Upcycled Crafting: T-shirt Headband

I have been having a mad love affair with Pinterest for the past few months. Have you too been sucked into it's shiny orbit?

In the event that you have not, Pinterest is "virtual pin board" loaded with brightly colored images of DIY projects, striking photographs, fashions finds and more. It goes beyond eye candy; for an easily dazzled thrifty crafter like me, it's more like eye crack.

And so, I've been self-medicating with gorgeous photographs of other folks' art and craft projects, and have pinned a whole mess of DIY goodies and crafts that I want to try my hand at. Today's venture was the "T-shirt Headband", using a few of my favorite elderly t-shirts.

The process is explained completely here, though I still had to find a YouTube video to get the hang of a 5-strand braid.

My first attempt was a herringbone-type braid, using 5 strands of 1" wide fabric (the salmon colored braid), followed by two goes with the 5-strand braid as shown in the video. They came ok for a newbie, I think -



The t-shirts that I used were probably not the best suited for this project. They had lost some of their elasticity in their old age, and the strands didn't really curl into themselves (as did the strands in the tutorial), leaving me with flatter pieces and the occasional visible raw edge.

I also had a spot of trouble keeping my tension consistent, but now that I feel like I have these braiding techniques figured out, I think my next few tries will come out better.

Lastly, here is my Lil' Peanut modelling my favorite of the lot-



:)

Give Your Garbage the Granola Treatment

Since so many folks choose this time of a year to try new things, I thought this the perfect opportunity to challenge you to "Granola your Garbage".

This is going to be an ongoing lecture series of posts about different aspects of reducing waste in your household by recycling, composting, reusing/re-purposing and changing your shopping habits. To the existing mantra of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, I'd add Refuse and Reach Out.

Today's post is about Refusing. Some of these suggestions are probably already alive and well in your household. If you see something listed here that you haven't tried before, think it over. Every little bit honestly does help, so where's the harm? ;)

Ways to Refuse to contribute to over consumption and waste -

*When shopping -

*Refuse to have your item/s bagged at the store if you have just one or two items or for something that is already well packaged. Why do I need a plastic bag to contain my 4-pack of toilet paper again?

*When you're buying produce - do you really need one of those flimsy plastic bags for a two apples or a bunch of bananas? If you really do need one, consider bringing a few from home instead. I even use old bread bags to hold my more loosey-goosey produce or bulk items. Granola-friendly places like food co-ops and farmers markets won't blink twice when you pull out your crinkly old bread bag or reusable plastic container to carry your green beans or walnuts home in.

*Use sustainably produced reusable shopping bags whenever possible. This one falls in between reuse and refuse. The main problem with reusable shopping bags for most folks is that they often forget to bring them into the store when they shop. The way that I manage to remember to bring mine shopping is to fold them up and jam them in my purse just as soon as I empty them at home. Then, the next time I go anywhere in the car, grocery store or not, they go back to the car with me via my purse and are tossed onto the front passenger seat, where I can see and (theoretically, at least) remember them. The bottom line here is, refuse to create waste by using reusable goods whenever possible. For every plastic bag you take home, another one has to be made. Take yourself out of that cycle.

Remember too, that reusable bags aren't just for the grocery store. I also bring mine into Target, the library, Costco, etc.

*Refuse to buy items with excessive packaging. This doesn't necessarily mean that you have to buy in bulk, though you can save money and materials when you do. You can refuse to pay for wasteful packaging by buying bagged refills for things like hand soap, household cleaners (if you don't make your own), etc.

Kids' toys are a real killer on the packaging front too. It has been my personal experience that the more tie downs, wire twists and styrofoam inside of a toy's package, the more that-

a) That toy is likely cheaply made (but not cheaply bought), less sturdy, non-educational and generally devoid of redeeming value. It'd also probably survive a nuclear holocaust intact. I'm lookin' at you, Barbie.

b) You can bet your sweet bippy that that toy came from the other side of the planet and was thusly packaged for it's incredible journey.

*Refuse to buy goods made from endangered, war-torn and virgin sources. I've been buying recycled paper products for several years now, and according to this sign I saw in (of all places) the bathroom stall at the Seattle Aquarium-



I'm saving trees left and right! :) Our household uses recycled paper, tissues, toilet paper and paper towels and I have no complaints about their quality.

