What Else Can I Do With That? - Swegwarmers!

It has been three weeks since I've posted. I haven't felt inspired. While I'm still keepin' it green, there hasn't been much new to report. I've been thinking on the REpUrpoSE line, and "percolating" (this involves a lot of brainstorming, net-surfing, and swirling around of ideas while I lie in bed at night or mindlessly click away at Zuma Blitz).

The Man seems a little worried that I might be turning into a hoarder. I can't seem to throw away anything that could possibly maybe have the slightest itty bitty chance of becoming something else later. We have cans, jars, containers, and plastic bags coming out our ears. I have piles of clothes with little stains that I might be able to cut apart and sew later. My motto is becoming, "What else can I do with that?"

The difference between hoarding and repurposing is actually making stuff.

It's time to get a-craftin'.

Stripey goodness

So for my first attempt, something easy. I've been wanting a pair of leg warmers to wear with skinny jeans and heels. However since I rarely wear heels, I didn't want to spend the money to buy a pair that might not get worn before they go out of style and back to the 80's from whence they came. However, a thrift store sweater with striped sleeves and little button detailing on the cuffs? Hmm...

Cutting lazy-style.

I cut the sleeves off the sweater, leaving the hem on the sleeve side, so they wouldn't ravel and I wouldn't have to sew.




The nice thing about leg warmers (other than the total adorbs-ness and warmy goodness) is they bunch up, so I could roll under the cut edge. It won't fray, but it looks cleaner if you roll it under.

Sleeves sans-sweater

Rotated and saved this 5 times. It still won't stay. Wha?

All that's left to do is put them on over a pair of skinny jeans and heels. Voila!

Here's the mail, it never fails...

Girl 1 looked out the window today, saw the outgoing mail sticking out of the box, and ran to the door with excitement. "Mom! Mom! Mail's here!" I had no idea she was so enthusiastic about mail. Her little face fell when I told her that the mail carrier hadn't arrived yet, and we needed to leave that mail in the mailbox.

Inspiration time!

I think I may have mentioned my hoarding...I have an ever-growing stash of boxes, canisters, bottles, and yes plastic bags, in my basement. I try to use them for all my bulk buying, and now that we're committing to less processed food it should be less of an issue, but still, I have a pile of empty junk lurking. Right now it all fits in a cabinet, but I need to be more proactive about reusing it all.

One of the things that was down there, oddly, was an empty fridge pack for Pepsi Max. Not sure why it didn't get recycled, maybe the craft-gods knew we'd need it. Another awesome coincidence was that we had opened it at the wrong end, so it didn't have the can dispenser hole. Instead, we had just opened the flaps at the wrong end. Score! We were going to make a mailbox for Girl 1.

Unflappin'

First we cut the two big flaps and the bottom small flap off the (incorrectly) opened end.

Mail goes in

Then we finished punching in the handle-hole bit on the top of the box, this would be our mail slot.

Mail comes out

Then I had Girl 1 pick out colors of construction paper and I taped it on to the box. Not so pretty, but she was in control and liked picking the colors herself. We cut a piece of construction paper to fit the open end of the box and taped it to the remaining top flap. This would be how Girl 1 would reach in and retrieve the mail.

Behold the evil grin. 

    Girl 1 colored while I taped.

Drawin'

After the box was covered in paper (leaving the slot in the top uncovered) Girl 1 decorated it with markers. If we'd had stickers that would have been so cute. Maybe the next time we get junk mail from Disney Movie Club we'll add 'em...

Here's the mail, it never fails!

We put it on our "catch all" so Girl 2 can't reach it. So far her Daddy, Boy 2, and I have all written little love notes and put them in the box. Today when she was sleeping, her cousins stopped by and while they were here I had them put a note in the mailbox.

She LOVES getting mail. 

Interactivism

I'm repeatedly surprised by how very tired sitting, smiling, and schmoozing can be. I used to work retail, it 6 hours wore me out. I spent most of yesterday and today behind our REpUrpoSE table at the holiday bazaar, and I am physically exhausted. I sat, I smiled, said "Hi!" opened the bags, closed the bags, explained the purpose, talked about plastic bag waste, and I feel like I ran a marathon. So weird.

