Posts tagged ‘conservation’

Today while making banana bread, I was thinking about how long it takes to bake.   A loaf of bread takes 60 minutes, while muffins take 25 minutes.  I opted to put the banana bread in muffin tins not only because my house was 80 degrees before turning the oven on, but because I’m thinking about energy use.  There is no good reason to keep the oven on an extra half hour so my bread can taste exactly the same.

By the way, my recipe is Banana Banana Bread from Allrecipes.  I made the following changes:

-instead of 1/2 cup butter, use 1/4 cup butter & 1/4 cup apple sauce

-instead of 3/4 cup sugar, use 1/2 cup sugar

-add some spice such as cinnamon, vanilla, or nutmeg

We were attending a wedding last weekend and I really wanted to dress up my outfit since it was  a friday evening wedding. I thought about a necklace, but my blue dress had a ruffled neckline so that seemed a bit too much. Then I thought I should wear a slight veiled pillbox hat, but I don’t have one! So since I know how to make fascinators, and I had some blue crinoline in my stash I went to work on this beauty.

To make it was a piece of cake. I cut a 10 inch circle of crinoline and folded it in half so that the edges did not quite match up. Then I fanned the folded side about 4 times to give it dimension, leaving the ends straight. I stitched through the fan folds and used the stitching to attach the crinoline to a head band.

Then I decided it needed more drama, so I used acrylic paint to tint the edges navy blue, and used a vintage broach as a focal point. The bonus was that the broach covered my stitches that held it onto my headband.

Apart from drying time, this really only took me 15 minutes. And I let the paint dry while I got dressed and did my makeup. It was a really fast way to dress up a simple dress, and make a subdued statement. I can’t wait until I can wear it again!

Growing up, Mom always hung clothes outside to dry.  I thought it was a waste of time because we had a dryer.  Then I wondered if we were too poor to run the dryer.  That was more concerning.  But I just went along with helping hang clothes.  At least if I helped, I’d make sure the underwear were hiding behind the towels.

Then in college, I really was a poor college student.  I hated spending those quarters on laundry, so I hauled wet clothes to the dorm room & placed them strategically over chairs & shower curtains to dry.

After moving to our house, we bought a washer & dryer.  I happily dried clothes in the dryer.  I thought, “Look at all the time I’m saving.   I just push the button! And my electric bill is affordable.  This is great!”

But in the past two years I’ve been gravitating toward all things sustainable & energy efficient.  I was shocked to learn there’s no energy stars for driers.  Then I realized Mom is more energy-savy than me.  Kicking & screaming, I resolved to hang my clothes outside.  I thought it’d be terrible & too much time & too hard with the kids.  But, I found that I like it.  I’m saving energy, and it’s not all that hard.  It takes 5 minutes to hang (I don’t bother with clothes pins), and really no more time to take them down while folding them.  Plus, since my clothesline & drying rack are under the deck overhang, I can dry clothes no matter the weather.  …Thanks Mom.

Summer time with a 5 year old means it is time for board games. And as much as I like to play Candy Land, there are only so many times I can play before I get completely bored. So I’ve been getting back to the board games I played over and over again as a child, and at the top of that list is mancala.

I was getting ready to compost this egg carton when the idea struck me that it would make the perfect mancala board, so I started to it immediately. It’s a simple project requiring a paper egg carton, newspaper, mod podge and some beans. Read more »

I received a rain barrel for my birthday in March and finally got it installed today…just in time for the forecasted storms the next few days.

It’s a Fiskars rain barrel.  It wasn’t difficult to install.  We had to cut the gutter & drill a hole in the barrel (while entertaining 2 kids at the same time).

