From Silver Teapot to Flower Vase

Husband surprised me with a bunch of flowers for our wedding anniversary. I grabbed a vase from my stash (alas, poor me. He gives me flowers often so yes, I have quite a few empty flower vases in my cupboard. Don’t hate me OK?) and arranged the flowers.

Now Husband is a man who gives good gift. He knows I like unusual flower combinations in my bouquets. This bouquet is no exception – it needed an unusual vase and to tell you the truth this isn’t my favorite vase. It’s one of several free with delivery vases I have in my decorating accessory closet (OK, it’s a set of shelves in my utility room that holds candles and the like. I have space issues people!) One of these days I tell myself that I should spiff up the free vases with some glass paint but I forget about it until I need a vase for flowers. I also tell myself that I should just go out and buy a nice vase but I forget about that too.

I went back into the closet (heh) and came out with my silver tea set. Since most of my guests on formal occasions don’t drink tea, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve used this pot for the actual serving of tea. Seems fitting to use it as a vase for my anniversary flowers we got the tea set as a wedding present.

I left the table cloth off of the dining room table. I like the juxtaposition of the formal silver teapot on the
beat up table Husband has a sentimental attachment to and that I want to light on firerustic patina of Husband’s childhood dining room table.

What do you think?

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Help Me Pick a Shower Curtain!

I painted the second bathroom in The Condo a blue that is a little lighter than the Caribbean ocean and a little darker than a Tiffany’s box. It goes with my plan of enlarging and framing some photos we took of the ocean while on vacation in the Dominican Republic. Which I still haven’t done, because I keep changing my mind about what should go on the wall.

I hung the flamingo shower curtain from my old rental’s John Waters Memorial Bathroom (named by my gays, because I dealt with the 80’s pink wallpaper that we inherited by decorating the room with pink flamingos. This of course is the name of one of John Waters’ most notorious early films.) I’m not really trying to do a themey bathroom again, but I like the crisp white curtain against the blue walls.

Pink Flamingos - the shower curtain, not the movie.

Unexpectedly, I now have a choice in shower curtains. My real life friend Anthony of the TFormers Transformers Podcast was having a bad day so I brought Blitzkrieg over to visit so Anthony could lower his blood pressure by petting my dog. Blitzkrieg was happy to help out because Anthony is one of his favorite humans. Anthony always has treats for visiting dogs and he doesn’t even have a dog!

I saw a shower curtain in the package on Anthony’s dining room table. I pointed to one of stripes in the pattern and told him that I painted my bathroom that same Tiffany-esce blue. “Want it?” he said. Turns out Anthony’s mom had an I’m-Your-Mom-so-I’m-going-to-buy-you-things-I-think-you-should-have-for-your-house moment and bought him a new shower curtain to replace the one he already had and liked and that didn’t need replacing.

 Anthony's mom bought this

I put the new shower curtain up in the bathroom but I’m not sure if I like or not. I’m not trying to do a monochromic room. Some days I think it’s OK, other days I think its too much blue. What do you think? Which shower curtain should I choose?

“Don't worry. I'll make sure Lisa does something clever with the other curtain. Or else.”

4 Homemade Sugar Scrubs that Go from Your Pantry to the Bath

As much as I am all over power tools and DIY projects I really am a girly girl at heart. I like pamper myself now and again and using a sugar body scrub is an excellent way to do it. Sugar is as a natural exfoliate but is still gentle enough to be used on skin. The oil in the sugar scrub can protect your skin against moisture loss. Add a few natural essential oils and you have a wonderful way to make an expensive professional spa treatment from ingredients you may already have in your kitchen!

 Pin these sugar scrub recipes to your Pinterest boards for later! Share them with your friends!

Here are four of my favorite natural sugar scrub recipes. They make great gifts too!

1.Basic Sugar Scrub Recipe

What Can You Make From Broken Copper Pipes?

