Sew an Insulated Casserole Carrier

Lucky me got an insulated round casserole caddy with hot and cold packs for a wedding present. I don’t make a lot of casseroles but the thing is fan-tabulous for taking food to work potlucks, family gatherings, and all around food toting around goodness.

I wish I had a caddy for my rectangular covered Pyrex dish. I use that thing to store and tote cupcakes, and like here there and everywhere. A carrier would make toting my cookies easier.

Pin this tutorial for later, it makes a great gift!

All of the insulated carriers I saw in stores came with a new dish and hot packs. I don’t need a new dish and hot packs. I only want the carrier.

If I can’t buy, I’ll DIY!

Concrete Floor Tile Yay or Nay?

I like the industrial look of concrete floors. They won’t chip. You can clean them with a garden hose if you’re into extreme floor cleaning or have a dog who likes to bring the outside in after.every.walk.

Kitchen Design Plan #483 Don't Tell the Husband Edition has me ripping the vinyl floor covering out of the kitchen and exposing the concrete slab underneath.  I’m not sure how that’s going to work. I wonder if the floor would be colder in winter without some sort of floor covering besides area rugs.

Kitchen Design Plan #484 Husband Will Balk at the Price Edition has radiant floor heat over the slab and covered in concrete tile.

Columbus Craftacular!

Last weekend I went to the Etsy Team Columbus Eco-Chic Craftacular to support my friend Patti and her booth, to shop for birthday gifts, and since I was in the company of a bunch of creative, green types (my peeps!) break in my new reusable Glass Dharma straw.

 Hoo boy! I look like a shaggy dog.*cringe* I need to get a hair cut!

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.

5 Recycled and Repurposed Laundry Room Organizers

After successfully organizing the linen closet with chalkboard labels, I set my sites on spring cleaning and decluttering the laundry room.

Um, no I didn’t redecorate my laundry room. It’s always been The Evil Dead Laundry Room**  and superhero action figure hangout. They are NOT dolls. Even though they look like dolls. Every guy I know says they are NOT DOLLS.

I still say they look like dolls.!

I think laundry, and ironing especially, is an evil chore. This room sums my feelings up nicely even though it looks a cubical in an IT firm. Some of these things may or may not have lived in former cubicals or the computer room of our old apartment, ahem. Does that mean our plastic toys fall into the green creative reuse category? Yeah, I didn’t think so. It’s an insane fun room though. At least to us.

On an more decorative note, I hope I can redeem myself in your eyes with my distressed wall treatment  and the sisal rope I used as crown molding. I was going for country rustic until the room turned into psycho toy land.

One Small Green Change: Use SLS Free Toothpaste

A Chinese friend mentioned that they have toothpaste back home that prevents you from getting canker sores. Soon after I had that conversation, Rembrandt introduced their canker sore preventing toothpaste and gave out coupons so often it was like feeding stray cats. We tried Rembrandt and it reduced Huband’s canker sore outbreaks.YAY!

Of course you know what happened next. We were hooked on the toothpaste and Rembrandt stopping issuing coupons and the price went up. It’s now $7.00 a tube at CVS. Rembrandt is smaller than a conventional (and cheaper) tube of toothpaste. Yikes!

Since I don’t get canker sores from toothpaste like Husband,  he used the spendy toothpaste. I switched to Colgate. It’s cheaper and rates a 3 on Environmental Working Group Skin Deep database. A three - Moderate Hazard rating and below is my guideline when using Skin Deep as my shopping guide.(Your mileage may vary.)

We’ve been going merrily along with the his and hers toothpaste for quite awhile. It sure would be nice to have a cheaper option or at least some coupons for the stuff Husband uses.

I researched. I found that the Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) in our conventional toothpaste may be causing Husband’s canker sores, not the fluoride. As an experiment, Husband switched to Tom’s of Maine, a less expensive brand of SLS free toothpaste. He didn’t have an outbreak.

How to Make Orange Essential Oil Extract from Orange Peels

It’s clementine season! I snatched a box up the first minute I saw them in the grocery store and raced home. As usual I ate so many so often I got canker sores in my mouth from the citric acid. I don't care. At least I'm safe from scurvy!