On the dramatically darker side of this same coin, we have the other two categories, endangered and war-torn sources. I myself would a million times rather go without than think about anyone or anything suffering for my comfort. My husband has an acquaintance from Sierra Leone who has told him before that the movie "Blood Diamond" wasn't too far off from what was happening in his hometown. That put me off of diamonds for good! Baubles are pretty, but people are dying for our vanity.

The same goes for endangered plants and animals and anything else that is irresponsibly harvested or produced. If you can get by with a kinder, gentler alternative, or better yet, just go without, why wouldn't you?

I'm certainly not perfect and don't expect you to be. I'm just asking you to consider consuming with a conscience. Pause for just a minute before buying and think of your kids, your grandkids, etc. Is this moments comfort worth losing a given resource forever? Is it worth some else's having to go without?

Up next in this series - Reach Out. :)

Composting 102

As eluded to in earlier posts, my compost fanaticism has reached new, annoyingly specific heights this spring with the addition of a second bin to our yard. We added a second after finding that, between kitchen scraps, yard waste and chicken coop cleanings, our bin runneth over. Being so crammed full of stuff, it was not getting adequate air or moisture in it's deepest depths, "retarding", if you will, the breakdown process.

So, we now have two compost bins, side by side. On the left, the "hot" heap, on the right, the "cold".


It's not pretty, but it's very functional.

The hot bin is primarily for critter poo. We also throw in the occasional bowl of kitchen scraps ("green" compost) to balance out all of the "brown". I also add a compost starter now and then to the bin, which is essentially a compost probiotic. It's the "good" bacteria that help eat up and literally heat up the pile. The heat created by all of the microbial activity benefits you in several ways-

1) The bacteria's metabolic process accelerates that rate at which your composting material is broken down.

2) Most compost accelerator formulations include beneficial microorganisms that common topsoil frequently lacks. Again, essentially probiotics.

3) The heat generated in a hot pile, when done right, usually reaches temperatures high enough to "deactivate" weed seeds. So if you have a hot pile and you tend it well, you can throw dandelions, horse poop and other weed seed-filled compostables in there without spreading the weeds all over your garden when you use the finished compost.


The hot bin. With a potato growing in it, no less!

Our cold bin is our worm bin. I don't add compost accelerator or critter poo to it, because I don't want to fry my worms. The majority of my green compostables go into this bin, because those worms are voracious little things.


The cold bin.


My happy little helpers!

The preferred type of worm for a worm bin is the Red Wriggler, sometimes also called a Red Wiggler. They are smaller and more brightly colored than the more common earthworm/night crawler that most people think of when they think of worms and dirt. Earthworms and night crawlers are helpful in their own way, they tunnel through the soil, aerating and adding small amounts of fertilizer in the form of poo as they go. The Red Wriggler is the preferred compost worm, though, because of the quantity of food and plant material that it can break down in a short period of time (they can eat their own weight in food every day!) and because of it's fast reproductive cycle - 5 weeks from hatching to reproductive maturity. You can buy wrigglers online and increasingly more often at garden centers and even farmer's markets. We bought a container of a couple hundred worms a few years back for around ten bucks, and they've gone nuts on their own, ever since.

In addition to making stellar compost, the worms' poo can also be used to make a liquid fertilizer called "worm tea", which many claim, in addition to fertilizing plants, can cure black spot in roses, help veggies root and control unfriendly fungi. I've yet to brew my own tea, but there are a million recipes for it online if you are interested in giving it a try. One trick that I've heard of for making a very effective worm tea is to add a crushed aspirin to your brew, which supposedly boosts plant health and assists root production.

So, if I haven't bored you to tears by now with all of this jabbering on about poop and happy bacteria, I'll say just one last little thing about home composting: Do it! It is absolutely worth the effort! Though you'll be putting 10 times more "stuff" into your compost than you'll be getting out of it, the stuff that you do get out of it is incomparable to anything that you can buy in a store. It is perfect for your plants, critters and land because it was made by your plants, critters and land! Not to mention how much completely usable plant material that it keeps out of disgusting, airless landfills, where it would sit forever, never breaking down, it's usefulness wasted forever. Composting - dig it, baby!!! ;)

Composting 101

Quite a few folks have asked me for additional information about composting, and as weird as it is for me to think that I might actually know a little something about something, when it comes to composting, apparently I actually kind of do. Crazy! ;)

So I guess that I'll begin at the beginning. Compost, by definition, according to Merriam-Webster is "a mixture that consists largely of decayed organic matter and is used for fertilizing and conditioning land." Basically, do-it-yourself dirt.

