to say, preparing for this conference is a little difficult because I feel like I’ve been kicked in the kidneys all day every day.

On the upside, it has kept me from being too nervous about my Newcomer Community Leader duties and the session discussions I will be leading for the Food niche bloggers.

I'm trying to conserve my personal energy to try to be well enough to be at my very best for Blissdom. I don't want to let everyone down! To reduce my running around, I shopped my closet for clothes to wear to the conference.


I still needed some cute and comfortable shoes to wear because the Gaylord Opryrland Hotel is ginormous! It's about the same size as an airport terminal. I don’t want to relive last year’s blisterfest which left my feet covered in swag SpongeBob Squarepants band aids. Which I rocked, of course :)

My Homemade Green Cleaner Labeling Privileges Have Been Revoked

I make homemade green cleaners. I know exactly what is in them, making them takes a few minutes, and they are less expensive. For the most part, my homemade cleaners clean the same or, as in the case of my homemade daily shower cleaner, better than their store bought counter parts. Woot! Woot!

 I store my cleaners in empty and repurposed spray bottles. I finally got around to making labels for the bottles  I worked too hard on my half bathroom remodel to ruin the granite counter tops with a homemade vinegar based cleaner from the other bathrooms by mistake!

I gave up printing designs in super cute and colorful ink because the cartridges in my inkjet dried out. AGAIN!

I went with black laser print ink that never runs dry instead of plunking down $80 for color ink cartridges to do a whim project. Since I could not do super cute and colorful label designs, I went with decorative fonts.

Hot Dog Pinewood Derby Car

This project is not mine but it’s so awesomesauce I must share it with the entire Internet. Yep. That. Cool.

Mr. G is racing in his first Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. With a little parental help, the kid needs to turn a block of wood, a weight, and some wheels into a car for the BIG RACE. 

It sounds fun. I wish Girl Scouts did something like that. Even at a young age, I'd use any excuse to break out the tools, ya know?

When his mom told me Mr. G wanted to go for style instead of speed, I expected Mr. G to make a car looking like the Batmobile (a thumbs up choice because we share the same taste in superheroes) or an ice cream truck to go with his career goal of being an ice cream man.

I Made a Gift Tag for Portland

I put a bird on it.

If you watch Portlandia you understand what I'm talking about. If you don't, watch the sketch below. Enjoy!


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Make Solar Milk Jug Ghosts for Halloween

The rechargeable batteries in the solar garden lights I repainted last summer heaved their last breath. 

While I am searching for outdoor rechargeable batteries,  I need something to light the way for the Trick or Treaters.

Luminaries are simple and festive. However, I don’t want to with traditional candles in case the kids accidentally walk into them. Husband says lighting your neighbor’s children on fire is rude. What-ever.

I Got Down and Dirty with Frank Fontana

NO!

Not like THAT!


I’ll write a more detailed post on everything we did and all of the new toys tools I saw at the Craftsman DIY Blogger Summit in The Craftsman Experience later. However, if I don’t post something about the event as soon as I get home my dad and father in law might explode with curiosity! 

You don't want exploding Dads so close to Father's Day, BTW.

Compost WIN and FAIL

Last summer I made two compost bins fromRubbermaid tubs and violated the warranties on the tubs to do it 'cuz I'm Danger Girl.

I threw in a shovelful of dirt in to prime the bins and diligently added a layer of shredded paper from our paper shredder to the bin for every layer of vegetable scraps that hit the bin.

Every once and awhile I locked the handles on the compost bin and turned it end over end to mix the contents. Since I use paper for my ‘browns’ everything stuck together and required breaking it up by poking at it with a shovel before I flipped the contents to mix it.

It’s a year later. Let’s see how my Compost Experiment is doing.

I Built a Birdhouse. It's Kinda Insane.

I’ve been sitting on this news for so long, I’m surprised I haven’t burst by now! Craftsman tools asked me to teach a group of mom and dad bloggers how to use power tools at the Craftsman Blogger Summit this week!

Little ol’ ME!?

*Faints*

It’s part of my lifelong campaign to get women to stop making Honey Do lists and start making Do It Yourself Honey! lists.

Blitzkrieg thinks this is a silly goal and I should put my efforts into something nobler like world domination. *sigh* I really wish he would use his powers for good and not evil. I’m trying to teach him but it’s hard…

Enough about our family drama. You want to see my birdhouse, right?

