I try to make this Earth a greener place I truly promise. I recycle aluminum, I reuse plastic container and bottles, I repurpose clothes and recycle yarn from unwanted sweaters. But, the one thing we really slack on and I think a lot of us do is water conservation.
It’s not like I constantly run the water. But, I do have a family of 6. That’s at least two loads of laundry daily, six sets of teeth to brush, six baths, and dishes. But, let’s be honest dishes are my least favorite thing to do so I do it a little as possible, that’s saving a little right? I’ve converted the family to using a cup of water to brush their teeth and I personally use the cup method when shaving my legs, trying to convert Stephen to the cup method when he shaves as well. I read an ad somewhere that suggested turning the water off when you wash your hair. This…. Well, I gave it a try, and when in the shower, honestly I don’t get it. I got my hair wet, shut the water off, lathered my hair, leaned over to turn the water on, huge blast of cold water on my back, jumped hitting my head on the wall, water washed some of the soap into my eyes causing me to slip backwards and fall flat on my rump… Can’t say I didn’t try. But, I will say this, next time I only need to wash my hair I think it may work.
So, as we all know it, I craft A LOT, and I have a HUGE family, well maybe not Dugger HUGE but in the way of normal Americans it is. We don’t always have the extra cash laying around. I do a lot of second hand/reusing/recycling to make things. Here are some of my favorites.
1. Frogging sweaters and harvesting the yarn. Sometimes it comes from the unused, Hi-C stained baby afghan.
Blue and white is all acrylic cotton blends. This white is from a Raime turtleneck sweater that was given to me. It was so soft and fluffy I couldn’t resist harvesting the yarn from it. I actually made an adorable pair of socks fro Aggie out of it. And I’m currently crocheting a pair of tube socks for Chloe from the Blue yarn.
2. Making Beads from my hundreds of Coke Bottles.
Cute ain’t they? These are tons of fun to make, perhaps I feel a tutorial coming on. Making these will go through your crayon stash really fast, but, that only leads to my next favorite.
3. Melting old crayons to make new ones and sometimes cuter ones! I don’t own one but would LOVE one of the crayola crayon maker.
For Natalie’s class I’m planning on making a set of three heart shaped crayons a piece for her class mates.
4. Repurposing upholstery samples. Awhile back someone gave my grandmother a bunch of discontinued upholstery books. She made Aggie a cute little quilt from the taffeta samples. I made a bunch of coordinating clutch/makeup bags, a few tiny wallets, the infamous cupcake wallets, a small collection of bows and Salley my ever constant background that I’m sure you’ve seen already on many occasion.
I have plans on hemming and putting zippers in my bags and making Sally larger so that I can use it for some of my bigger projects later on.
5. Newspaper yarn! Yes, I made newspaper yarn… It’s not the best thing to knit or crochet with, and it falls apart very easily, but one you’ve got enough to make a ball it’s a piece of art all unto it’s self.
6. Just plain old fashioned recycled paper. Five or six years ago I made two small batches of recycled paper to make little scrap books for my sister and cousins for Christmas. I made the mistake of putting it in the oven to dry fast and it came out too brittle and broke in to small little chunks. Instead of tossing it a made small holed in a corner and threaded gold metalic thread through and used them for name tags. My elderly neighbor at the time, whom I made chocolate chip cookies for went crazy for them and I gave her the whole lot of them. We later moved and still get cards from them every year. In our last one was one of my tags. I’m guessing I might need to make a new batch of them. I appoligize I don’t have a picture of them.
I could go on and on with all the little things I’ve just made to fit my many crafting needs. But, these are just my favorites.
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