Compost can be made from TONS of different things - plant-based kitchen scraps, lawn clippings, fallen leaves, straw, food-soiled paper, most animal manure, twigs, newsprint, wood chips, wood ash, etc. The ideal formulation for a compost heap consists of 1/3 "green" ingredients, and 2/3 "brown".

Green ingredients-
Vegetables & Fruits
Grass clippings
Coffee Grounds
Fresh Manure (horse, poultry, sheep, goat, cow, rabbit and -believe it or not- bat are the most common)
Seaweed
Aquarium water & plants
Plant cuttings/trimmings
Wine making/Homebrew leavings - yeast dregs, must, etc.
(It isn't on most lists, but I also throw my fish carcasses - especially salmon - in my compost heap because of their outrageously high nitrogen content. They can be very attractive to rodents and other critters though, so use sparingly.)

Brown Ingredients-
Straw
Hay
Leaves
Egg Shells
Tea Bags
Twigs
Newsprint
Hair
Paper
Wood Chips
Wood Ash
Corn Cobs
Cardboard

The compost heap or bin itself can be as simple or as fancy as you make it. Some folks use tumbling or stackable bins to help aerate and mix their compost, while others have nothing more than a literal heap of clippings and scraps in a corner of their yard. Most people opt for something in the middle, such as a refrigerator box with the bottom cut out or four wooden pallets knocked together to form a bottomless box.

When starting a bin or heap, take time to consider it's placement. Though your heap, if assembled with the proper proportions of ingredients and reasonably well tended, shouldn't smell much if at all, the possibility of smell issues is still a consideration. You won't want to put it right under your kitchen window, for instance. ;)

Another consideration when initially assembling your bin/heap is animal activity. If you live in an area with raccoons, opossums, etc., you'll probably want to make a closeable/contained bin. Otherwise your kitchen scraps will be eaten or strewn about regularly by marauding wildlife.

Once you've made or chosen a bin, and begin throwing you scraps and yard waste in there, all that you really have to do after that is to make sure that your compost stays moist, and that you turn/aerate the pile every few weeks to a month to ensure adequate airflow. That's it! You're composting!

Coming up, er... eventually; Composting 102 - the finer points of turning stuff into dirt. ;)

Queen of the Compost Heap

When it comes to garbage and recycling, I can be a little neurotic. I hesitate to label myself OCD, and yet I definitely have my neuroses about most things "trash" related.

With our diaper days long behind us, our family of four now generates a modest 35-gallons of garbage (as in, that destined for a landfill) every two weeks. Try as I might to whittle that number further down, with holidays, spring cleaning, purging closets and what-not, I almost always manage to nearly fill our 35-gallon can by trash day. Though I'd love to be producing even less trash, I already drive myself - not to mention my family members - quite crazy with my militant recycling and composting rules.

In spite of my kids having been raised from day one of their lives knowing about the rules and importance of recycling, I am still forever fishing perfectly recyclable items out of our trash cans that they have wantonly tossed. I know it's a little nutty to dig an empty paper towel roll out of the garbage, but my conscience honestly can't stomach throwing away forever something that has at least one more incarnation left in it. And don't even get me started on throwing away food - that has spawned a madness all its own.

An example of this would be what I call my compost hierarchy.

When it comes to kitchen scraps, the order is this -

If the food item can be eaten by a chicken, rabbit or turtle, the critters get first dibs. I figure that I'll be getting this back for the compost heap eventually anyway, at least in the case of the hens and the bunnies, in an enhanced form, no less.

If it can't be eaten by the critters, and isn't meat, dairy or bread product, then it goes into the Worm bin (our "cool" compost pile*). We end up putting a lot of egg shells, onion peels (that chickens shouldn't eat), coffee grounds and spoiled fruits & veggies in this bin. (*We also have a "hot" compost pile, which I'll delve into on another day.)

