Posts tagged ‘conservation’

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!

There have been a million times I have driven past a nasty run down lot in Akron and thought, “We should tear down that yucky house and build a garden here.” Well, the Akron Cooperative is doing just that! I was so excited to find them at the Akron Home and Garden show talking about keeping bees and Urban Chicken raising. They were even holding a raffle to give away a chicken coop (which I entered but did not win). I went to their website to find out more about them and found this:

Our Mission: to build a local food system that improves the health and economy of our community. Our approach is to use the valuable resources and productive traditions within our community by engaging youth and families to improve the conditions of our neighborhoods.

Our Goals: Focus on sustainable agriculture, nutrition education, entrepreneurship, and youth development to create change in our community. With that in mind, our five primary goals are to:

1. Educate residents about food systems, sustainable agriculture and healthy cooking. 

2. Provide access to appropriate and affordable locally-grown, healthy, nutritional and culturally-focused food.

3. Engage and train youth as leaders in the food system and their community.

4. Build self-reliance through employment, training and local business development.

5. Building the capacity to produce food locally through sustainable agriculture. 

How exciting! Find out more, if you are interested in helping out. I don’t know how helpful I can be to them this year with my little kiddos under foot, but next year I would love to put in some man hours in a community garden!  For more information you can follow this link to subscribe to their newsletter.

For Valentine’s Day, Devona made heart-shaped crayons with a candy mold, double broiler, and broken crayons.  It inspired me to make the crayons with different colored chunks in them.  (Those were always my favorite as a kid.)  I made lots of mistakes & even ended up with ugly brown when everything melts together, but now I have lots of tips to share with you!

Supplies: double broiler (I used a pan & glass jar, but a tin can would be great as well), water for the double broiler, a mold for the crayons (I used a brownie pan with dividers, but you can use candy molds, soap molds, candle molds, or other make-shift molds), broken crayons, knife, cutting board, & a stove top.    Other useful optional items: towel (for drying the glass jar), spoon or popsicle stick (for mixing wax), and oven mitt. Read more »

Our Art Supplies Swap was really great even though it was a small group of only 10 of us.  I think it’s because the sun was shining & it reached 40 degrees outside for the first time in months.

Everyone generously brought lots of art supplies and found useful things to take home.  The few boxes of leftovers were donated to the Firestone Branch of Akron-Summit County Public Library for their craft programs.

5 people brought handmade items for the gift exchange.  Mary made the purple hat (this pic of it on the table doesn’t do it justice.  This hat looks amazing with the bunched area worn off to the side and it sits loose & casually on the head).  Megan made the wire wrapped clip (for recipes or labeling foods at a party).  I made the fringe earrings.  Devonna made the apron from a repurposed skirt.  And Martha, the owner of Craft Akron, made the hand-dyed yarn.

The plan is to have the next swap in late summer or early fall.  So you have plenty of time to sort through your stash.

Our Swap is Saturday!  Here’s a pic of all the stuff I’m bringing…spray paint, candle making supplies, beads, magazines, sizzix dies, gold leafing, mosaic adhesive & grout, and other odds & ends.  Plus, I’m busy getting refreshments ready.  I’m making chocolate fondue and a cheese ball with crackers.

Last year at Zero Landfill I grabbed a ton of stuff. I’ve used at least half of it, but there are a good deal of items which have just been stuffed into the stash box.

This year I took a different strategy to the event. I only grabbed stuff that I ran out of last time. So I picked up 4 wallpaper sample books and some loose fabric swatches. They weighed my grub on my way out. It was a whopping 38 pounds!

These books are going to be free for your use in decorating a journal if you show up on Thursday to my class. Otherwise I will be cutting them up for all sorts of crafts, as will my scissor-happy girls!