Thursday, April 22, 2021
Celebrate Earth Day with the Rule of Half and Friday Favorites Week 578
Sunday, April 18, 2021
10 Zero Waste Craft Projects that also Save Money
I recently read an article claiming that zero waste living doesn’t have to be expensive.
That immediately said to an interviewed college student who said that they couldn’t afford a $20 zero waste made from adopted unicorn tears deodorant that the student just needs to change their attitude because they are buying better and more expensive stuff.
Because apparently the superior feeling of spending more money on low waste deodorant outweighs the reality of the starving student having enough money for school books, tuition, food, and shelter I guess?
The author also said that no one who wants to go low waste (which is a more accurate description than the search engine friendly term zero waste) does it to save money. It really burns my cookies that when confronted with the reality of price, a zero waste expert ignores it and tells you to buy it anyway when they are claiming zero waste living doesn't have to be expensive. That's how zero and low waste living gets the (wrong) perception that its only for the privileged!
My family is practically debt free because we don’t waste things. As we started switching from disposables to reusables the amount of trash we make plummeted and extra dollars accumulated in the bank.
For example it cost zero dollars to stop using plastic zipper baggies and plastic wrap for sandwiches and leftovers and start using the containers with lids (many repurposed) I already had. I had no idea how much money we wasted on that stuff until we didn’t need to buy it anymore - and you could see a serious dent in how much landfill trash it kept out of our bin.
Thursday, April 15, 2021
How to Spring Clean Your Dryer Vent and Friday Favorites Week 577
Sunday, April 4, 2021
How to Make a Recycled Wine Cork Wall Organizer
After putting the job off as long as humanly possible, it is time to clean and reorganize my craft room. Every craft supply and tool found an organized storage space with the exception of my embroidery hoops. I kept moving them place to place during the decluttering project. It didn’t help matters that I added several big and hard to store machine embroidery hoops to the mix when I got a sewing and embroidery machine for my birthday.
Her name is Bernadette. She can sew everything from chiffon to leather and has so many settings and features it is like flying a rocket ship. Cool, I always wanted to be an astronaut!
I sat and looked around the room trying to find a place for more storage. After quite a bit of time (I may have also been streaming Netflix) I found it – blank wall space under a shelf. Great!
One of the things I like about cleaning, decluttering, and organizing a creative space is rediscovering supplies (fancy talk for I forgot I had that!) I almost always end up using the found objects to make storage and organizers for the item I uncovered that don’t have a good store bought solution including this one.
Sunday, March 28, 2021
Why and How to Sift Compost
I recently upgraded our single tumbling compost bin to this exact double tumbling compost bin hoping to correct some mistakes we made when we started our first compost pile. (Disclosure: I am including affiliate links for your convenience.)
The mistakes we made weren’t horrible and we did create usable compost that turned our practically all clay tan colored garden beds to earthworm rich dark black soil. But the compost coming out of the bin has always been soggy. It was also full of plastic bits we thought would compost but didn’t break down.
How did this happen? Well for one, since we don’t have access to grass clippings or leaves we used shredded paper and cardboard for brown matter (and any sawdust I made in the garage) and we simply didn’t add enough. The fix for wet or smelly compost is to always have more dry brown matter in your compost pile than green matter (vegetable and fruit peels, coffee grounds, etc.) As for the plastic bits, we’d just empty the entire contents of our home office paper shredder into the compost bin and all of those window envelopes I shredded thinking they would break down because they are made from cellulose where actually some sort of plastic.
There was finished compost in the bottom of the single compost bin but because it stopped turning and we couldn’t mix it very well with one of those compost turner things that look like this. Our compost was a big wet clump full of unwanted bits that I could easily save by sifting the almost finished compost and chucking a ton of this exact wood chip pet bedding into one side of the new compost bin and let it break down. Adding more shredded paper and cardboard boxes would also do the trick but I didn’t have enough of either in the quantity I needed at the time.
Thursday, March 25, 2021
DIY Replacement Lawn Chair Bag and Friday Favorites Linky Party Week 572
Tuesday, March 16, 2021
DIY Non Toxic Resin Look Coasters
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.
Sunday, March 7, 2021
How to Make an Easy Indoor Fairy Door
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!
How to Make an Indoor Fairy, Leprechaun, Gnome, Elf, or Borrowers Door
Thursday, February 25, 2021
DIY Bottle Cap Bees and Friday Favorites Linky Party Week 568
Thursday, February 4, 2021
Mason Jar and Wine Cork Centerpieces and Friday Favorites Linky Party Week 567
Sunday, January 31, 2021
DIY Plastic Free Pot Scrubber
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!
How to Crochet a Jute Dish Scrubber Sponge for Absolute Beginners
Thursday, January 21, 2021
The Best Ever Sea Shanty and Friday Favorites Linky Party Week 565
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
12 Real World Ways I Went Zero Waste This Week
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!
Thursday, December 17, 2020
Slow Christmas Ideas and Friday Favorites Linky Party Week 560
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.
- No quick, wolf down dinner, we have to book it out the door and to an event.
- No fighting traffic, crowds, or stores because everything is being picked up or delivered to our door (let's give an extra shout and thank you to all postal and delivery drivers. THANK YOU!)
- There's the chance to put the holiday things you don't always enjoy aside for something new because it's just the household this year. For us, we're going to start our day with mimosas and end it with either fancy lobster tails or super causal homemade pizza for dinner. We haven't decided yet. Which one would do you think we should have for Christmas dinner?
Thursday, December 10, 2020
Happy Hanukkah and Linky Party Week 559
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!
Thursday, December 3, 2020
Friday Favorites Linky Party Week 558
Time to show off your creative recipes, projects, and ideas!
Sunday, November 8, 2020
How to Make Bottle Gnome Christmas Decorations
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.
Thursday, November 5, 2020
DIY Cotton Bath Puff and Friday Favorites Linky Party 554
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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Sunday, October 25, 2020
18 Cozy Gift Ideas for the Whole Family
Thursday, October 1, 2020
Marble Look Porcelain Bathroom Tile and Friday Favorites Linky Party 549