My cell phone rings. “We’re going to be at the farm this weekend. Would Blitzkrieg like to come over for dinner? We’d love to see our granddog.”

It’s my mother in law. And yes, she just invited the dog to her house with the implied invitation that Husband and I would chauffeur the dog to his dinner date. That’s what happens when your dog is more popular with your friends and family than you are I suppose. (Although it is heartwarming that the in-laws have realized that Blitzkrieg is as close as they are going to get to an actual grandchild from us for awhile. Don’t feel too bad for them. They have five grandkids from Husband’s other sibs, so the in-laws aren’t exactly hurting in the grandchildren department.)

We drive to the little farmhouse. Surprisingly we find it in disarray. Big chunks of drywall are missing from most of the walls. “Hey! You’re just in time! Mom says. “We’re celebrating a bit tonight. We just got the water back on.”

What?!

Turns out that when the renters moved out of the house in January, instead of turning the heat down to 55 degrees like you should in a soon-to-be unoccupied house during a snowy winter, they turned the heat OFF COMPLETELY. They didn’t bleed the water lines dry so let’s do the math, shall we?

Below zero temperatures + standing water in copper pipes =

One might think that the previous tenants did this out of ignorance. Chances are no. The renters were asked to leave after not paying rent for oh, say, the last 6 months of their stay. Hmmmmm...vindictive much? Consider yourselves formally crossed off our Christmas card list.

Once the big pool of standing water was removed from the floor, the burst pipes needed to be found from behind drywall all over the lower level of the house and replaced. Even though my father-in -law has much more experience in a whole lot more DIY areas than me, this job was much more than evn our DIY skills combined could handle. It was time to call in a pro.

Fortunately the man who lives next to the little gray farmhouse is a plumber. The job kept him quite busy for several months. At $22.00 an hour, the plumber’s family isn’t going to have to worry about being able to pay their rent anytime soon.

As the dinner party progressed and Mom and Dad entertained us with the trials and tribulations of fixing up the house yet again and I think - blog fodder! I started snapping photos of the broken pipes. Suddenly Husband appeared over my shoulder.

Husband: What are you going to make out of those?

Me: Money? Scrap copper prices are pretty good right now.

Husband: Yeah, but knowing you, you’re going to do something cool with the remains, right?

Me: No. I’m going to blog about the broken pipes.

Husband: Oh. That’s disappointing. I expected something cool.

Looks like I’ve trained him a little too well in creative reuse department.

What do you think? Is there anything I can make from burst water pipes?

How to Save Electricity While Heating Your Hot Tub

One of my very best friends is now the proud and happy owner of a hot tub thanks to Craigslist. His partner on the other hand, isn’t as happy because he said that he was concerned about how much more electricity this little extravagance was going to cost them.

I get questions about saving electricity a lot because I now have quite the reputation among by friends and family as an Energy Savings Maven (hey, there could be worse things, right?) I wondered if there really was such a thing as an energy efficient hot tub. I asked J Williams of Hot Tub Works that same question and one of his staffers offered to write a guest post on the topic for me.

Here you go my friends, this post’s especially for you!

Sink Yourself into an Energy-Efficient Hot Tub

By Jayne Hawkins


With the cost of electricity skyrocketing, it’s no wonder that we are constantly looking for ways to cut our utility budget. Saving money does not have to be difficult, and often requires just a few small changes within our homes. Even if you are new to the latest techniques, it’s never too late to make changes to keep your hard-earned wages in your wallet. Unfortunately, cutbacks and downsizing are causing many of us to reconsider our dreams and goals for the future. For many, this means saying no to a remodelled kitchen, summer patio, or relaxing hot tub.

Can't Compost? Use Coffee and Eggs Instead!

In Central Ohio Mother’s Day is the unofficial frost date. Plant anything before Mother’s Day and an April frost or two or three will most surely kill it. Plant after Mother’s Day and your plants should live.

Mother’s Day is several weeks away and after looking at this dirt patch for the last 6 months or so, I’ve been jonesing for some flowers.

