If you’re taking down holiday lights that maybe are no longer functioning this weekend, the Whole Foods blog has some tips on recycling them!
Back with more ASAP 
I somehow powered through the busted ankle and the four kids with three different ailments (cold, stomach bug, and teething, of which I also have two!) and had a robust post planned for today. My laptop had other plans and suddenly stopped working. The fine people at my local Apple Store fixed it in a matter of seconds, but it threw my day and my writing off. Apparently, the more I try to be mindful about my blogging, the more complicated my life seems to get just to throw me off.
parenting
The Crafty Crow has posted a kids homemade ornament swap. Sign up now for a fun crafting exchange. Though we don’t do Christmas at home or have a tree, I love ornaments (is that weird?) and would really have loved to do this with my oldest. I just don’t think it’s in the cards for us this year. Our family life is a little too unpredictable for activities where we would disappoint other kids if we didn’t come through!
crafting
Cool, crafty make your own recycled bath mat! This looks like so much fun. The Cookie Magazine “nesting” blog has a lot of smart how-tos, like this on making fabric covered drawer pulls. Considering I was thinking of shelling out $6 each for some at Anthropologie today and I have *tons* of fabric, I’m definitely going to try this first!
resources
Got piles of music or data CDs you don’t know how to recycle? Re-nest points out the CD Recycling Center. They take disks, cases, and liners, and have great ideas for setting up recycling stations in an office, library or school.
Cool Mom Picks shares hand-me-downs, a freecycle and freepeats-esque resource that also combs craiglist and other sites to put info in one place. Right now, it’s only in a few cities, and not mine. Let me know if you check it out…
Got a spare glove that lost its mate lying around? Etsy shares how to turn it into a chipmunk softie in just a few steps.
My city doesn’t take #5 plastics. I bring them all to Whole Foods, which kindly has a bin set out for customers. Here’s another great idea — send them away for recycling into household goods. Kirstin has all the details at Trying to Be Greener.
Some awesome frugal cooking tips — OAMC with chicken at Mommy Making Money, Make it yourself bake mixes at Leaving Excess.
Dare I save all of our baby food jars? Re-nest has creative reuse ideas. I tried making a snow globe (well, Halloween confetti globe) last week but it didn’t come out so well.
After the best of the baby clothes have been snatched up by the resale store or passed along to friends, what do you do with the rest? Here are a few ideas for donating, and for upcycling what might not be feasible to donate.
Donations
A lot of people think initially to drop a box of clothes off at the Salvation Army or Goodwill. Nothing wrong with that, but if you have the time, think about other types of nonprofits that could use the items for their clients:
- Homeless and domestic violence shelters see more children than we care to think about and will accept clothing and baby gear. In my experience, they frequently need car seats in clean and safe condition. Call the office of the shelter nearest you, they definitely have a wishlist handy you might be able to fulfill part of, and your donation is also a tax write-off.
- Your Humane Society will gladly take old towels and bed linens, no matter their condition. A great destination for an excess of receiving blankets!
Upcycling
Even after donating items, you may find you have some stragglers that no one is interested in taking off your hands. You still don’t have to hit the landfills!
- Sometimes, an item is not resale quality due to a hole or a stain. If you’re handy with a sewing needle, a cute applique can fix it right up. If you’re only handy with an iron, try Rikrak iron-on letters, hearts, or birds for a quick fix. I’ve saved all of our outgrown plain-colored onesies to personalize as baby gifts in the future.
- Sewers can also fashion T-shirts into grocery bags (how cute with onesies!).
- Re-nest posted a how-to and pattern for knitting dish scrubbers out of t-shirts. They would knit up so quickly and since it is plain knit stitch, it’s a practical project even for novice knitters.
- Crafting a Green World details how to unravel and recycle sweaters into yarn for new projects. (The photo above is my own recycled yarn project, a pair of slippers for my oldest son from an old cotton Gap sweater.)
Creative re-use ideas are popping up everywhere. What do you do with your cast off items around the house?
