Zero Waste on a Budget: How to Grocery Shop without a Bulk Bin Store

After seeing the explosion of zero waste ideas online (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing,) I get a little worried that people may not try or quit because they aren’t meeting the strict one year’s full of trash in a jar “standard” they see shown on social media.

Which is a bummer because Zero Waste living isn’t black and white or should be so restrictive it is a struggle.

Or at least it shouldn’t’ be.

In reality, shifting your mindset to a lower waste living is much more sustainable because it takes into consideration what you have available locally, what you can’t, or don’t want to give up. Are you seriously going to deny grandma life saving medication because it comes in a plastic bottle?!

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Often how zero waste you can go depends upon what is available where you live. Fill your own container bulk bin sections and stores are fairly anemic around here because local code enforcement strongly reminded everyone that shoppers have to use store provided containers. Winter means nothing grows here for 6 months out of the year.  Sadly zero waste utopia doesn’t mention that. So what do you do?

You do it by concentrate on reducing and stop focusing on the zero - without guilt.

Guilt is not productive. Trying is.

How to Live Zero Waste When You Shop a Regular Grocery Store

Friday Favorites Linky Party 518

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DIY Poo Pourri Air Freshener Spray

I’m sure you are aware of those times when the air in a bathroom needs a little immediate help to clear the room of…uh…um…odor.

Even though I wasn’t thrilled with the synthetic ingredients (although now Scent Fill  makes natural essential oil refills for Glade and other brand plug ins, ) I had scented oil plug thingies in each bathroom for that purpose. Once they became available, I upgraded to pluggable wax melt warmers similar to these and use a locally made vegetable wax and essential oil wax melts for my bathrooms. They work just as well, and I like that I easily scrap the last bit of wax from a dead candle into the smaller wax warmers to keep enjoying the scent. I am the only one who buys a candle and can never seem to find the same scent when I need to replace it? (Disclosure: I am including affiliate links for your convenience.)

Unfortunately, there are still times when your bathroom needs a little more immediate or preventative air quality attention.  Does a room freshener exist without the synthetic ingredients? 

Yep, it sure does and it is the perfect thing for zero waste, natural living, and budget minded folks.

Or you just want something prettier than a can in your bathroom, that’s cool too. *raises hand* 

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DIY Natural  Air Freshener

Friday Favorites Linky Party 517

A day without power tools is like a day without sunshine.

I used a wet tile saw for the first time and didn't lose a body part. Go ME!

(And a nice little shout out for tool rental companies. Woot for quality and budget friendly tools!)

Well, almost.

It gets pretty gray and overcast around here during the winter, power tools or no.

11 Floor Tiling Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Tiling a floor is a pretty easy DIY job.

It is also a DIY job that is easy to mess up if you don’t follow a few precautions first. You really don’t want to put in all of the work of tiling a floor only for the tiles to eventually come loose or crack after the job is done.

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1. Not adding an extra 10% of tile to your tile order – Depending upon the design, you may need extra to match up the pattern in the room. It is also good to have extra tile on hand just in case you cut one incorrectly or worse drop one and break it.

Friday Favorites Linky Party 516

We are celebrating a super huge big fantastic day in the Condo Blues household!

It isn't a birthday.

It isn't' Valentine's Day.

It is Lacey's 7th Gotcha Day!

Seven years ago, this little anxious girl came to live with us from an amazing act of love when her former people rehomed her with us because they couldn't help Lacey with her behavioral issues.

Lacey then.

We worked and worked with Lacey on her issues and here she is now!

How to Make a Teapot Cozy

Sometimes when I want to drink more than one cup of tea on a leisurely afternoon, I’ll make it in a teapot. Unfortunately, leisurely drinking the tea in my cup usually means the  tea in the pot turns cold by the time I’m ready for a refill.

Which pretty much negates the reason for making a small pot of tea.

The solution is to put an insulated tea pot warmer on my hot little pot to keep the tea inside it nice and warm as I slowly sip the day away...

Oh, who I am I kidding? I’m usually sewing and forget I made the pot of tea that is sitting on a table across from my sewing machine until hours later.

Either way, a tea cozy is a super simple sewing project to make and is a fantastic fabric stash bust project. I added machine embroidery from a file that came with my machine to get a little more practice in on hooping the embroidery fabric – easily the most tedious, difficult to get right, and important step in machine embroidery.

Let’ s make something!

How to Sew a Simple Tea Cozy

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Friday Favorites Linky Party 515

I am more likely to keep my New Year's Resolutions if I make them sometimes during the year when I need or want to make a positive change. If feels more meaningful to me and more often than not I keep them.

Which means I rarely if ever make a resolution on New Year's Eve because they end up being pretty generic and easily broken no matter how big or small.

Last year was the exception. I got a succulent planter as a Christmas gift and bought an aloe plant to be its plant buddy in the kitchen. I jokingly said my New Year's Resolution for 2019 was Don't Let the New Plants Die.

Not only do I often forget that plants need water but we get very little sunlight through our windows during the winter. Who knew water and sunlight where so important?

You can read how I hung this plant shelf on the side of my kitchen cabinets here.
If you're wondering I bought the plant which I left in the nursery pot and the planter at Ikea. 

I am happy to report that not only did I keep the succulents alive but the aloe plant grew so much I recently repotted it. Yay me!