I was so nervous when we set up Thursday night. I couldn't gauge if the display looked good, if the bags were arranged right, if we fit in with the other vendors, if we had enough literature, if I had too much...I was really anxious. Friday morning I was a fidgety mess. What if no one cared? What if I offended people? What if the bags were crap?

Set up and ready to go. 

At 9 a.m. on a Friday morning, the crowd consists of a bunch of people in appliquéd sweaters who call you "Dear" and tell you how clever you are. They aren't really interested in buying, or in being converted away from plastic, but they are a sweet bunch. I started to relax.

Then the grade school kids started coming in to do their shopping throughout the school day. They were awesome. I got to talk to dozens of kids about plastic bags, and the waste we make when we use them and toss them. The kids were so excited by the sandwich wrap place mats. They liked the tank top totes. 

A highlight:

Third Grade Boy: So, whater these things?

Me: Let me show you. (A sandwich wrap/placemat demo ensued.) You use these instead of your plastic sandwich bags in your lunch.

Third Grade Boy: Because plastic is bad (he came up with that, I hadn't had time to get to that part of the schpiel.).

Me: Exactly. Because plastic is bad.

Third Grade Boy: Well then I need one of these. 

He bought one and then proceeded to drag everyone he could get his little hands on over to my table and tell them that they should get one of these wraps, because plastic is bad, allowing me to explain why. So awesome. 

By the end of Day 1, half of the wraps were gone.  

Day 2 was a different crowd, but still very open to what we were trying to say. We had long-time bazaar vendors give me tips and tricks. We had people come up and get excited about making their own tank top totes. We showed them the corner trick and told them how I did it. People were thinking.We had someone come up and tell me that my table had them thinking about the food at the bazaar and how it would be better to serve it on paper plates than Styrofoam. We had people brainstorming ways to remember their bags. We got to educate people about the latest lead paint-reusable bag scare. We passed out info on the Garbage Patch. My parents were there supporting and selling, my husband and friends were there to support me. It was wonderful.

Some of the bags went well. The gift bags and produce bags didn't do as well, but we're looking into what we can do with them. By the end of today, we had sold around forty sandwich wraps, with requests for more. I'm going to be making more and putting them on our etsy site a.s.a.p.

Slim pickin's left

I think it was a success. We have good ideas for more projects. We got to network with some other people as revved up about reusing as I am. And I got to educate my community. I am beyond pleased.

I immediately went out and spent some of the earnings on more fabric. I can't wait to get to crafting more bags, wraps, and other reusables.

New bags, here we come!

Leaving the Bat Cave

This weekend I'm going out to do a little awareness raising. It's kind of new for me to do this in real life, instead of online. I've come to realize though that with things like facebook friends, blog hops, Google reader feeds, you can become insulated. By educating online, often you end up preaching to the choir. You only read the sides of topics you search for, and you're only read by those who are already looking for what you're saying.

In order to effect true change, you have to take the message outside of the bubble. You have to step out into the world and encounter those who have no idea that the problems exist, and you have to open dialog with those who disagee with you.


My kids' school is having their Holiday Bazaar. Crafters bring their wares and sell them as Christmas presents and whatnot. My mom and I have been sewing like crazy, making sandwich wraps, reusable produce bags, Uttts (Upcycled Tank Top Totes), and snack bags. We are going to have a table at the bazaar.


My hope is to make a little money selling items that have the potential to make a real difference in the world. I want to educate the kids and shoppers who will attend the bazaar on the dangers of plastics, and show them how easy and fun it can be to change.


Some of the facts on our table:

• Every year, around 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide.
• Every day more than 20,000,000 sandwich bags go into U.S. landfills.  
• Ten percent of the plastic produced every year worldwide winds up in the ocean. 70% of which finds its way to the ocean floor, where it will likely never degrade.

This is a serious problem because plastic:

• Doesn't recycle, it downcycles. It loses integrity in the recycling process.
• Releases toxins into the ground water from landfill sites
• Gets into the food chain through animals that ingest small particles of plastic--you're eating and drinking plastic chemicals every single day.
• Stays in the environment for hundreds of years while they break down
• Wastes energy during the manufacturing process
• Kills an estimated 100,000 marine animals each year
• Turns our oceans into "plastic soup"

I hope to educate people, I hope to persuade them to stop using boring, deadly, toxic, lame plastic. I hope they like our wraps and bags, and I really hope I don't look foolish.