The orange peels piled up. I can’t compost citrus. I used most of the ideas I wrote about 10 Ways to Use Orange Peels. I still have a pile of orange peels. If I had the distillation equipment I could make pure essential oil from orange peels but I don't. Since I want to use this to give a citrus oil cleaming oomph to in my homemade cleaning products, I will make an orange oil extract (this is also called a tincture) instead. Orange oil extract is a bit less potent than a pure essential oil, so it doesn't really work well for aromatherphy, candle, or cold process soap making. I save real orange essential oil for those things.

However an orange oil extract (tincture) works well for things like DIY cleaning products, melt and pour soaps, and homemade room sprays.  You might need to use a bit more since an extract is less concentrated than a distilled essential oil depending upon how prominent you want the scent in your project.

End Table Upcycled into a Whimsical Dog Bed

I am loving all of the end tables upcycled into dog beds I see in blogland. Check out this whimsical painted dog bed Lucy Designs made from a discarded end table, finals, and a whole lotta talent.

 Photo courtesy of Lucy Designs

I wish it were bigger. I’d take a nap on it. Would you?

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Chalkboard Juice Lid Labels

My linen closet is small. That’s the excuse I told myself every time I had to put my hip into shutting the door because there was so much stuff in my linen closet.

No more.

After my inner brat threw a tantrum after doing the shove-clean-towels-in-the-closet- slam-the-door-follow-through-with-hip-action one time too many (mostly likely you have no idea what I’m talking about because you have a neat and tidy linen closet.) It was time to go into the closet.

I purged a bunch of towels and threadbare washcloths that were supposed to be dog towels but I always accidentally put them back into the bathroom towel rotation. Guest towels and such went into the guest bathroom (novel concept I know.) I can find everything and everything has its place. The closet door shuts without extra hip action. Yay!

Glass Clouche Pendent Lights

Husband and I ate dinner at Der Dutchman (nicknamed The Der by the locals) in Amish Country with his parents. After a country fresh dinner we waddled around the gift shop to work off the bread pudding I had for dessert..

Surprisingly there wasn’t much in the way of country too cutesie. Their buyer had the Contemporary-Country thing DOWN. There were so many things that my Victorian/Country Farm House antique loving mother in law liked and just as many things that made me drool with my Mid-Century Modern-Bauhaus-Contemporary-Found-and-Funkified-Retro-DaDa-Danish decorating style.

I saw this pendent lamp and my heart did a little jump.

Make an iPad Cover and Stand

I won an iPad from ConAgra* in a drawing at Blissdom.  I’m still pinching myself! I never win anything super cool like that.

Now I know what the heck Angry Birds is and why it’s insanely addictive.

Bonus.

Seriously, order one of these. You won't regret it.

The first thing I did is order a screen care kit. I had sectors on a screen kill a just-out-of-warranty PDA (remember those?)  As a precaution, I always buy a screen protector to my touch screen devices and recommend you do the same. It will be the best $13 you spend to protect a $500 investment. I'm not joking, go buy one. I'll wait.

Book Page Storage Shelves

They say the cheapest way to spruce up a room is to paint it. I say cheapest way to spruce up a room is to clean and reorganize it.

The utility room is one of those rooms I walk into that makes me go ARRRRGH!

Clutter makes me cranky.

How to Give a Dog a Pill

A Facebook friend asked how to give a dog a pill so the dog doesn't spit it out. I have a sure fired way to give a dog a pill so the pills gets into the dog every time! I made a quick YouTube video for her.

Welcome to my very first vlog starring Blitzkrieg! Oh, and me. But I know you are really here to watch Blitzkrieg .He's the real star of the show.

DIY Daily Shower Cleaner

Cleaning soap scum from the tub, shower door, and walls is number one with a bullet on my list of Stuff I Hate to Clean Because It’s a Pain.

When I discovered daily shower cleaner, it helped. I wasn’t so sure of the not so friendly ingredients in it so I stopped using it. After all, I have a dog to protect from such things.

I switched from bar soap to liquid soap on the advice of my mom’s plumber.  That worked as well as the shower cleaner so I went with that.

I’ve been bouncing from liquid soap (usually Castile) to handmade herbal bar soap (my frugal luxury!) and back again depending upon what’s available or price or whatever.  I likes me some variety in the soap department ‘cuz I’m a girl.