How to Make a T-Shirt Skirt

Last year’s summer wardrobe is snug. I don’t want to spend a bunch of money on clothes because I’m trying  to lose the 30 pounds I gained (all on fresh, whole foods even!) when my doctor switched me to a different medication. (It’s nothing serious, it just doesn’t relate to this blog.)  I kvetched enough about the meds compelling me to eat THREE sandwiches at lunch every day that she switched me back to my old prescription.

In the meantime, I need some new clothes.

I found plain t-shirts on sale but no shorts or skirts.

No problem! I’ll sew a skirt from a t-shirt or four.

Does Your Dog Shred Paper?

Blitzkrieg is feeling much better after his knee surgery. I can tell he’s feeling much better because he was a bit stand offish before and obviously after his surgery. Recently he’s super cuddly. If anyone sits in Blitzkrieg’s favorite armchair, be prepared to have a dog on your lap.

Blitzkrieg wasn’t always Mr. Mellow Cuddle Buddy. Once upon a time, he was a scared abused dog. Once he started to come out of his shell, all of the energy Blitzkrieg spent worrying about being hit needed to go somewhere. That somewhere was my bathroom, where Blitzkrieg grabbed toilet tissue from the roll and shredded it.

A little privacy please? I have a roll to decimate.

How Low Does Your Furnace Go?

My friends and family consider me the Energy Saving Maven because I reduced my home’s natural gas and electric use by 32% using cheap home improvements and new habits. So it wasn’t a surprise when a friend of mine asked me to come to his house and help him lower his sky high heating bill last winter.

I trudged through the new fallen snow on his sidewalk and rang the doorbell. He answered it wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

It was easy to find the answer to his high energy use and heating bill.

I don’t expect you to lower your daytime temperatures to my frigid 58 degrees (F), but if you accept Crunchy Chicken's Freeze Your Buns Challenge and lower your heating temperature by only a few degrees it will do a world of good. In the case of my friend, he has rescue birds so he came up with lowering his daytime temperature from 75 to 68 degrees (F.)

This year, I’m using the One Million Acts of Green Give the Gift of Green Facebook app to send my friend a reminder to not to jack his furnace this winter.

You can use the One Million Acts of Green Give the Gift of Green Facebook app this November trough December to send a green act as a “gift” that publishes to their News Feed. If the person isn’t on Facebook, you can send your message to them as an e-card.

How low does your temperature go during the winter?

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Disclosure:  Rockfish Interactive, in partnership with  Cisco are compensating me for my considerable time on this project. However, my ideas, words, and opinions are my own and are not influenced by this compensation. See what the other ambassadors have to say about One Million Acts of Green: Crunchy Domestic Goddess, Green Your Décor and Green and Clean Mom.

Five Toilet Paper Roll Crafts and a Contest!

Toilet paper and paper towel roll crafts are an elementary school staple. Lately, adults are dipping into their recycling bins, making toilet paper and paper towel roll crafts that are more artistic than kiddie craft.

Who hasn’t seen the toilet paper roll leaves wall art and not been inspired?

Photo courtesy of Design Sponge

I am! The Design Sponge wall art inspired me to decorate my telephone book wreath with toilet paper roll flowers.

I made this!

I think Paint Cut Paste’s Toilet Roll Pumpkin Garland  is so clever! I want to try something like it with Danish Christmas hearts.

Photo courtesy Paint Cut Paste

This cartoon wall art looks like it uses both whole toilet paper and paper towel rolls. It reminds me of old eight bit computer game graphics. The computer geek in me digs it.

Photo courtesy of Toilet Paper World Blog

How to Gal’s turquoise toilet roll wall art is nothing short of genius! It looks like an expensive wrought iron wall hanging. Love! Love! Love!

Photo courtesy of How To Gal

What have you made with toilet paper rolls?

Imagination Unrolled Contest!

Put those toilet and paper towel crafting skills to the test. White Cloud is holding the Imagination Unrolled Contest. Take a photo of something you’ve made with empty toilet paper or paper towel tubes and upload the photo. If your entry gets the most votes you win the $1,000 Grand prize! Two runners up will win $500. Voting begins November 11th, so you a some time to create the perfect craft. Or gather your materials. If you need more, there are coupons available at White Cloud.