I read this at treehugger…
I think, and I think you’ll agree, that our days of decadence are done. I mean, who can afford a $5 daily coffee fix everyday anymore? Who can afford the bottomless tank of yesteryear’s monster SUVs? Who can afford to travel? Or heat and cool their McMansion? It seems that we have been living in a time of decadence; a time of $100 burgers and $12.5 million bras. Key words: have been. Is it safe to say that those times have come, or are coming to, a close? So what now? Well, times like this, there’s only one thing to do. Simplify!
… and thought, “Yes! Yes! Or at least I hope so!”
Don’t get me wrong. I love nice things as much as the next girl, but our disposable culture is totally unsustainable. I don’t want to see people lose their shirts (or anything else) in this economic climate, but some readjustment of our values and priorities is long since due.
With that in mind, re-nest has had an amazing number of posts for reusing and upcycling in the last week or two.
- 7 household uses for coffee grounds (Repairing scratches in wood? I’m all over that.)
- 11 uses for egg cartons (We give our back to our poultry farmer, but know that’s not an option for everyone)
- Tin cans to drawer organizers (I have SO many 25.7 formula cans to do this with…)
Eco Child’s Play writes up 30 Green Ways to Stretch Your Family’s Budget. Along with my fellow green mama Katherine, we posted our introductory feature at BeCentsAble and I’ll have a new post up this Tuesday about introducing organics into your grocery shopping, no matter your current budget or shopping habits! (Jo is already talking about that over at the Modernity Ward right now, too.)
Recycle your jeans into insulation for Habitat for Humanity. Recycle your sweaters into kid’s pants (or perhaps wool soakers?).
I loved this dollhouse makeover post, because mine is sitting in our basement, but my thoughts have leaned more towards several coats of semi-gloss and then using it as a bookcase for board books. Or maybe one of my boys will want to play with it some day?
I do know that I want to get them some cool name plaques made up, or perhaps go on an adventure where we photographer letters and shapes of our own. I have special time with my older son each Friday that I try to plan ahead for. Crockpot carmel apples are also on my agenda soon, as is making “Boo Baskets” for some neighbors.
I was looking for information about infant eczema when I stumbled across the article at Z Recommends (a go-to source for product reviews as well as consumer advocacy on issues central to parents’ concerns for the health and safety of their children) detailing violent reactions that children are having to those plastic tagless tags that grace all of our clothing these days. If you find you (or your children) breaking out in rashes on your backs, this could be the culprit. And phthalates in the tags? How unfortunate.
TinyDecor blog is now offering products in their store with that cute Mod Green Pod Kids fabric I posted last week. Lovely!
Thrifty Jinxy has a recipe for homemade dishwahser detergent composed of stuff I know I already have in my house. Definitely going to give that a try!
Considering cloth diapering versus G diapers? tiny Decor has done the head-to-head (or bottom-to-bottom?) research for you!
Re-nest shares recycling and donation resources in 10 Ways to Give Things Away for Free. A number of these I hadn’t thought of or didn’t know about. Double check what your city accepts, too. Our recycling center takes athletic shoes, batteries, tires, and computers on top of the standard paper, plastic, yard waste and the like.
Isn’t this a sweet idea? (From a number of things via The Crafty Crow, with more detailed instructions at SouleMama)
I love the idea of doing this project alongside the one suggested by ohdeeoh using vintage fabric and embroidery hoops of different sizes. I need to get on freecycle and see who has some hoops lingering in their attic that they’re never going to use.
A quick add to the baby shower gift list: Priddy books has added a line printed on recycled paper with natural inks!
Leaving Excess has a good check list of things to do now to be prepared for winter. It made me realize that we might have a winter coat that still fits P, but that he probably needs a new hat, snow pants, boots, and mittens.
