Six years ago I made a set of aluminum can coasters that looked like this:
After years of abuse with a constant stream of hot coffee cups and cold beverages all day every day the coasters on our desks now look like this:
Choosing a difference adhesive may have helped as well as adding a protective coating to the top. Cutting down on coffee and ice water is not going to happen - ever.
Columbus has many visit this type of business, stamp a passport, and collect a prize trails. We have a local coffee trail, craft brewery trail, a local small business trail, and a delicious donut trail among others. I recently learned about a cool one in Dublin, Ohio – The Fairy Door Trail. Dublin goes completely nuts for all things Irish, Celtic, and St. Patrick’s Day. So it makes sense that they start a new trail by putting new fairy doors in their local small businesses in March for St Patrick’s Day just in case a leprechaun would like to use it. Which is mighty thoughtful.
I fell into an Internet fairy door rabbit hole after that and wanted to add another fairy door to my house just in case a fairy, gnome, leprechaun, or hopefully - a Borrower - would use it. I loved the Borrower books and movies as a kid and I often think a Borrow probably borrowed that thing I can’t find (which is way more fun than acknowledging I misplaced it.) If you don’t know what I’m talking about you can read The Complete Adventures of the Borrowers series here. (Disclosure: I am including affiliate links for your convenience)
It’s National Craft Month so why not make an indoor fairy door (or the mythical sprite of your choice) to celebrate?
Let’s make stuff!
Disposable kitchen pot scrubber sponges are one thing I was happy to kick to the curb after trying washable and reusable Paperless Kitchen sponge scour pads (you can learn about them here.) Finally I had a plastic free dish scrubbie that I could pop in the top rack of the dishwasher to clean on the regular! (Disclosure: I am including affiliate links for your convenience.)
Until the garbage disposable tried to eat one.
RIP pot scrubber.
So much for zero waste :(
Fortunately More than one reusable dish scouring pads came in the package so it wasn’t a total loss. I also used it as the motivation I needed to try an idea I have been mulling around for awhile: crochet a plastic free pot scrubber from jute twine.
Well, that and Cabin Fever.
But you know what? It worked!
Some of the things they don’t tell you about trying to reduce your household trash with zero waste living is that it depends a lot on where and how you want to live. Most of the year’s worth of garbage in jar folks have access to big fill your own container stores, year round farm markets, or huge gardens where they can grow almost everything they need. Not all of us are that lucky, would rather not drive all over the place, or crunched the numbers and found some the prices in those shops sky high. *raises hand*
But’s not to say that zero waste is impossible! Instead try the more realistic goal of concentrating on reducing your household waste than making it absolute zero. By focusing on reusing, the Rule of Half, recycling, reducing, and composting (when the bin isn’t frozen shut) my family has reduced our weekly household waste to approximately one grocery store size shopping bag (ish. We reuse any packaging, dog food, etc. bags for garbage which means the size varies) a week. We average a 3/4 full recycling bin every two weeks. We also give ourselves a break if our output is more than that because we have seasons and that can determine what we can do and how we do it.
To give you some realistic ways to reduce your household waste (and possibly save some money doing it) I made a list of the zero waste practices, tips, and tricks I do in a normal week to give you some ideas and jump start your thinking machines to find a zero waste solution that works for you!
Christmas is my favorite time of year because there are so many fun places to go, things to see and performances to do before we get the extended family together for a big, happy celebration on Christmas day!
Except this year. It's a pivot. pivot. Christmas pivot kind of year.
But you know what? I'm enjoying the change.
Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah! I hope you start your holiday off right and celebrate happily and safely.
Time to show off your creative recipes, projects, and ideas!
Time to show off your creative recipes, projects, and ideas!
Many folks in the Scandinavian countries like to decorate their homes with gnomes for Christmas. There is a tradition where they enjoy an appetizer of rice porridge for Christmas Eve dinner and put a small bowl of it outside for the gnomes to thank them for protecting the family and helping them prosper during the year.
The gnomes get very upset and will play tricks on you if they are not rewarded with their Christmas porridge!
So personally, I think it is best to decorate with the not so fickle recycled variety and make quick and easy bottle Christmas gnome decorations. Although, just like the Irish leprechaun, gnomes don’t go away after the holiday and you can decorate with gnomes all year round if you like.
This is a very forgiving Christmas craft project because the way you make your gnome is only limited to your imagination and what craft supplies you have on hand or want to use for this project.
While everyone else was baking sourdough bread during quarantine, I was making hot process soap. I took notes on what I did right and wrong and while I can't quite get it as thick as commercial liquid soap like I want, it cleans and lathers beautifully especially when I use a plastic bath puff. While a loofah is zero waste because I can compost it, it doesn't perform as well as a mesh bath poof that has to be tossed after awhile due to bacteria buildup. I tried washing one once and it fell apart.
I hadn't crocheted since I was a kid and recently picked up a hook to make a dishcloth. I looked for more quick beginner crocket projects on Pinterest (follow me @condoblues on Pinterest pretty please?) and found the answer to my zero waste bath puff problem - crochet a bath puff from cotton yarn!
I followed this crochet shower puff pattern from Hooked on Patterns and it was pretty easy once I got the hang of it. My shower puff isn't perfect but still not too shabby for the third thing I crocheted as an adult. Best of all, I can wash it in a mesh lingerie bag in the washing machine when I need to - no more bath puffs in my trash can ever again!
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I have a love hate relationship with foam crafting pumpkins. I love that they are reusable. I hate that most of them look horrifically fake.
Yes, I know I could use real pumpkins. I do for indoor decorating and puree them later for Thanksgiving desserts.
Outside it’s fake pumpkins all the way where real pumpkins are most likely squirrel food and when performing at Fall festivals where real fruit is likely to get smashed.
This sweet little girl was fascinated by the pumpkin clip I made over. I am forever grateful to the photographer that captured this moment!
After putting it off for too long, I am planning the end of the Bathroom Remodel Trilogy with Master Bathroom: Revenge of the Leak.
This time around I am not even going to even try to consider reusing the bathroom vanity. We learned from Bathroom Remodel 2: Mold Sneak Attack the micro leak around the sink shutoff vales may have caused the vanity to mold like it did on the subfloor.
This isn’t a great loss because when we removed the guest bathroom vanity we found just how cheaply it was made. We realized that all of the cabinets in our condo would eventually need replacing. Then we sang the Condo Blues because part of the reason of we bought a new build is the expectation of quality cabinetry – ha!
On the upside, since we knew ahead of time that everything needs to be replaced in the main bathroom, I was able to do a little scouting while I was sourcing a new vanity for the guest bathroom last year.
A good long while ago, I fell in love with the 1950’s vintage wrap sundress sewing pattern Simplicity 8085 (you can read about it in detail here.) I bought a super cute cotton cherry print fabric with the intent to make a dress for myself. (Disclosure: I am including affiliate links in this post for your convince.)
Two years later I still had a sweet vintage sewing pattern reprint and super cute cotton cherry print fabric in its shopping bag in my sewing room. *sigh*
I need a dress for a wedding reception (hopefully? maybe? We’ll see how group events play out when the time comes) later this summer for a wedding my husband and I attended on Zoom. That’s all the incentive I need to finally sew my 1950’s wrap sundress. I made a few tweaks to the pattern because as my husband observed long ago, I always hack a sewing pattern in one way or another.
Save this fun retro dress to your Pinterest boards for later! Share it with your friends!
