I subscribe to a lot of blogs, and thanks to laziness and procrastination, I get really behind on reading them. There are times that I wonder why I don’t just unsubscribe to most of them if I can’t keep up. But then there are days like today when I have the time to catch up on my reading and I find so many interesting things out there. You may find this surprising, but many of these blogs have nothing to do with food. So today I thought I’d give you a short tour of some of the other things that fill my mind when I’m not dreaming of all of the delicious ways to enjoy food. [Continue reading...]
Tagged as: angry chicken, blogs, craftoholic, crazy aunt purl, ecosalon, ligher footstep, nablopomo, sew mama sew, small steps toward greener lifestyle, tie one on
I don’t usually do anything in particular to celebrate Earth Day, but I have been making small changes to my habits over the last few years to green my life. Things like using reusable shopping bags, reducing my consumer tendencies, and finding creative ways to reuse things. Like this bag. It’s made from fused plastic shopping bags. Originally it was meant to be my lunch bag, but it has become an all-purpose almost purse for me because it holds everything from my water bottle to a book to keys to pens and small notebooks and of course, my iphone. I keep thinking I’ll make more of these and put them on Etsy but I have been baking more than sewing lately. (Although with this heat wave that may be changing soon).
Anyhow, I had a small pile of Amazon boxes and Dan had several more unwanted boxes. And rather than throw them out or send them to be recycled, I decided to reuse them. I saw this project from Design Sponge a few months ago and decided to give it a shot. My cats love the corrugated cardboard scratchers from Trader Joe’s so why not? Honestly, I think my cats would have been happy if I had left the boxes intact. I mean, my cats love boxes.
But I broke the boxes down and cut them into 5″ strips.
Making sure to cut through the “honey comb” in the cardboard (not with it)…
Then I rolled it up, taped it. Rolled, taped. Rolled taped. And on and on. You really need to have a little OCD to work on a project like this. [ If I were to do it again, I would spread it across a few evenings rather than trying to get it all done in 1 sitting. ]
Once it was about the size of the cat bed that Cookie loves, I called it done and put some colorful paper along the outside to spruce it up.
Granted I know that making a cat scratcher from Amazon boxes is not the biggest thing one can do for Earth Day. But I like to think every little bit helps.
What are you doing for Earth Day?
Tagged as: cardboard, cat scratcher, design sponge, fused plastic bag, reuse
I’ve been making small changes over the last year or 2 to “be greener”. And at Resolution Time, I thought about what I could do this year to continue to green my life.
Last year I converted almost completely to reusable shopping bags. The endless supply of plastic bags that I used to hoard under the sink is now just a dozen neatly stowed in the broom closet and reserved for special tasks like quarantining my dirty running shoes in my suitcase (well, until today but more on that later). I have also stopped buying paper towels. I went cold turkey one day. I was out of paper towels and challenged myself to go without. There were plenty of kitchen towels in the drawer, rags for dirty jobs, and I had just made some durable, but cute cotton napkins. So I thought I was set. Turns out I was right. There are very few times when I really wish I had a paper towel and I manage to work around those with very little effort. As I look back on 2008, I realize the small changes I made have added up to make a noticeable impact on my life.
And that brings us to this year. What are the next steps? What can I do in 2009? This year I want to be greener in the kitchen which means not wasting food, finding a better place for “green waste” than the garbage can, and buying more local goods. Overall, I’d like to find more (creative) ways to reuse stuff which brings us back to those plastic bags… :)
I made myself a lunch bag using the plastic bags I had lying around. A friend mine had sent me this tutorial from the Storque over a year ago and I finally put it to use today. Here’s my new lunch bag:
Isn’t it cute? I fused 8 plastic bags together and sewed it into this lunch bag. I didn’t really follow a pattern… I just measured my favorite lunch container and made it big enough for that + many snacks :) The pink trim and flower button all just sort of happened organically — I didn’t like the raw edge around the top so I found some fabric in one of the bins of fabric under my bed. And then it sort of gaped open when it was done so I added a little elastic loop and found the yellow flower button in my random button collection :)
My other green craft project was making a set of cloth napkins for D. and his boys:
It’s only a set of 4 napkins, but that was all I could get from the piece of stripey fabric I had picked up from the remnants basket at my local quilting shop. The napkins are durable cotton so can be used and washed often and stand up to 3 boys. The napkins I made for myself are flowery and pink and girlie, but for the boys I thought the blue and brown stripes would be better :) The napkins were inspired by the “mixy-matchy napkins” in Amy Karol‘s Bend the Rules Sewing.
Tagged as: bags, napkins
from The Storque on Etsy (super awesome, favorite site).
I am going to have to make one of these aprons. It is too cute. I wonder if my Christmas apron fabric (already cut for a slightly different pattern) can be wrangled to fit this pattern… There is just something about the waist on this apron that makes it look more flattering.
Tagged as: apron, etsy, pattern, sewing
I did it. I made a tea cozy. It is made from some light canvas material with batting and felt lining. I’m not thrilled with it, but I did come by the design organically. I measured my teapot and sort of shaped it from there. The end result it not as thrilling as I was hoping for (yes, I want a thrilling tea cozy, is that so wrong?), but it is a couple of magnitudes better than the dish towel I usually wrap around the tea pot.
( I do seem a bit obsessed with the pink stripes lately).
Tagged as: sewing, tea cozy