Method has a daily shower cleaner, it does the job just fine. I feel better about the ingredients in it. However, I’m trying to cut spending. I can’t find coupons for it so bye, bye, Method daily shower cleaner.

Until I tried making my own.

Extreme Green Couponing?

On Lazy Budget Chef (You didn’t know I have a food blog?!) I wrote about the show Extreme Couponing  and how I once was a couponer but stopped. Between careful shopping and cooking more from scratch the quality of food we eat went up, the price went down, our heath improved, and our lifestyle turned a deep dark shade of green.

I don’t generally take those “How Green Are You?” quizzes because they are very subjective based on the entity that creates them. Nevertheless, through One Million Acts of Green and helping out Practically Green, I took their quizzes and scored extremely green. I am Superbly Green (the highest rank) on Practically Green and been in their top 10 for almost a year.

Oopsie.

Pretty good for a gal who doesn’t have solar panels, a Pruis, or eats solely certified organic food, eh?

Accidental Anthropolgie Table Cloth Skirt

My sewing machine was deader than a doornail. My new to me serger never worked properly either (possibly why it was handed over to me.) I thought both were goners because my repair guy closed his shop. Fortunately, husband’s aunt hooked me up with her repair guy (thanks Aunt Judy!) Now both machines sew like a dream.

Whew!

Good thing because I couldn’t find a pencil skirt to save my life to wear to Blissdom last January. All I found where bathing suits when I schlepped from store to store in the snow. Silly me, wanting a skirt in December. I should have known better.

Well, if I can’t buy, I’ll DIY!

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.

Garage Workshop Transformation Part 1: Paint Walls

Husband and I are going forward with turning part of our garage into a wood workshop for me. We adjusted the budget a bit due to Blitzkrieg’s knee surgery. We still plan to buy as many materials as we can for the project from the Restore.

Some of the storage and insulation extras may wait unless a good sale comes our way. This will be a cash only project.

Here’s the before.

The beer sign is how dudes decorate. That is what Husband told me as he hung it up after I banished it to felt it worked better in the garage.

One Small Change: Buy a Bagless Vacuum Cleaner

March’s One Small Change is something I avoided forever – getting rid of my 14-year-old sweeper for a bagless HEPA filter model because the greenest and cheapest thing is to use what you already own, right?

My old Hoover upright uses bags. I can buy them for a dollar a package at Dollar Tree so the price of bags isn’t an issue. In a pinch, I can always open the top of the bag, dump the contents in the trash or compost bin, and staple the top of the bag closed so I can reuse it again. I learned this trick from the Tightwad Gazette. The Condo Blues whammy dictates that if I run out of vacuum cleaner bags it is going to be when I am in the middle of cleaning the house. 

With a Pekingese whose hobby is shedding, my trusty Roomba Red got the daily dog fur tumbleweeds and the upright came out every other day for the heavy cleaning. Roomba doesn’t use bags so I figure the waste thing was 50/50.

Not long ago, Roomba’s rechargeable battery heaved its last breath. Being one of the first Roombas, it is not as powerful as the current models but it did the job. (I like a clean house because I am my mother’s daughter. I like gadgets and tech because I am my father’s daughter. Super early adopter robot owner me.Yay robots who do your bidding!)

Wood Pallet Wall Treatment

Some people call my home the House of Wacky Wall Treatments because I like to use more than just plain paint on our walls for stylish effects. I can appreciate a wall treatment that colors outside the lines like Mom and Her Drill’s wood pallet living room accent wall.

 Photo courtesy of Mom and Her Drill

Would You Buy a Thrift Store Mattress?

I popped into my favorite Thrift Store. It often has donations from retail stores. That day it had new furniture. A sofa, a chair, and a few mattresses and box springs were so new they were still wrapped in plastic. The quality was that of a low end discount store, but the prices were excellent. If you were buying furniture for a dorm room or first apartment, this is your place! A queen size mattress was selling for $199 and the matching box spring was $75.


Thrift store shopping is an affordable way to shop green. Husband and I needed a mattress for our guest room. We don’t want to spend thousands on a super duper uber green guest room mattress since we have overnight guests maybe once or twice a since we moved in six years ago. A more affordable option with an allergy ban cover to keep the flame retardants and such at bay will do just fine. It's working out well in our room.