“This is pathetic.”

I don’t want to spend a lot of time or cash on spring flowers because I’m going to turn the dirt patch into a raised garden bed. Any spring flowers I plant now will soon be sacrificed when we rent the jackhammer (yes, I said jackhammer -yahoo!) and start chipping away at the cement in the garden bed. What’s a gal to do?

6 Ways to Reuse Marshmallow Peeps

Once I had that whole Easter Bunny thing figured out as a kid I asked her to not put Peeps or chocolate covered marshmallow eggs in my Easter basket - pretty please - because I don’t like to eat them. Turns out the Easter Bunny didn’t like them either and bought because she thought her kids would like them. Turns out no one in the house liked Peeps. It was a heartfelt confession - a very After School Special moment.

So what to do with all of those left over Easter Peeps if you don’t like them either?

I suppose you could use them to make s’mores.

Of course when I make s’mores I’m more about lighting the marshmallow on fire to please my inner pyromaniac than actually making and eating the confection. A charred marshmallow bunny face peeping out from underneath the graham crackers could lead to some sort of psychosis or inner trauma. Like I don't have enough of that in my life already.

No, my friends, I say when life gives you marshmallow Peeps, pick up a glue gun and get crafty!

You can reenact Great Scenes in Rock and Roll History.

Or reenact scenes from your favorite movies, like Mommie Peepsest,

NO! WIRE! HANGERS! EVER!

Soylent Green,

Soylent Green is PEEP-le! PEEP-le!

or Star Wars.

Not much to say here other than that's a whole lotta sci-fi sugar.

Whatever you do, don’t let those little Peepss party unattended. The results could be more than you bargained for.

Yes, it's a Peep show.

OK folks. Spill. Marshmallow Peeps. Love ‘em or hate ‘em?

How I Get Free Reusable Shopping Tote Bags

Like any good parent, Husband and I look for places and activities where we can take our kid. It just so happens that our kid is dog, so that limits where it’s appropriate or legal for us to take him for family fun.

Cabin fever, a discount coupon, and the fact that we could take Blitzkrieg with us, had us visiting the Columbus Pet Expo in order to
get free stuffspend some quality time together.

The handsome men of Condo Blues!

Mission accomplished on the free stuff. Blitzkrieg got free treats so he was happy.

Blitzkrieg did not get this bone as a free treat. But he sure wanted me to buy it for him because it’s almost as big as he is!

Husband got a free cloth baseball cap to wear and get sweaty when running. He promptly broke it in after we got home. Side note: I washed his hat in our washing machine and it survived! Neither of us expected that to happen. I didn’t stick it the dryer though. I let it dry on its own.

I got a freebie tote bag. I didn’t realize until I got it home that it has a side pocket for a water bottle. I stuck my Earthlust bottle in the pocket so you can see it. Lo and behold once I cover up the logo, I think I found the new Dog Mommy Bag!

Even though my kid’s a dog, he, like a human child, requires that I take a lot of stuff with me when we go out (treats, pickup bags, dog water bottle dish (he hates using a community water dish) etc.) I now understand why all of my mommy friends all carry big Mommy Purses/Totes. Just sayin’…

I try to get a freebie swag tote bag at events I attend because I use them as reusable shopping tote bags. I also find that the freebie nylon backpacks are great for trips to the dog park, or for Husband to carry stuff in (keys, wallet, etc.) when he runs, and they’re very useful if you suddenly find yourself on crutches and you need to carry something around the house – guess how I found that one out?

If I don’t feel like being a walking ad for the sponsor, I just turn the backpack around so the logo faces my back. Or I cover up the logo with something .

Another thing I like about the freebie reusable tote bags is that if someone says they need a reusable tote and don’t have one (or are going to be on crutches) I just give them one of mine - no sweat. They don’t have to feel guilty or offer to pay me because they know I didn’t lay out a wad of cash for it.