What do you do, in the real world, to make a difference?

Here's an awesome video from Green Sangha:

That's a Spicy Taco.

Apparently anything with needles is addicting. While I've never been an IV drug user, I've heard it's kinda catchy, once you start.
I've read that acupuncture is addicting.
Tattoos...addicting.
And now this. Sewing.

It's all I can do not stitch-rip apart all of the cloth goods in the house and sew them into something else. I promise this is not going to turn into another craft blog...as tempting as that sounds...But, I've started making the lunch bags, which is so fun, and then I tried my hand at making a t-shirt apron. The tutorial can be found at Ruffles And Stuff

Ages ago a friend of mine brought me a t-shirt back from Vegas. It cracks me up, and I really like it, but due to "mature content" I have no place to wear it. It's not really the kind of thing one wears to the PTA. So after another friend sent me the above tutorial, I decided to turn it into an apron. It has a food theme, and there's something slightly ironic about the juxtaposition of domesticity and a gentleman's club...who'm I kidding? It's just funny.

The text: The Hot Taco Stand and Gentleman's Club. The Hottest Little Tacos West of the Pecos. Only in Sin City, Las Vegas. Two for One Special for only $1.00 more. 

Anyway, I can't wear the thing in the house even, because it embarrasses Boy 1, and I can't imagine Boy 3's reaction, should he see it. Anything even hinting at nudity sends him into hysterics. Rolling on the floor, literally. So I need to find a good use for it, but it was fun to make.

 But one thing I'm noticing is that once you start re-purposing, everything starts to look different. I see things around the house, and out in public, not only as they are, but I also see what they're made of, and how well, and how wastefully. I start to see things as what they could be, what I could make them into. It's added a dimension to my perception that I wasn't expecting. 

Two things. (2)

So, thing two...

I'm assuming you know about the oceanic garbage patches. (I cannot type "oceanic" without thinking "815"...) If not, it's an easy google, but beware, it's depressing. The BBC has a really amazing interactive graphic that shows you how big the Great Pacific Garbage patch is in relationship to where you live. It's horrible, really. Plastic bags are insidious, hegemonic demons.

Photo swiped from Raubi Marie

I'm kind of being hyperbolic. Kind of.

The thing is, even if you eliminate the plastic bags at the grocery store for hauling your food, there are still the bags you put the produce in, the little baggies in lunches, the plastic liners in processed foods like cereal, etc. They are everywhere.

I've been reusing the produce bags from the grocery store & fruit stands for kids' sandwiches and lunch items. I've also been reusing bread bags for this. But they get dirty & nasty, and there's still no choice but to pitch them eventually. So I'm trying to eliminate them one by one.

My first step is to eliminate the need for sandwich/snack bags. I know you can buy plastic (it's eve.ry.where.) containers for sandwiches and such, but we often don't use the standard square bread, and I don't want to spend a ton of money. Plus, I have this dream of eliminating petroleum-based products entirely...not sure we'll ever get there (especially when I think about toys) but it's something to aim for.

I decided to dust off the old sewing machine and make my own reusable sandwich bags. My mom gave me a yard of fabric to play with, and I had to fiddle with sizes and linings.

The first attempt:

The sewing is kind of a mess, the bag a was a bit too small, and the liner (a repurposed tablecloth from Girl 1's birthday) is tooflimsy, but still, I was excited. The shape and function seemed workable.

So I made a bigger bag, lined with a thick plastic shopping bag: 

Terrible picture, but basically while the liner works great, the bag is much too big. You could fit two sandwiches on Dave's Killer Bread in the thing. Which is fine, but kind of unwieldy. 

So I reduced the size a little, and decided to try repurposing a Dorito's bag for the liner: 

Success! This bag looks good, has a satisfying and sturdy feel, makes a neat-o crinkly noise, and is made by reusing materials that can't be recycled. I was able to make two identical bags. The kids all had hot lunch at school today, but they will be testing these next time they bring their own lunch.

I am so exited by the idea that I can make these, I'm inspired to make a bunch more. I went to the thrift shop to look at clothes and bedding that could be transformed into replacements for plastic bags. I spent very little money and came home with some really cool fabrics. I forgot how much I love the thrift store. 

I'm pretty dang excited.