Imagination Unrolled Twitter Party!

To get everyone in the mood, White Cloud is hosting a Twitter party Thursday, October 21st 3pm - 4pm CST (1pm pacific, 2pm mountain, 3pm central, 4pm eastern.) The theme is Imagination Unrolled. They will be discussing how to 'Unroll Your Imagination' throughout the house. I think it would be the perfect opportunity for us crafty and green folks to jump in because repurposing and reimagining our old stuff into new stuff is something in which we excel.

Oh, and White Cloud will be giving away a $50 gift card every 10 minutes to a random Twitter party participant as an added incentive. The holidays are coming and who couldn’t use a little extra money to buy life’s necessities?

How to Participate in a Twitter Party

Log in to Twitter at the appropriate time in your time zone and follow the party host @WhiteCloudMom. Search and follow the hashtag #WhiteCloudMom. When you post make sure you use the #WhiteCloudMom hashtag in your post so everyone following the Twitter party can read what you have to say whether they personally follow you or not.

I like to use Tweetgrid to follow along in Twitter parties because it gives you different columns for the host’s tweets, your tweets and @’s and a third column for the party’s tweets. It also automatically ads the hash tag to the end of your tweet so everyone at the party can see it.

Twitter parties are a fun way to share ideas and meet like minded people you wouldn’t normally know to follow on Twitter. I always find new and cool people to follow after a Twitter party, every once and a while I win a prize. A nice bonus indeed!

Are you going to be at the Twitter party? Are you going to enter the Imagination Unrolled contest? Let us know if you enter the contest so we can all vote for you! I’m not entering because I’m not eligible. Why?

I’m a White Cloud (Mom) Blogger

White Cloud asked me to join their White Cloud Blogger’s group. What does that mean exactly? Well, first off I will be promoting crafting with toilet paper and paper towel rolls, which is something I do anyway because:

• It’s green
• It’s clever
• And it’s cheap :)

Apparently, I will eventually be asked to put my family’s hiney on the line with some blind tushie testing of recycled content White Cloud paper projects. This one should be interesting.  I just opened the last box of that sand paper like one ply recycled content TP I bought on Earth Day mega sale for my April One Small Change. It will be banned from our house forever once we’ve finished the box. We love it that much. Will the White Cloud Green Earth be any better or more of the same?

Why am I doing it? Well, because White Cloud is something that is available all over the place. I have family that live in itty bitty cities that don’t have access to all of the shopping places I do. I suspect that many of you live in areas like that too. I don’t think green living or products should only be for those of us who have deep pockets or live in large cities.

Most importantly, White Cloud agreed to play by my rules. I get to be me in all of my blunt and wacky self. I still get to say things like “I’m putting my hiney on the line for you and the environment” and “tushie” because you I’m still a professional jester at heart.

I also get to give you my absolute honest opinion about everything I do and my absolute honest opinion about their products. They are convinced I’m going to love their recycled content products. Husband and I are holding our collective breath, hanging onto our seats with a slightly skeptical “Prove it!” because we do not love the better for the environment but port potty like recycled content TP we are using now.

Who knows? I’ve been proven wrong about a product more than once (or like a zillion times.) It would be nice if this works out. We shall see…

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I am submitting this post to the following link parties.

Disclaimer: White Cloud is compensating me for the considerable time I will spend on this project. However all opinions are my own and are not influenced by this compensation and long time readers know I am highly opinionated.

My Little Edie Grey Gardens Costume

 After I saw the Gray Gardens HBO movie, I knew I wanted to be Edith Bouvier Beale or “Little Edie” (she was named after her mother who everyone called “Big Edie”) for Halloween. This year husband and I are going to a Halloween party in the Short North, our arts district. If anyone should know who Little Edie was or about Grey Gardens, it would be this crowd.

Little Edith Bouvier Beale was known for wearing scarves to cover her alopecia. When their fortune ran out and Gray Gardens disintegrated into a filthy mess that violated every health and housing code on the books, she obviously did not have money to update her wardrobe. Instead, she wore what she had in odd combinations. Tablecloths became skirts, wildly patterned hose, sweaters became head coverings to create what she called “bohemian” or “revolutionary" costumes.