I’m both intrigued and perplexed by the Kid’s Busy Box over at Cool Mom Picks. I’m guessing there’s excess packaging. I’m guessing the materials aren’t the best out there. I’m guessing that you could assemble the pieces yourself for a fraction of the price. What I’m liking is the idea of creating a list of items that could be put together, perhaps as a gift or to bring when visiting family members without small children, using better sourced ingredients. Add that to the huge list of future posts/big ideas
Wonder what to do with those various plastic bottle caps that aren’t recyclable? Aveda will take them.
Visit Aveda.com to find a salon or store where you can drop off your bottle caps. The Aveda Bottle Cap Collection program accepts rigid plastic caps from soda, juice, shampoo, and laundry-detergent containers, as well as other flip-top caps.
Stretching a Buck has good news — Kiss My Face has launched a brand new line of kids products! They contain no artificial colors or fragrances, no parabens, and no Sodium Lauryl Sulfate. Their kids line includes everything from lip balm to toothpaste to shampoo. Through the end of the month, use her code KMFBLOG3 to get 30% off of your entire purchase when you shop at their online store here.
A couple of great how-tos:
I wasn’t the only person thinking about green school supplies in August, and now I’m clearly not the only one thinking about what actually goes into those lead- and vinyl-free lunch boxes each day. (Didn’t get that new lunch bag yet? EcoBags has a great line of eco-friendly bags. Now until October 15th, iLunchBox has a code for 15% off. Use code iLunchBox08 at check out.) So far, we’ve sent a peanut butter and honey sandwich in place of bologna and a chicken sausage in a bun on hamburger day. I’m feeling more inspired for the meals to come, for sure. Quinoa muffins? Yum.
Meanwhile, The Not Quite Crunchy Parent has ideas for making schools greener all year!
eBay has taken over the online store World of Good, designed to connect socially and environmentally aware purchasers with sellers. The items lean more towards international fair trade than organic or locally sourced, like Ten Thousand Villages, while the community section has some interesting green lifestyle articles.
MamaBid has details for recycling those pesky Tyvek envelopes. Add that to the long list of things I didn’t know could be recycled!
Green Your Design links to the EcoEtsy team. I could spend a whole day browsing Etsy online, in fact I’m sure I did more than once when I was on bed rest. Ecosalon culls the best of their favorites at least once a week, too. I’m thinking of adding a feature where I’ll do the same for kid or household items that are green and reasonably priced. Sounds like a lot of fun to me!
The Crafty Crow posted two takes on recycled crayons: letter of the alphabet and butterflies, as well as a link to a tutorial on the popular felt crayon rolls at the very pretty site Skip to My Lou. Around here, we store all of the broken crayon nubs and those received at restaurants with kids meals in a jar to recycle on a rainy day around the house. I suppose it’s time to invest in some shapes specifically for crayon-making after seeing the great results.
A fun outdoor art activity for the waning summer, from Be Centsable — painting with liquid chaulk.
More pillowcase dresses, now at plum pudding. This one with bias tape!
Baby Cheapskate lists resources for audio stories for kids. I wonder how these would work for us when P wants a story but we’re tied up with the triplets…
Trying to be Greener links to the Terracycle program. How I wish I hadn’t missed out on the energy bar recycling group! I eat a Luna bar every day and hate throwing the wrappers away. I’m on the wait list. Maybe I can figure out how they are making those awesome looking totes myself!
The Crafty Crow shares a link for homemade water colors! I can’t wait for the fall (and the help of a part time nanny) when I can undertake more of these types of projects with our older son.
Another fun activity comes to us from plum pudding: rice play! I didn’t think about my food bankruptcy plan possibly including this, but why not? The Crafty Crow also featured dying pasta last week. What a great idea for all of those pesky 1/7 pounds of pasta I have in the pantry cabinet!
not martha has more sewing machine purchasing resources. Stop tempting me, internet!
Living Cheap and Green has sources for recycling juice and cookie pouches. Who knew?
And lastly, Ohdeeoh invades my psyche once again with something we *must* do in our house soon:
the closet into mudroom! Instructions can be found at the Shabby Nest. I will be doing this to our coat closet as soon as possible!