So, why did it take three months to get it up and going?  Well, mostly we weren’t sure if we should keep it.  We have a small yard and wondered if it’d be an eyesore.  Now I need to figure out how to camouflage it into the landscaping.  We also weren’t sure if we could use the water safely in our vegetable garden.  I read lots of websites to try & get a straight answer.  The most educated answers I found from the Texas Water Development Board.  They make suggestions for the types of roofs to use, how to keep out debris & other contaminants, and treatment methods for potable water.  They said composite & asphalt shingle roofs leech toxins.  Plus, my system doesn’t have fancy roof cleansing abilities or first-flush system, so rain will collect bacteria, mold, fecal material, etc from the roof.  I’m not comfortable putting these things on my plants, so I’m pretty sure my barrel will just be for landscape plants.  But either way, I’m thankful for my gift & I’m happy to conserve a little water.

Last spring I made two candle lanterns for my back deck (and this tutorial on how to make them).  But two wasn’t enough because the last time we had friends over in the evening, my husband said we don’t have enough light out there.  He suggested buying more light strands or installing a solar light.  But my thrifty sense said to make more candle lanterns.  So, I’ve been saving glass peanut butter jars, and now that I’ve collected a few, I made three more lanterns today.  I just need some mounted hooks to hang them on.

items picked up at ZeroLandfill Akron in February

If you’re artistic & want to build your stash of recycled supplies, come to Zero Landfill!  It’s an event where architects, interior designers, and graphic designers donate their discontinued samples & materials so artists & teachers can collect & reuse them.  You’ll find paint samples, tiles, carpets, wallpaper books, fabric samples, and binders, and you can have them for free!  The event will be happening in Cleveland on 3631 Perkins Avenue, Fridays in July & August.

If you want to see how Devona & I used ZeroLandfill items from our previous visits, do a “ZeroLandfill” search on our sidebar.

Clever Nesting has found our “poster child” for creative repurposing.  His name is Joseph, and he sure knows how to be resourceful.

I’ve been looking for quality books for my two-year-old, so I searched the Caldecott Award section of the library.  I was thrilled to find Joseph Had a Little Overcoat. In this children’s story, Joseph has an overcoat which gets old & worn, so he makes it into a jacket.  The jacket gets old & worn, so he makes a vest out of it.  Eventually, he makes it into a scarf, necktie, etc.  Plus, the author tells a little about what Joseph does when he’s wearing each garment item (he wore his jacket to the fair and his vest to his nephew’s wedding).  This book is perfect for my children’s bookshelf, and I’m so glad I found it.  Do you have suggestions for other good children’s books for my kids that have themes of resourcefulness, creativity, or conservation?

Bad lighting, picture taken at night, sorry!

Remember how at the end of each school year, Mom would grab the scissors and cut the legs off all your jeans, and that would be the summer’s shorts. Well, my kids don’t really wear jeans, so we don’t get cut-offs in our family.

Vively Online has a post up today about some of her summer clothing remakes for her kids. The first project, a pair of shorts from a t-shirt style dress, inspired me to dig through our play clothes for some unwearables to turn into shorts.

These two t-shirts will make great shorts for the baby, using the Vively method (which happens to be a great illustration of the way I already make kid pants). I also plan to go through my adult t-shirts to make some shorts for the older girls. Finished projects to be posted soon. It’s going to be warm this week, so shorts will be needed.

I cannot express how much I really really love Zero Landfill. The amount of free fabric and other samples I picked up can keep me busy sewing for almost a year, seriously.

I made these shoes for Cressida out of a fabric sample book I picked up last summer. Each sheet of fabric is enough to make one pair of shoes. The leather soles came from a salvaged pair of leather shorts (who is wearing leather shorts, by the way?!), and is truly durable. The first pair of walkers I made for Olivia had a leather sole and she wore them for 3 or 4 months before she out grew them and then we passed them on to a friend and her daughter wore them for a few months as well.

I also had a bunch of these shoes made for the Medina County Baby Fair, which I partook in the festivities with my buddies, the Lollies. If you’d like a pair check out my etsy, as more are being added to the store over the week.

And check back here in a few days. There is more Zero Landfill grub I have lined up for a project later in the week. I can’t wait!