Want a New Sofa? Reupholster It!

Husband came into my life with his own sofa. It was kinda like a gift with purchase. There was only one small problem with his bachelor sofa – the print.

 1994 called. They want their sofa back.

How to Fix a Garage Door Opener

My automatic garage door opener works fine in the summer but never in the winter. When I push the button on the wall or the remote, the garage door opener does one of two things:

1. The door goes down and pops back up when it reaches the garage floor.
2. The door doesn’t go down at all. The light blinks and that’s it.

Turns out that these two problems are common with garage door openers in winter. The cold weather causes the metal tracks of your garage door to expand ever so slightly which can knock the sensors and force of your garage door opener out of position just enough so the opener will not work properly in winter.

Fortunately, both issues have very quick fixes and take a less time to complete than a TV commercial break.

World’s Cutest Reclaimed Four Poster Dog Bed

The Speckled Dog  literally turned trash into the coolest treasure! She found this nasty looking table on the side of the road and carted it home.

 Photo courtesy of The Speckled Dog

Sew a Quickie Cloth Camera Strap Cover

I’m going to Blissdom. I want something to identify my new black DSLR as mine because it looks like everyone else’s black DSLR camera. I don’t want someone to accidentally pick up my precious and get weirded out about the crazy amount of dog photos on my camera's memory card. What can I say? Blitzkrieg loves the camera.

I always meant to buy a wider camera strap for my Minolta and regretted it. Its thin webbed camera strap digs into my neck – ow! My Cannon has a wider strap – yay! But it’s webbed material – boo! I suspect more digging into my neck – ow!

Hey! A cloth camera strap cover would solve both of my problems. Let's do it!

Dried Sweet Potato Dog Chew Recipe

Blitzkrieg rested comfortably after his knee surgery, well, as comfortably as you can with your leg bandaged up from your hip to your foot. He’s making very good use of the little gift basket of meat flavored baby food his dog cousins gave him for Christmas. I hide Blitzkrieg’s pain medication in a spoonful of baby food and he gobbles it up as a low calorie treat. It’s important to keep his weight consistent as his leg heals. Also, he wants to keep himself svelte for da ladies. 

My little dog is resilient. Three days after the surgery, he was running, climbing stairs, and jumped on the sofa with his leg in cast - all against doctor's orders. It's been a stressful time for all of us. I hate hearing Blitzkrieg whimper in pain and be frustrated that he can't be the independent dog he wants to be right now.

Ow.

Yesterday Blitzkrieg got his bandages off. This surgery has pushed every fear button we all worked so hard to conquer from his abused stray days. I need to give him a positive distraction from licking his stitches before they dissolve on their own. Our favorite yuppie puppy pet store did not have dried sweet potato chews (they had no idea it was an emergency) so I made them myself – and saved a bit a cash. Yay!

How to Buy a Mattress

Husband and I need to buy a mattress for our guest bedroom. I'd like a green mattress if possible. I also want the mattress to be comfortable.  Of course, as the saying goes not too comfortable, or my guests will never leave!

Mattress shopping is nothing short of stressful. Unlike a car, you can’t comparison shop when it comes to mattresses. There isn’t anything to stop a mattress manufacturer from making the same style of mattress and putting a different name on it for every store that sells it. In fact, it’s a common practice. The price points for the same brand of mattress sold under different names vary wildly from store to store too.

That’s why mattress stores can guarantee that you won’t find a cheaper mattress at another store and if you do, they’ll give it to you free! Because you may find the same mattress brand, you won’t find the same mattress model name in another store – the individual model names are proprietary to each store.

Mattress Shopping? Prepare to Be Screwed

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Five Repurposed Home Organizers

I am organized because I’m lazy. If I have a flash of inspiration I don’t want to hunt all over the house for the things I need to make my vision come to life. That is why I live by labels. It also keeps me from putting something “in a better place” and then promptly forgetting that I moved it leading to a whole house search.

As much I love wondering the aisles of the Container Store, I’m kinda cheap green. I try to repurpose what I have before I buy. If it works, I might upgrade it.  Sometimes I don’t under the if it’s not broke don’t fix it mantra.