Personally I don’t mind if my reusable shopping bag has a logo that is different from the store I’m shopping at but I know some people do. My favorite tote bags are two canvas bags I bought from Kroger an eon ago. They are the first bags I fill from the stash. I figure if Meijer hates the fact that I bring my sturdy Kroger bag into their store then they can give me a Meijer branded tote bag for my groceries – at no charge. Funny, that never happens; they just pack up my purchases and send me on my merry way.

Plus using a free swag bag tote bag is an easy way to find out if you can make the reusable shopping tote bag thing work for you without laying out any cash. You can always upgrade your bags to something sturdier if you decide that you like it.

How do you feel about logoed tote bags? Love them? Hate them? Do you reuse them, revamp them, or toss them aside?

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This post is part of Thrifty Green Thursday.

Two Natural Ways to Dye Easter Eggs

I was caught off guard this year and just realized that Easter is fast approaching. I don’t have time to run to the store to buy an egg dying kit. Not to worry, I found two ways to dye Easter eggs with the stuff you may already have around your house.

How to Dye Easter Eggs With Spices

I’ve read that several sources have tried to use spices to dye Easter eggs. Most of the things they tried like beet juice didn’t work too well but one did – turmeric.

It’s odd but we have a very large international population in Columbus. There are a ton of independent grocery stores for just about every ethnic population here - Middle Eastern, Asian, Hispanic/Mexican, and Hippie – those are our health food stores. I can get spices on the cheap and sometimes in bulk if I buy them from the ethnic/health food stores. However, your mileage may vary.

How to Season and Wash a Baking Stone

Scene: A lazy Saturday morning. Lisa is snoozing her life away snuggled under 7 blankets on her bed. Husband enters the room.

Husband: Lisa, wake up. I already took Blitzkrieg out side for a potty.

Me: “…….”

Husband: I made scones for breakfast.

Me: “!!!!!!!”

Yes, my wonderful Husband whipped up a batch of cherry scones and served them with teeny jars of clotted cream and lemon curd for breakfast. The cherry scones were a wonderful surprise because weekend morning breakfasts are usually a fend for yourself type of deal. The only exception is that one of us makes a gallon of coffee which we sip throughout the morning at our leisure.

Even better was that Husband used our baking stone to make the scones. A seasoned baking stone is a wonderful alternative to using a Teflon baking pan which can leach questionable substances into your food while you cook it. It also saves me a little bit of money because I don’t have to use cooking oils, butter, spray with a seasoned baking stone.

How Do You Plan Landscaping When You Suck At Gardening?

After watching our “easy to care for landscaping” die a little less than two years after buying The Condo I replanted those seven little solders all standing in a row…

…with my first attempt at grub resistant gardening. This is what my front flower beds looked like early last summer.

Mother Nature pulled a nice big April Fools Day prank on me (clever how I worked April Fool’s Day into today's post, huh?) Japanese Beetles took out my replanted bushes and white leaf mold took out the rest of the plants in the beds. Now I’m stuck with this:

Last fall I took all of the plants out of the flower bed, treated it with Milky Spore, and let the whole thing go dormant. Oh yeah, I put in a garden border with reclaimed bricks while I was at it, but that’s another post.

Apparently Blitzkrieg has a little rule that I can’t take photos for the blog unless he’s in them. What can I say? My dog loves the camera.

Now it’s time for planning the landscaping for those flower beds. The problem is I suck at landscaping. I have no idea what plant or how to decide.

I know that The Condo is in Zone 5, the front yard gets partial morning sun. The soil is clay and we are going to spend a bucket load of our budget on soil amendments. I know I don’t want to plant plants that attract Japanese Beetles (I know I'll never fully rid my yard of Japanese Beetles. I just want to encourage them to fly by my yard and eat at the neighbors) but other than that I don’t know what I want to plant other than some more lavender (it grows well in my crappy soil), perennials that that look pretty and are food/pest deterrent, and possibly a tea bush (Camellia Sinensis) but I don’t know if that will grow in my area. Will it?