I took my cue from this clip of Little Edie describing her “best costume for the day” in the 1975 Grey Gardens documentary.

Drew Barrymore recreates this scene in the HBO Grey Gardens movie.

One Small Green Change: Silicone Ice Cube Trays

This month’s One Small Green Change is to switch from plastic ice cube trays to silicone ice cube trays.

Silicone is synthetic but it is considered safe because it does not contain BPA or phthalates. While the cold in my freezer makes the transfer of possible (and probable) BPA in my old plastic ice cube trays very low the silicone ice cube trays make it zero.

After seeing Dollar Store Crafts posted some killer silicone ice cube trays to use as sugar molds; I figured it was high time I made the switch to something I knew that was safer. I stalked my Dollar Tree for three weeks to get Blitzkrieg silicone skull ice cube trays because when you have a one eyed pirate dog like Blitzkrieg every day is Talk Like a Pirate Day! (It’s more of a lifestyle choice for us, really.)

10 Halloween Costumes for Dogs Who Hate Costumes

I love dressing up for Halloween. Now that I have a dog I want him to love dressing up for Halloween too.

But he doesn’t.

You wear a double coat of fur all the time. You won’t want to put on extra clothes, either.

We like to go to dog charity events to support the rescue organizations that have helped us rehabilitate Blitzkrieg and tell his story. Some of these events are Halloween events.

Blitzkrieg quickly learned the cuter the costume, the more treats humans give you. Blitzkrieg learned to tolerate several types of sorta dog costumes in order to swindle as many treats as possible celebrate Halloween.

Repurposed Dog Bowl Wall Art

After I painted the kitchen, I started putting artwork back on the walls for my family’s enjoyment. One family member didn’t have anything to look at when he was eating his dinner.

What about me? *Sigh*

I decided to make Blitzkrieg some doggie wall art.

Remake Your Swag Challenge Link Party

Where some see trash in those free promotional items you get at a street fair, summer festival, or convention, called swag in the PR buiz for Stuff We All Get, I see it as something to remake into treasure.

Now that the summer is almost over - sob! - I have several free stainless steel water bottles I got from various events. I like that the metal bottles keep water colder longer than my BPA free plastic water bottles. However free doesn't always come with cute,  like this water bottle I got from Crystal Light at Blogher.

Free and functional.

A little Modge Podge, scrapbook paper, paper punches, laser printer, and smarty pants attitude later I remade that water bottle into something I want to show off around town.

It says My other water bottle is 10,000 Styrofoam cups.

*Giggle*

Do you think people will laugh with me or beat me with a stick when I take my new water bottle to my next green event?

Let’s see what you came up with! The rules are simple. Use the Linky below to submit your reuse/revamp/remade or swag thing you find useful blog post to Condo Blues. Please put a link at the bottom of your post back to Condo Blues so everyone will know that you are participating in my Remake Your Swag Link Party.

I made a button if you want to use it to make it easy for you!








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Reminder: You can still enter my 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse Book Giveaway until midnight tonight!


I can’t wait to see what you’ve come up with!

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Good Green Fun at the Ohio State Fair

Husband and I spent a day at the Ohio State Fair. When we were not eating local food – which is crazy easy to do at the State Fair, we were checking out the sites and acting silly.

There were things to do for kids of all ages. Even goat kids! I thought of Nanny Goats in Panties and snapped a photo of the goat playground for Margaret.

The goats weren’t feeling playful because it was early

 in the morning when we visited them.

The animal, food, and craft judging were all in full swing. We saw and were allowed to pet many animals. Our favorite was the Highland cows. Husband and I call them McMoos because we are convinced that they moo with a Scottish accent. Mac-moooooo.

How to Make Candles out of Cheese Wax

Husband and I had a pile of Mini Babybel Cheese wax wrappers on our kitchen counter. We got them as free samples at a local event.

People passing out free cheese samples

 is Blitzkrieg's idea of heaven.

Sometimes Husband and I accept swag (known in the PR buiz as Stuff We All Get) only if it's something we think will be useful to us. Otherwise, it clutters up our tiny house. Can I interest anyone in a junk drawer full of freebie pens?

In this case, the item was useful because it was food. The wrapper? Not so much until Husband challenged me to find a creative reuse for cheese wax.