One Mans Trash is My Treasure

Spring cleaning is next week and people are loading up there boulevards with as much crap as they have been collecting up until this time of the year.   I end up seeing a lot of stuff that can be repurposed, if the right person comes along.  Enter me.  I found this!

I am not sure what I will do with it yet, but for now I absolutely love the texture of the wood, and the old look of the brackets.  I am pretty sure I can put it to use somewhere.  I am looking forward to finding some other cool things this week.  I spied a saw horse in a neighbors lawn and I was thinking about carrying it home to see if it could be of use for me, or my dad.  The City of Fargo suddenly changed back the Spring Cleaning week to this week so I won’t have much  time to search for treasures.

We also see a lot of people collect metals of all sorts to trade in for cash.  I honestly love seeing this, because some people make a ton of money from this, and it also prevents a lot of metal from going to the landfill.  An article I had read recently in our local paper stated that our landfill has about 11 more years left before it’s at capacity.  This is happening in a lot of more cities than Fargo.  If we can all be a bit more mindful of what we throw away we can extend the life of the landfill.   The city collects food scraps with it’s yard waste during the warm months, Fargo has electronic recycling day where we can turn in computers and TV’s and also has free curbside recycling.  There should be no reason why we have to put our trash can on the boulevard filled to the brim each week.

Paper Pulp Planters

Do you a simple project to use all of that junk mail, newspapers or wrapping paper?  These planters are easy and you can repurpose waste that is otherwise destined for the trash or recycling into planters that you can plant right in the ground once it thaws.

All you need is:

Newspaper/Paper or Wrapping paper

Water

Blender

Cupcake tin

Flour sack or wax paper

Colander

1.  Put half a blender full of torn up paper shreds into the blender and add enough water to saturate it.  Blend until it looks like paper pulp and you can’t see much of what the paper used to look like.

2.  Strain the pulp in the colander and let drain until much of the water is out.  You can wring it out a bit to get more of the water out.

3.  I applied the pulp to the cupcake tins without anything between the pulp and the tin and most of then got stuck.  Next time I will try a flour sack and wedge it down into the groves before I apply the pulp.  Or you can try wax paper or even butter to grease the sides.

4.  Allow to dry for a couple of days.  Once fully dry, lift the flour sack off the tin.

5.  Plant seeds in each cup using soil and some homemade compost.  Plant in garden once ready and water accordingly.

If you are like me and can’t wait for spring, these will be a nice way to start early.

Blog Spotlight: Refashionista

I absolutely love the idea of this blog.  She buys the really ugly clothes at thrift stores for mere dollars if that, then turns them into beautiful outfits.  A lot of times she has a inspiration outfit she likes, then cuts, pins and sews the “ugly” garment into the magnificent new one.

If I knew anything about making clothes I would try some of these redesigns.  This is re-purposing at its finest.  You definitely need to check out this blog.

Make It Burn – Firestarters

What can you do with empty toilet paper rolls and a whole lot of dryer lint?  Make these awesome firestarters.  I hate when you are trying to light a fire on a quiet dark night and you are trying to enjoy some nature, but you can never get the fire going.  So you pull out the lighter fluid only for the fire to blaze for a few minutes.  That stuff is crap.  It is totally unneeded now that you have these FREE firestarters!

Directions:

1.  Do a few loads of laundry.  This is something you are bound to do anyways, unless your parents still wash your clothes.  If they do, you have awesome parents.  But see if they can part with their dryer lint.

2.  Collect lint from the dryer.  We typically only dry our clothes inside when there is still snow on the ground so the time for us to prepare these are only through the winter season.  *Sadly our winter is from October through April.  So, had I started these earlier, I would have had a butt load!

3.  Collect toilet paper rolls.  Generally my husband and I are too lazy to throw these away, so they end up collecting on the back of the toilet.  Surprisingly I must have been on top of my game this week at cleaning because I only found one.  *You can use paper towel rolls as well.  (Do you see a face in the pile of lint in the below image?  I see Yoda smirking at me).  {I didn’t know the name Yoda so I had to ask my husband who the gremlin looking feller was in Star Wars}.

4.  Stuff the lint into the roll.  Voila!

I think this blog can go under being thrifty as well.  You can save money, reduce waste and live green – all at the same time!

T-Shirt Yarn

What can you do with a crap ton of holy (hole-y) t-shirts that you can’t wear anymore without looking like a hobo?  You make t-shirt yarn!!  And it is so easy.  Here are the steps on making your own t-shirt yarn.

What you will need:

T-shirts

X-acto knife or scissors

Straight edge

Hard surface that you can cut on (I cut over card stock)

1.  Find t-shirts.  I found that shirts with a silk screen print doesn’t curl as easy in the final step.

2.  Fold the shirt like below.  The top half is about an inch shorter at the top than the bottom half.

3.  Cut the bottom inch off the shirt (actually the right side) – but it is really the bottom of the t-shirt.  A scissors worked better than a x-acto knife I found out.