Wood clementine boxes are fantastic for storage! I store my tea collection in two Clementine crates in my pantry. When I want a cup of tea, it’s easy to pull all of the tea from the pantry and take my pick.

 Yes I have a lot of tea. I don't have many vices, so this will have to do.

Do You Use Cloth Panty Liners?

I’m kicking off the New Year and my January One Small Green Change in an up close and personal kind of way. So if you are any of my male relatives or current or feature employers this post is probably not for you because I’m going to talk about lady bits.

Lately I’ve had the need to wear a daily panty liner. Strangely wearing a disposable panty liner has lead to a few bladder infections. Odd, since I haven’t had any issues with disposables until now.

Going without is doable but not very comfortable ifyouknowwhatImean.

I though making cloth panty liners would be a good use for my fabric stash. I searched Craftster for patterns and emailed Crunchy Chicken a few fabric and construction questions.

Epic craft FAIL.

11 Green Ways to Clean for the Holidays

One of the last things I do before the holiday gathering starts is clean my house. I suspect you might too. Or at the very least will need to do a through cleaning AFTER the holiday hordes have invaded your home.

You can still have a clean house and keep it a green house. Here are 11 tips for green cleaning from some of the coolest bloggers around. If you look closely at timestamp 0:40, you’ll see little ol’ me!

AEP GridSmart: Electricity Saving Tool or Intrusive?

When it comes to electricity, we all want it. We all need it. We keep creating more and more items that use it to make our lives easier or more fun or more efficient. However, I can’t help but think where is all of that extra electricity we use going to come from?

As it is, there are cities, even whole states, that consistently use more electricity than they can generate on their own. Building new power plants of any type (using alternative or conventional means of making electricity) is difficult because while everyone wants to reap the benefits (including myself) no one wants a new power plant in their backyard because it can mess with property values.

For now, the best course of action may be to collectively use what electricity we have a little more wisely. This is difficult, even for me. I really don’t know how much electricity I’m using until long after I’ve used it - at the end of the month when I get my bill.

One method is for electric companies, like mine, American Electric Power (AEP) to use gridSMART   smart meter and grid technology to reduce electricity consumption and improve system wide delivery and performance. It would mean having a smart meter, a Programmable Communicating Thermostat, and eventually appliances with smart chips in your home. That way, you can check your use in real time on line, be billed for your use at a flexible billing rate, and make adjustments as you see fit.  

 A conventional electric meter next to a digital smart meter

It sounds great! I also like that the gridSMART technology runs on auto pilot much like my current programmable thermostat. The only difference is that unlike my current programmable thermostat (which I learned that most people don’t use because programming them can be a pain) the Programmable Communicating Thermostat is easier to program. The Programmable Communicating Thermostat and smart chip appliances would also send information back to AEP about my use during peak use times such as sweltering summer days and allow AEP to lower my temperatures a notch to prevent a system overload or brown out.

That last part sounded a little Big Brother to Husband. Because as much as we like saving electricity and having a lower than normal electric bill, we hate people telling us what we have to do in our own home. Husband also wondered what prevents someone from reducing the refrigerator’s electrical use to the point it makes ice cream melt because they want to be mean. 

AEP GridSMART

I was invited to a blogger lunch and presentation sponsored by AEP, Mom Central Consulting , and Silver Spring  to discuss AEP’s gridSMART program and get some answers to Husband’s questions.

AEP’s new gridSMART pilot program will install new Smart Meter’s on customer’s homes (sadly not in my area of the city.) Unlike the current mechanical meters, digital Smart Meters have encrypted wireless two way communication between your house and the electric company so no one can mess with or access your information. Besides the flexible billing rates and allowing customers to set up an alert when you move to a higher energy pricing tier, the smart meter will automatically alert AEP when there is a blackout.

Under the current system, at least three homes have to call it in before AEP knows that there is trouble. That last part made me sit up and take notice, because as you all know Mother Nature likes to send me blackouts. They build character.

Opt In, Opt Out GridSMART Programs

All of those services get me excited but in the interest of checking things out thoroughly I had to ask about some of the things that gave Husband a Big Brother like vibe. Mainly:

·        “Offering consumers the option to receive a rebate in return for allowing AEP to send set back signals to a Programmable Communicating Thermostat during peak load conditions.