If it can't be eaten by critters or put into the worm bin, it goes into what our city calls the "organics bin". The organics bin is largely responsible for our household's reduction in garbage. We're allowed to put otherwise uncompostable items like meat, dairy & bread products, as well as "food soiled paper"/aka drive-thru packaging, Starbucks cups, pizza boxes, paper towels, etc., into the bin. We also put undesirable yard waste like dandelions gone to seed and blackberry brambles into the organics bin, as the city processes the lot through a massive, high heat digester that can break down and combine all of these materials, rendering a "soil-like" product (their words, not mine).

The result of all these rules and sorting is that -

A) We have cut our landfill garbage contribution more than half in the past year.

B) Between free-ranging and supplementing with kitchen scraps, our animals eat better food and cost us less to feed.

C) We save a bundle by making our own compost.

D) We have begun a symbiotic relationship between our soil, plants and animals, along the lines of permaculture gardening, wherein we feed our animals and ourselves, as much as possible, what we grow on our own land. We use collected rainwater to irrigate, fallen leaves and needles to mulch, and chicken & bunny poo to fertilize the very same plants that will feed us all. The same is basically true for the chickens, we feed them, and they feed us, and on it goes.

So in the end, I really do feel like all of the nagging and uptight compost sorting is worth the trouble. My garden and critters are happy and well fed, and I shave a few bucks off of the garbage bill every month, but most of all, I have an easier time living with myself when I know that I'm doing what's healthiest and just plain right for the land and for the lives in my charge.

This appliance will self-destruct in 3 ...2 ...

We've been having clothes dryer issues lately, which may or may not be attributable to a rodent of some sort making a home in our crawlspace. The dryer's misbehavior coincided with the discovery of the varmint break-in, thereby leading us to believe that the two were connected. About the time that the mystery critter started living under the house, the dryer stopped venting to the outside, and began making a weird high-pitched whine. One friend suggested that our dryer hose might have been obstructed by a nest or a stash of winter walnuts, so we took things apart and checked them out. Even after thoroughly cleaning and re-sealing the dryer vent hose, the dryer is still producing the weird noise, but seems to be drying clothes well enough. So I'm debating on calling out the dryer repair man to see what's what, and I am positively dreading it.

If you have needed a service call for an appliance lately, you'll be familiar with all of the little joys that accompany it - the vague appointment time, the minimum service charge, and often in my experience, the cranky attitude. Am I the only one who feels like I pay $90+ to have an insolent little old man come into my home and shame me for the way I treat my appliances? As if that weren't irritating enough, add to that the fact that with increasing frequency, any given appliance can be deemed unfixable by virtue of - a) the complexity of accessing the problem area b) the impossibility of obtaining a now-obsolete part c) the cost of repair being the same as or greater than the cost of replacing the appliance altogether.

This "problem" is actually a well-designed scheme called Planned Obsolescence that exists to encourage our consumption of the "latest and greatest" that the world of technology has to offer, and trading heaps of money for heaps of trash. It is so commonplace that even the most steadfastly Granola among us is likely to question the wisdom of fixing a however-many-years-old clothes dryer for $300 or buying a spanking-new energy efficient one for four hundred.

But what happens to the old one? Why is that one little cog so complicated and expensive that it is worth everyones while to junk a hundred-plus pounds of metal and plastic in favor of another that will also, inevitably fail? We covet shiny new things, and the manufacturers and marketers of the world have seized upon that by designing products with an inborn propensity for failure. They don't want you to repair your microwave, they want you to toss it out and upgrade. Have you ever even heard of anyone repairing a microwave?

This is just another area where our culture has given in to our lazier nature and taken the path of least resistance, and we need to stop it, NOW. Next time you're faced with repairing or replacing an appliance or anything else, take just a few seconds to think about the process that your choice sets in motion and the consequences of it.

Ok - I'll get down off of the soapbox now and back away slowly... for now.

For more info and opinions on the evils of planned obsolescence -

The New York Times, December 10, 2008

These Days in French Life - A wonderful blog - one of my very favorites! (Update - Unfortunately Rianna has decided to no longer publish her blog publicly.)