How do you decide what to plant and where to put it in your landscaping? What resources do you use? Once you decide what you want to plant where do you get your plants? At the nursery or mail order? Any help or resources where you can point me to would be greatly appreciated.


This post is part of Works for Me Wednesday.

............................................
In other Blog Business:

Are you going to BlogHer this year? If so, could you please login to BlogHer and vote for two Rooms of Our Own that I’m involved in and that aren’t getting a lot of votes? The Rooms of Our Own are causal meet up/networking opportunities held during lunch and are different than the panel discussions.

You don’t have to attend the sessions if you vote for them, but you’re welcome to!

Green Bloggers Room of Our Own (this is separate from the Green Blogger panel.)

When Your Family is Your Blogstalker/Troll Room of Our Own (fortunately I don’t have this issue, I’m promoting it for a blogger who obviously can’t mention it on her own blog.)

Thanks!

A Shopping Cart Made Into a CHAIR?

Now this is a creative reuse project that I love and totally want – a chair made out of an old discarded shopping cart!

I think one of the reasons I like reestore’s Annie chair is that it reminds me of a Bertoia chair. Again, which is something I want but don’t know where to put in my small living room so it stays at the store where I visit it often.

I wouldn’t mind having this once-was-a-washing-machine-drum-now-is-a-coffee- table either. Why didn’t I think of this before we had our old broken washing machine hauled off to be sold for scrap metal?

What I love about both of these reestore projects is that you don’t automatically realize what they are made out of just by looking at them. Especially the washing machine drum table. When I first looked at it I though it was a nice arty modern side table, something like the Bowhaus dog crate/coffee table combo.

It’s only until I read the description that says the Silvana is remade from a washing machine drum that I looked at it and said, “OH yeah, it does look like a washing machine drum.” Genuis!

Makes me want to check out a junkyard just to see what’s out there to remake.

What do you think? Would you consider buying either of these and putting them in your house? Yes? No? Maybe so?

What are Your Favorite Essential Oils?

I first got into essential oils back when I started performing at the Ohio Renaissance Festival. Many of the booths there sold (and still sell) essential oils straight up and in blends for any and all uses you can think of depending upon the vendor or the type of essential oil.

One of my favorite oils is lavender because it smells pretty and is very calming when I'm in Type A Stress Puppy mode. It's antibacterial, and it's also a natural pest deterrent, which is another reason I planted it in my garden. That makes it very easy to dry lavender and bring it into The Condo for all of my lavender needs.

But I'm getting a little tired of the lavender because I have a lot of stuff that's scented with it. My reed diffuser is out of essential oil and I need a change from the lavender. Give me some suggestions. What are your favorite essential oil scents?

Yes I realise that the lavender bucket photo is recycled from an earlier post. I could explain it away by saying that I'm all about recycling because well, I am. In reality, I built a new computer and I'm still working on loading software and files from the old build to my new build. Using photos I already have on my blog's server makes doing today's post a little bit easier while I'm in computer limbo. Thanks for understanding!

I’m on MSN Smart Money!

Thursday was a very, very good day. First off I spent the afternoon at the Columbus Auto Show courtesy of Ford. They invited seven local bloggers to the car show and showed us their new hybrid cars (I’ll blog about this later.) Oh and they took us out to lunch. Free lunch and car talk – cool. Included the local bloggerti – AWESOME! (Which only happened because I know Christina of A Mommy Story and she wrangled me an invite. She’s the big name local bloggerti. I just ride on her coattails.)

So I get home, thinking that’s a nice little perk and am feeling pretty happy. Then I open my email and find a message from MSN. They wanted to check some facts about my 20% Energy Savings Reduction Challenge because MSN Smart Money wrote an article about how I reduced my electricity use by 32% last year!

You, know it’s a good thing that I sit down when I use the computer because I think I would have fallen down otherwise.