·        In the future you will be able to control the energy usage of the appliances in your home through chip connected to your home area network. “ AKA: Smart chip appliances.

Fortunately, under AEP’s gridSMART program these options are opt in only. You are given a financial incentive in the form of a rebate to have the AEP Programmable Communicating Thermostat installed but if you don’t want it, you don’t have to have it.

In addition, even if you have it installed and say, you’re having a houseful of relatives over on a crazy hot summer day, you can override the temperature if AEP wants to lower your thermostat a notch or two.  The same goes for the smart chip appliances – because who wants melty ice cream? Not me!

All changes need to be approved through the Public Utilities Commission (PUCO) before AEP rolls them out to their customers. So that lessens the chance that someone will be lowering your electrical use just to be spiteful to Not Going To Happen.

AEP Ohio is one of the first utilities to test this program. They tell me that gridSMART is the trend and something like it will eventually be coming to you. What do you think? Is it a money and energy saving tool or too intrusive?

Disclaimer: I wrote this post after attending an informational luncheon on behalf of Silver Spring Networks and Mom Central Consulting and received a gift bag and gift card as a thank you for taking the time to participate. This had no bearing on my opinions and all thoughts and opinions are my own. As you all well know, I can be highly opinionated.
 

I Changed 303,736 Light Bulbs. What Did You Do Today?

Even though I’ve been living a green life for longer than the three years I’ve been blogging about it, I don’t consider myself a dark green blogger or even an expert most days.

Yes, I was on TV last winter but I think that was more of being a crazy freak who keeps her house too cold during winter than being a held up as Big Green Champion. Saving energy is very important to me and I blog about it a lot , but let’s face it, saving energy is not as sexy or unusual as some other areas of green living that get more press.

So I do my daily green thing and try to do my best with what life hands me. If I can make you laugh or make you think or offer you a new tool for your Greening Living Swiss Army Knife, make your home a little prettier or challenge you to personally change 303,736 incandescent light nulbs for CFLs in fourth months then it’s a good day here on Condo Blues. 

“What?! Are you nuts?!” you say, “Do you think I could actually change all of those light bulbs in a such a short amount of time?!”

I sure do. It's easy!

How I Planted 8,209 Trees in Four Months

Three Great Gift Bag Ideas

Oh gift bags how you make wrapping gifts so speedy! Gift bags are fabulous for wrapping odd shaped gifts like soccer balls and stuffed animals. Gift bags can easily be reused from one year to the next, which makes them an easy and  inexpensive way to go green without being so In Your Face Trying To Send a Message. 

Don’t you just love it when the cheapest and easiest way is the greenest way?

According to an article on Lehman’s blog: “We throw away 25% more trash between Thanksgiving and New Year’s than any other time of year.  This amounts to 25 million tons of extra trash.”

Wow.

Three Amazing Toilet Paper Tube Crafts

My favorite type of recycled craft projects is the type that completely transforms a seemly simple item into something amazing and unrecognizable. I think all of the people who entered the White Cloud Imagination Unrolled Contest did just that. Look at the winner’s projects!

 First Place Winner is this Garland

 

 The Second Place winner is the Titanic

The third place winner made these cute TP people

I have a hard time deciding if the Titanic is my favorite or the garland. I’m leaning toward the garland because that’s something I could use if I made it.

I had better start saving toilet tissues rolls just in case.

If you’re looking for a great kid or holiday craft, check out the rest of the entries on My White Cloud . 

Disclaimer: I am a White Cloud blogger and they are compensating me for the considerable time I  am spending on this project. However all opinions are my own and are not  influenced by this compensation which is going directly into the Blitzkrieg Surgery Fund.

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Three Basket Laundry Method Saves Time, Money, and Energy

When I first met Husband, he made laundry a one time only task by shoving everything he owned into one load in the washing machine – whites, darks, reds, every thing! Then he ran the washer on the hottest setting possible. What didn’t shrink, faded and all of his white t-shirts were gray

Husband has been banned from doing laundry.

For Husband separating your dirty clothes into whites, darks, and brightly colored loads mystifies him. He thinks that we would be doing several little loads of laundry a week instead of full loads of laundry that not only save time but also save energy.