That means if you have a plant that thrives on neglect and no sunlight - I'm your gal!

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Friday Favorites Linky Party 514

It's been an overcast and gloomy winter so far this year and we've been having more impromptu movie nights to cope and enjoy some of our family Christmas presents.

Hi everyone! Lacey here! My plan of constantly laying on Lisa's sewing projects so she will give up and have Family Movie Nights is working! I love it when my people to pile on the sofa and pet me while they watch a movie. A dog's gotta do what a dog's gotta do to get the attention she deserves!

And all of those movie nights, including a couple of deep dives into our movie collection and a trip to the library for more obscure titles, influenced my favorite pick from last week's Link Party. 

Time to link up your fantastic and creative craft and DIY projects, recipes, and ideas!

How to Prep a Wood Subfloor for New Tile

Just like painting a wall, the success or failure of your floor tiling project depends upon how well you prepare the surface for the tile itself. The more care and consideration you take when installing the tile underlayment, the better.

Flooring underlayment is the layer of material that sits in between the subfloor and the flooring material. As tempting as it may be to skip the underlayment – don’t. The underlayment layer is what keeps your floor tile from shifting and cracking over time.

And trust me, after the killer backache preparing and tiling this floor gave me, it is NOT something I want to completely redo if I don’t have to!

Fortunately, preparing a floor for tile by installing underlayment isn’t difficult to do and once you finish the job you can immediately go into tiling the floor.

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How to Lay Bathroom Tile Underlayment the Easy Way!

Friday Favorites Linky Party 513

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13 Things You Didn't Know You Can Store on the Back of Bathroom Doors!

Everyone who has too much storage in their bathroom raise your hand!.

Anyone?

Me. Neither.

It seems that no matter what size your bathroom is, you can always use more storage space.

Which you can easily find more of if you store things on the back of your bathroom cupboard and closet doors!

13 Bathroom Cupboard, Closet, and Door Organizations You Didn't Know You Needed Until Now

Save these small space bathroom storage ideas to your Pinterest boards for later! Share them with your friends!

Friday Favorites Linky Party 512

 Time to link up your fantastic and creative craft and DIY projects, recipes, and ideas!

Let's Party!

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12 Knit and Crochet Dishcloth, Washcloth, and Scrubby Patterns

I’m  attempting to phase out disposable kitchen sponges and scrubbers because you’re supposed to throw them out after a week or so and most hacks to clean them actually cause more bacteria to grow on them – ew!

That adds up to a lot of kitchen sponges in the trash and if I'm lucky, compost bin.*sad face*

When I hand wash dishes I’m trying to with reusables over disposables. I’m currently washing dishes with reusable  Skoy cloths (learn how you can wash them in the dishwasher here)  and reusable Paperless kitchen pot scrubbers you can also wash in the dishwasher (learn more here.) We also use this cast iron chainmail cast iron scrubber to clean sticky stuff from our cast iron pans. (Disclosure: I am including some affiliate links in this post for your convenience.)


And most recently, I’m washing up with a set of handmade dish wash clothes my mother in law made and gave me for Christmas. The cotton dishcloths are quickly becoming my favorite (if there is such a thing about having a favorite pot scrubber. Oh, the joys of adulthood!) because I can easily pop them in the washing machine a couple of uses and pull out a clean one lickety split.

Save this list of easy crochet and knitting patterns to your Pinterest boards for later! Share them with your friends!

Her thoughtful gift has me toying with picking up crochet again (something I haven’t done since I was a kid) or maybe actually finishing a project on that knitting loom (a knitting loom looks like this) I bought and gave up on. Which in that case, making dish cloths, wash cloth, and pot scrubber are the perfect project to practice knit and crochet patterns!

Spa Bathroom Remodeling Plan

Before you start any type of home improvement update or remodel you should come up with a design plan first. This way, you can decide on what to keep, skimp, or splurge to keep your project on time and on budget.

Do you know the absolute worst time to toss out your original plan and make a new one from scratch?

When your room looks like this.

Demo day!

My original guest bathroom design plan had us giving the bathroom sink and vanity a makeover.

On demo day I found black mold growing on the back of the bathroom vanity which made it completely unusable.

And just like that, my beachy remodeling plan got tossed just like the mold ridden vanity.

Friday Favorites Linky Party 511

 Time to link up your fantastic and creative craft and DIY projects, recipes, and ideas!

Let's Party!

Please support and follow our lovely blog party hostesses:

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Amy at A Day of Small Things - Pin

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Kelly at Under a Texas Sky - Twitter | FB | G+ | Pin | Inst | BL

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Quick and Easy DIY Heart Door Decoration

I like to decorate the front door of my house but lately I haven’t been feeling the winter door wreath.  It probably has a lot to do with most of the wreaths I like have greenery that doesn’t show up well on our green front door.

Not to mention I seem to have a love hate wreath relationship. I love the wreaths my neighbors use to decorate their doors and seem to hate every wreath in the store. What can I say? I’m the Goldilocks of front door décor, apparently.

I found a contemporary, modern, classic, or rustic (depending upon how you view it) front door decoration idea when I made a fast and simple Danish Christmas Heart decoration to coordinate with the giant outdoor Christmas gnome decorations I made from tomato cages last year.

You can read how I made the tomato cage Christmas gnomes here.

I like the look.