This article couldn’t come at a better time. It’s a big reminder to keep up with the energy saving habits because American Electric Power (AEP) will be raising our electricity rates 8% in 2009, decreasing them to 7% in 2010 (how kind), and then jacking them back up to 8% in 2011.

Ouch!

Since it’s the first day of Spring – hurray! – it’s time to switch over from winter energy saving habits to summer energy saving habits. I’ve blogged about mine. Tell me, what are your energy saving habits?
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10 Green Decorating and Craft Projects

I’m searching around the Condo and the Internet for ideas on what to write about for St. Patrick’s Day. I have the Scotch-Irish bloomers that I made for a show. Not historically accurate by any means, but still fun way to hide my unmentionables in case my skirt flew up during a fast and vigorous Scottish Country Dance turn during the show.

I can’t believe I just showed my underwear to you people!

(Granted it’s underwear that goes over my underwear but it’s still underwear.)

But as the subject of a whole blog post - meh.

I think I’ll take it another way and
be lazy
do a recap of some the green (literal) and green (figurative) things we have around The Condo because I like to decorate with both types of green.

1. I made chew toys for Blitzkrieg’s dog cousin Chopper from scrap fabric. I’m also responsible for his festive t-shirt.

2. Blitzkrieg has he own green blanket I made from a cast off baby blanket and paw print scarves.

3. My first attempt at organic gardening! Sadly it doesn’t look this nice anymore. I replanted a couple of diseased plants and they spread pestilence throughout the garden bed . However, on the bright side, this year I get to completely redo the flower beds and make them 100% organic.

4. A green/green project. I repainted and recovered these old doctor’s office chairs that Husband had in his bachelor apartment. The chairs now sit on our front porch.

5. Organic gardening gone right. Once I figured out the nuances, I got a bunch of tomatoes from the plants growing in my upside down tomato planter .

6. Another double green project. The light fixture in my craft room I made from old stemware!

7. Don’t forget my green/green burlap rice bag turned shopping tote bag . I was so happy to find a good reuse for those old faded green curtains.

8. Something I see everyday – the green tissue paper wallpaper behind my desk in my computer room!

9. A row of green halogen desk lights on top of these bookshelves works as energy efficient overhead lighting in my computer room. Our builder didn’t install junction boxes in the ceiling of this room. This was a much easier fix. Cheaper too because I scored these sweet lights on sale at Target.

10. Lastly, Husband’s childhood Mego Hulk stands guard over the washer and dryer in the laundry room. He’s green/green too because I decorated the laundry room with what I already had. Yes, it looks like a dorm room but fun for visiting kids.

Now if only I could convince those visiting kids to do a load a laundry while they’re at it….


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How to Make Powdered High Efficiency Laundry Detergent

My old washing machine died beyond repair. I replaced it with a High Efficiency (HE) washing machine. HE washing machines use less water than conventional washing machines (and save more electricity and water in the process.) You have to use a low sudsing laundry detergent. If you don’t, the washing machine could overflow. I thought that since every green source is pimping HE washers (including myself I suppose), I thought that finding low sudsing powdered detergent would be easy. Not so much. After a long search I found only two and hated both.

• HE Option #1 - Tide HE made me itch. Not surprising because according to family lore my mother used Tide to wash my cloth diapers when I was a baby. Tide gave baby me diaper rash so bad that the skin on my butt chapped and bled. Even thought I ‘m an adult, my mom says she still feels bad about it. Which just goes to show you Mom Guilt NEVER goes away (sorry Mommies.)
• HE Option #2 - Trader Joes was a huge disappointment. It is a plant based laundry detergent– yay! It didn’t clean our clothes very well. Especially Husband’s muddy and sometimes toxically sweaty running clothes. Be thankful computers don't have Smellorama.

I tried using a smaller amount than usual of a regular liquid detergent. It cleaned our cloths but stank up the washing machine after every load - BAD.