That’s when I created the Three Laundry Hamper Method. We have three identical laundry hampers in our closet. Each hamper has a label.

• White Clothes – All dirty white items should be deposited here for washing.

• Dark and Red Clothes – All dirty dark and red items should be deposited here for washing.

• Brightly Colored Clothes - All dirty brightly colored items should be deposited here for washing.

Each family member is responsible for putting his or her dirty items in the appropriate hamper. If I had small children, I’d color code the tags or draw pictures of the items so they can identify what goes where.

The three laundry baskets allow me to see when a hamper will make a full load of laundry.  To save even more electricity I wash all of my clothes in cold water. According to Treehugger: 

“Washing every load on the hot/warm cycle (in a top loading machine and an electric water heater) for a year is equivalent to burning about 182 gallons of gasoline in a car; in an average (19.8 miles per gallon) car, that'll get you around 3595 miles. So, wash in hot/warm, or drive almost 3600 miles -- same difference”

I’ve been washing in cold for years and my clothes get just as clean as they did when I used warm and hot water but without the fading! I credit my whites staying white and my bright colors staying bright because I wash them in cold water and add a bit of oxygen bleach when needed.

If you’re worried about killing dust mites or germs on your clothes, pop them in the dryer. A dryer heats your clothes hotter than washing machine water.

I sent A Gift of Green ecard   to my mom as a little reminder about her laundry situation.

 

You can still pledge and acts of green, which would be helpful since Cisco hasn’t met their goal of one million people completing at least one small act of green. 

 

What is your laundry tip or woe?

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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.

Make Gift Bows from Magazines Without Staples or Tape

I had the Christmas crafting itch but no time to get involved in a huge project since I was leaving town for Thanksgiving.What’s a creative, crafty girl to do? 

As I was about to put a bunch of travel magazines that a friend had given me into the recycling bin I saw that I was out of gift bows in my gift wrapping supply box. 

I just found my quickie Christmas craft!

I recycled those old magazines to make Christmas gift bows from old magazines. You can also make Christmas gift bows from potato chip bags but I didn’t have any of those at the time.

I used How About Orange’s gift bow tutorial but instead of using glue, staples or tape like she did I used metal paper fasteners, which made the project a lot less messy.

How to Recycle Magazines into Gift Bows

You will need:

1 magazine page or clean empty chip bag

Pair of scissors or exacto knife (I think using the exacto is easier)

1 1-inch metal paper fastener

Ruler

Cutting mat (if you have it and are using the exacto knife)

Make it:

1. Cut three 3/4" wide by 10 ½” tall strips from the magazine or empty chip bag. 

2. Cut three 3/4" wide by 9 ½” tall strips.

3. Cut two 3/4" wide by 7 ½” tall strips.

4. Cut one 3/4" wide by 3 1/2” tall strip.  You should have nine strips total.

5. Twist each end of a 10 ½” tall strip into a figure 8.

6. Push the figure 8 strip onto the paper fastener. I found that making a small hole with a pair of scissors in the center of my figure 8 made it easier to pierce the figure 8 with the 1-inch fastener.

7. Twist the remaining 10 ½” tall strips into figure 8s and add them to the paper fastener.

8. Twist each of the 9 ½” tall strips into figure 8s and add them to the paper fastener.

9. Twist each of the 7½” tall strips into figure 8s and add them to the paper fastener.

10. Make a loop with the 3 1/2” tall strip and add it to the paper fastener.

11. Bend the ends of the paper fastener to hold the loops in place.

12.  Slap that bad boy on a gift and gaze in wonder!

WARNING: Magazine bow making can be addictive!

The first few bows I made were a little wonky. The more I made, the more store bought bow-like they became. You can adjust the overall size of the bow by using longer or shorter strips to make it.

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30 Homemade Gift Ideas for Women, Men, Girls, Boys and Dogs

I Christmas shop year round for items as well as for ideas. That way I have time to make sure my gift is meaningful to the recipient. It spreads the spending out throughout the year so I never have to pay with credit. Sometimes I buy and sometimes I DIY it really depends upon what I think the person will like or need that year.

Jenn of The Green Parent  suggested to those of us in The Green Mom’s Carnival with craftier blogs could write about gifts/decorations that folks could make with the stuff they already have around the house as a way to offer suggestions on how to celebrate the holidays without going overboard.

