Showing posts with label recycle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recycle. Show all posts

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Can we make it?

Don Delillo's White Noise.

"Here we are... knowing all these great things after centuries of progress but what can we do...? Can we make a refrigerator? Can we even explain how it works? What is electricity? What is light?... Name one thing you could make."   (from blog post at fair companies)

 

Sustainable living continues to intrigue me on many levels.  As I am sure I have said before in one of my blogs somewhere, the term has been upcycled over time encompassing everything from waste not want not thriftiness, frugal cost saving, simple and/or meaningful living, do it yourself, homesteading, living off the grid, recycling, green or eco-living, but whatever it might mean to you, I have a stronger sense of what it has meant and means to me. 

 

A few years back I set upon myself the task of learning to do more that would equate to what is today’s term of sustainable living by trying to teach myself more of the old homemaker skills that seem to elude my grasp.   It was both fun and challenging and I learned some few new skills, but not nearly enough to survive if the way of life as we know it does not sustain. 

 

I keep thinking I will blog about it, make a website collection about it and I do go about getting projects started but fall seriously short of goal.  Enough years have elapsed with the internet now that there are many such blogs, websites, groups, forums, social networks that cover sustainable living far more comprehensively than my meager collection efforts. 

 

So what is the point of this blog entry?  I have One Note which is a great piece of Microsoft software that works like several expanding file folders.  For the most part that is where I keep my collections.   There is no need to blog it as a means to harvest or collect information intended for my personal use.  Blogging then has changed shape for me as blogging is a sharing of information enterprise, and I am not sure what I have to share that hasn’t been shared somewhere else by someone else. 

 

I’ve seen a number of blogs that serve as collections of source links pointing to other peoples accomplishments.  I could perhaps do that as well, and find I am likely unwilling to devote the time to keeping such a blog updated regularly, nor spending great amounts of time searching out the internet.  So this blog will be a bit more random and irregular in it’s purpose, theme  and what catches my interest to share.   Mostly though, it still feels to me like the overarching theme for me is what amounts to sustainable living – on several fronts. 

 

Having taken all my blogs and integrated them into one, I find I have far too many category tags for the tags to be functional.   Yet I am unwilling to spend the time to condense the category tags for each blog post into more functional categorization.    Wishing any interested reader well in trying to sort through the too lengthy list of tags, but I sure wouldn’t blame you if you gave up after seeing the list. 

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Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Project; ruffled skirt using pantyhose nylons for ruffles

What a fun idea from Craft Chi - Ruffled pantyhose added to a skirt makes it kicky fun. Instructions at her website.







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Monday, February 26, 2007

Project; little girl circle skirt and top - refashioned from bed sheet and Auntie's capris

Now this woman is 'repurposing' purposely. See her blog, Consumption Rebellion, for outline of how she re-used materials that went into making this outfit for her little girl.



excerpt from her blog - how to:

The skirt was constructed as follows:

- waistband - cut from my Great Aunt's pair of denim capris.
- circle skirt (and its really a circle this time!) - from fabric offcut at an op shop - cost $1
- lining - made from an old bedsheet found at an op shop - cost 50c.

- Top - cut from the leg of my Great Aunt's capris and turned upside down so the tapered end went towards the neck and the wider end towards the waist.
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Sunday, February 25, 2007

Projects: Three projects: Skirt redesign; Postcard Wallart; Skirt conversts to Halter



how to




See this and more at Creative Kismet. She posted this refashion to Wardrobe Refashion but she has her own blog, with photos and how to's and she shares some of her creative ideas.

Like this one.



quick tutorial




Her blog has neatly arranged categories, and from her recycled craft category, below is one nifty idea she created, inspired by something she saw on HGTV in the show Design Remix.
Instead of using matchbook covers as they did on the show, she used old postcards she had and I like the effect. Plus I like old postcards and see them often at thrift stores, and tell myself not to buy because what would I do with them. Well here is what I could do with them.

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Monday, February 19, 2007

Project; Re-use jeans/denim to make assorted quilts

More jean/denim quilt ideas. I really must begin saving jeans for the denim and make these projects.

Link for article and some how to instructions at Backwoods Home Magazine.



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Also, same magazine website - Backwoods Home Magazine, an article that explains how to sew a baby quilt in two days. Sounds like something even I might learn to do since I haven't yet begun the self-teaching of learning to make a quilt.




And another quick make it fast project for woolen mittens using old sweater.

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Friday, February 16, 2007

Project; two pairs of too small pants to one pair of capris that fit

Pants too small, adapt them using an idea from Three Cat Night (link to follow her instructions). I'm not sure she is still blogging since the last entry in Dec 06, but I remember seeing this project at her blog before and I thought I might could try something like this. Well, now that many of my old pants don't fit my growing hips and waist, I gotta try something!



Two pair of too small pants to one pair of capris that fit

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Project; Four from one; dress and three bags from denim bib overalls

A new dress and three bags all from one pair of denim bib overalls - found at her blog - The Sporadic Packrat and she knows how to refashion something old into something new. She took the Wardrobe Refashion pledge, and I can't believe how creative people can be once they let their creative thoughts flow. Some one day I may take that Wardrobe Refashion pledge.



and



and



oh - and a dress too, all out of one pair of denim bib overalls!

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Friday, January 26, 2007

Project: Shredded magazine strips to wallpaper



Interesting recycling use of old, saved magazines. Expand on the idea using
recycled newspapers, old greeting cards, wrapping paper, colorful junkmail, past IKEA catalogs, maps. Think up your own creative way to reuse/recycle colorful articles which would otherwise be headed to the trash bin.



instructions posted at decor8 (fresh finds for hip spaces - and a new link I'm adding to my blog)

Shredded Bliss How To: Grab all the magazines you'd like to incorporate into this project, issues you won't mind sending to the shredder, that is. Find a shredder that creates strips (try Staples where you can find them for around $20) and feed your colorful pages through it. Collect the strips that appeal to you the most, that work within your desired palette and the 'look' that you're going for. Grab a narrow paintbrush and apply a craft glue to the back of each strip (Budget Living suggests Delta Sobo from Dick Blick. Locals: There's a Blick across from the new West Elm over by Fenway Park, they have it.).

Place the strips in a pattern on a dry, clean, smooth wall and allow them to set overnight. The next day, brush on an even coat of clear sealant. Let that dry overnight and viola! You've just given your walls a facelift for less than the cost of one roll of wallpaper. Budget Living shows it in a bathroom, but with the moisture factor to consider, I'd suggest this project for a small office space, entry way, guest bathroom (no shower/tub), or just for one wall - behind the bed or your work area, for instance. If you have a galley kitchen, this would look great on the back wall. By the way, Home Cheap Home is loaded with excellent projects, the focus being on use what you have vs. constant spending, so highly suggest picking up a copy.



And another clever idea ....

And here's another cool project that is totally animal friendly and easy to create in an afternoon. Use white linoleum, cut it into the shape of a zebra rug, and paint the black stripes yourself.





So, guess will need a plug for the book then - Budget Living: Home Cheap Home

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