4.  Next you will cut 1 inch or 1.5 inch slits starting from the right, moving to the left.  Cut only up to the top edge, leaving that 1 inch gap uncut.  (see below)

5.  You will end right below the sleeve/arm pit.  You will cut all the way across here.

6.  Lift up the side of the shirt that was left uncut.  Spread it open over your forearm.

7.  You will start cutting into one long strand of yarn now.  Starting on the right side, closest to your fingers.  Place the scissors on the outer side and you will cut a diagonal slice to the first cut.

8.  Then you will continue to cut diagonal, the most right bottom cut, to the next top cut.  Stay parallel to your first cut.

9.  Continue all the way to the left.  The last bottom slit on the left side you will have to end the cut on the outermost edge. Similar to how you started, just reverse.

10.  That was your final snip.  You have one long strand of yarn now.  You will have to stretch it so it curls.  Start on one edge and lightly stretch it so the fabric naturally curls.

11.  Finally, just roll it into a ball until you are ready to knit with it.  A scarf made out if this yarn would be super soft and warm!  If you do not have t-shirts laying around, check out a thrift store.  They probably receive a lot of shirts they cannot sell because of bleach stains or maybe some small holes.

Blog Spotlight: Zero Waste Home

I wanted to spotlight a blot that I have known about for a long time.  I came across this blog when my husband and I wrote for guygoesgreen.com.  I was always impressed by a whole family working together to reduce and eliminate waste.  Plus, I have been thinking about cutting back what I throw away and I will use this website as inspiration.

Please go and check out this blog at http://myzerowaste.com/.  The site has a lot of tips and projects you can use in order to reduce your waste.  Why not make a resolution this year to cut back on the amount of food you throw away.  This will save you lots of money, and reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses that are released back into the air.

Things To Do With Used Wrapping Paper

It is that time of year again…the time to buy Christmas wrapping paper only for it to end up in the garbage.  But that doesn’t have to happen.  Save some money this year by saving the good pieces for reuse.  I may get teased by my family members a little bit, but I am just trying to save a little bit of trash from ending up in our already large land fill.  Here are some tip on reusing wrapping paper:

1.  Be careful as you unwrap presents.  Especially the large packages.  These make good sheets of wrapping paper to reuse.

2.  Tissue paper can ALWAYS be reused.  I always take all of it home with me, even if it’s torn up a bit.

3.  Use torn up pieces of wrapping or tissue paper to fill boxes that you are shipping.

4.  Shred up wrapping paper to use a filler in gift bags.

5.  Make homemade paper.

6.  Get a circle cutter at a craft store and make gift tags.

7.  Get a half inch circle cutter and create garland with it.  Sew them together end to end.  Having different size circles give it interest.

8.  Use scraps for card making.

9.  Use the back side as scrap paper.

10.  Make homemade gift bows…like here.

No matter what you do with your Christmas wrapping paper, do something to prevent it from ending up in the trash.  And by doing this, you will save a bit of money.  What do you have to lose?

Blog Spotlight: Funky Junk Interiors

We had a store called Funky Junk in downtown Fargo, but sadly, I think it closed.  It was one of my favorite stores to walk through.  It had a cool mix of old furniture and new accessories and vice versa.  It was just the look I was going for in my home.  I can certainly dream.  With the large amount of hand-me-downs that we acquired, there would be no way to style my home the way I want.  It would just be too costly.

I happened across this cool website one day on Facebook.  A friend posted a link to it and I had to check it out.I love the styling of the website and the photography is phenomenal.  It makes me want to jump into the photos and live there.  The amount of content on the website will keep you busy for a long time.

The creator of the website got started with boulevard shopping.  I personally love the idea of taking trash and reusing it.  Re-purposing is so much better than recycling.  Unless recycling is the only option, then it’s better than throwing it in the landfill, by a long shot.  I definitely think that there is a certain level of creativity required to successfully re-purpose trash.  But Funky Junk Interiors has it!

Some of my favorite posts (these photos taken from Funky Junk Interiors website):

I love these stairs!  What a conversation piece!

I love the brightness of this photo.  Lots of re-purposing here.  An old ladder, gate, and door.  This is just proof that there is another use for what many others would see as trash.

And finally, I need this desk, made from pallets.  There are so many things that you can do with pallets.  I actually wanted to a remove a pallet from someone’s boulevard this spring cleaning week, but my husband wouldn’t let me.  He thought it would just sit around in our garage.

This blog gives me inspiration to create funky interiors.  I look forward to other new cool inspiring blog posts to come!  You should also check it out!