This year my DIY options are severely limited. I killed my sewing machine last year making Christmas gifts. Seriously. The thing won’t run. At. All.

*whimper*

Since I can't make anything new, I went through some old posts and came up with 30 ideas for homemade holiday gifts for women and girls, men and boys, families, and your little dog too!

Warm a Winter Room with Free Heat!

To save energy and heating costs I don’t turn on my furnace until it’s consistently 40 degrees (F) outside. That makes for some nippy nights when the outdoor temperatures dip down to 40 degrees in the evening. BRRRR!

I put extra blankets on my bed to snuggle under. However, my bedroom has a pitched ceiling. I loved the high ceiling in that room when we bought the house until the first winter - because heat rises.  It is a spendy room to theat and even then it’s still cold.

Reversing the blades on a ceiling fan would do the trick but I don’t have a ceiling fan in that room. Not to worry, I have a free space heater for my bedroom and I bet you do too!

The Green Bag Lady

I don’t support laws that ban plastic shopping bags because it ends up hurting people that cannot afford to buy reusable shopping bags. I’d rather a store or city offer incentives for using your own bag because I think you get more flies with honey than vinegar. That’s why I had to interview Teresa VanHatten-Granath when I heard about her Green Bag Lady Project.

In an attempt to make her corner of the world greener, Teresa makes and gives away free cloth shopping bags! The project started in her own college classroom. She now has people using her free cloth shopping bags around the world!

Green Bag Lady Bag Number 111170.

How long have you sewn? How did you get started making shopping tote bags?

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?

Did you enjoy this post? Get more like it by subscribing to the Condo Blues RSS Feed  or to Condo Blues by Email.

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.

Reclaimed Barnwood Floors - Yea or Nay?

I love decorating and doing projects with reclaimed and recycled materials. I also like hardwood floors. Schlabach Woodworks is an Ohio company that combined my two loves and recently used reclaimed wood from an old Ohio barn to create these swoony hardwood floors in a house featured in the 2010 Parade of Homes.

 Look at that character!

You wont' find this in a big box store!

They also make staircases and mantle pieces from old barn wood too. Sadly I can't give you any more information than what I just did because Schlabach Woodworks doesn't have a web site due to their Amish roots.

Very green. Unique, but spendy and much nicer than laminate flooring. Although with a reclaimed barn wood floor like this, you really wouldn’t need to replace it as you eventually would with carpeting. It should last a lifetime!

What do you think? Reclaimed barn wood floors – yea or nay?


Looking for more wood flooring ideas? Check out the following options - and more! - below

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Trying Recycled Content Toilet Paper, Take Three

Monday I talked about how my family is doing a blind tushie test of two brands of recycled content toilet paper. White Cloud sent us two rolls of toilet paper marked A and B. They also said we should “have fun” with the testing.

Husband and I took this as a cue to do scientific experiments like on Mythbusters. That didn’t work out very well because all of our favorite episodes are the ones that involve blowing stuff up. Apparently they don’t sell C4 and blast shields to just anybody, let alone let you use the your local police bomb range to test durability by blowing up rolls of toilet paper. The nerve!

Make a (Cute) No Solicitors Sign

One of the drawbacks of living in a condo community with nicely planned blocks of houses with sidewalks is that we are ripe for the picking when it comes to door to door salespeople. Now that it’s election season, it’s becoming downright unbearable! I’ve had more than one person come to the door pimping the same issue despite asking them to please take them off our visitation list. It's not that I'm politically unaware, I am more than you know. It's just that I don't want my Saturday HGTV and DIY Network coffee + snuggling doggie + dream time interrupted three times in one day with a parade of people knocking on my door about the same thing. The worst offenders are the fake water testing companies trying to tell us our water will kill us unless  we buy their product allow them to test our water.

I decided to make a No Solicitors sign.

I bought a frame at Goodwill and sanded it.

 

 It doesn't look like much but this frame is an achievement. I went to Goodwill looking for picture frames and came out of Goodwill with picture frames instead of picture frames plus the dozen other things that tempted me. Yay me!

I used leftover outdoor paint from my porch chair revamp project to paint my picture frame since it will live outside.