Recycling is now a way of life for us. We compost all our kitchen food scraps, along with all the garden prunings and waste. Cardboard boxes are stripped of their tape (which goes into the recycling bin) and is then used to either feed our hungry winter fire, or to lay over bare earth in the garden before being mulched with leaf and branch chippings. This is broken down by the many micro-organisms in our soil and recycled into nutrients for our fruit trees.
Toilet rolls? Well, they get squashed and popped one into the other, like a small child's stacking toy, until it becomes a compact roll of tight inner pieces - a drop of meths or other accelerant and it becomes a great little fire-starter! Have you ever given a thought to how many toilet rolls are discarded in the Western world?? I mean, since they banned their use in kindergartens (too much bacteria?!) for all those wonderful binoculars and rocket ship constructions - what exactly are they good for? We started to tear them up and place them in the compost bin (for that carbon element) and worm farm but this fire-lighting cracker gives me much more of a thrill! I have tried so many little experiments - once E even went as far as to collecting sawdust, which I mixed with a small amount of wallpaper paste, and then stuffed into those little roll. Once dried (takes about 2 weeks), I did the accelerant drips and hey, presto! Fire ball! But I have this curious nature, once it is satisfied, it goes onto other ideas. Can't see myself filling toilet rolls with gummed up sawdust every summer to feed our voracious fire-lighting habit. No, siree! The stuffed toilet roll habit is far less time-consuming and fun - you can do it while on the loo! A great little time filler while you wait!
Oh, and then there are the cost saving recycling exercises, like paint. We have only bought two cans of paint for this house - one a deep crimson red for our Indian-inspired Bollywood bedroom, and more recently, a bright Mediterranean yellow for our passageway. The rest (and our house is definitely colourful) was all gleaned from a commercial painter who was getting rid of some of his old stock (every time they paint someone's house or office, they are left with little bits of paint). I loaded up my boot with various tins of paints and when I got home, my daughter and I pretended to be paint scientists - what fun! If they were the same type of paint (i.e inside acrylic or outside acrylic), they were mixed together to create a genuinely unique colour (unfortunately, 5 years down the track, we cannot buy touch up test pots - the colours don't exist in paint shop swatches!) I still highly recommend the exercise! Beats all those commercial paint residues ending up in the landfills.
Onto gifts, I get a thrill out of taking something old and giving it a new lease on life. Gift giving is just such an excuse to get creative. Recently a friend was given a recycled or upcycled coffee pouch bag, lined with the leg of an old pair of denim jeans for her birthday! She may never use it but it was definitely a one-off personalized gift made specially for her.
This week I was thrilled when my teenage daughter set about making a "denim jeans" bag for her friend's birthday - a successful, unique little hip bag! Thinking outside the ka-ching shop-shop square, life can really be quite a whole lot of fun, fun, fun! We are always looking at ways to re-use or re-invent things useful out of things we would normally throw away. It is evident in our home and lives and I am proud to be a little Earth Fairy, even if it is supposed to end this weekend!
(People been talking about Mayan calender prophecy)
Toilet rolls? Well, they get squashed and popped one into the other, like a small child's stacking toy, until it becomes a compact roll of tight inner pieces - a drop of meths or other accelerant and it becomes a great little fire-starter! Have you ever given a thought to how many toilet rolls are discarded in the Western world?? I mean, since they banned their use in kindergartens (too much bacteria?!) for all those wonderful binoculars and rocket ship constructions - what exactly are they good for? We started to tear them up and place them in the compost bin (for that carbon element) and worm farm but this fire-lighting cracker gives me much more of a thrill! I have tried so many little experiments - once E even went as far as to collecting sawdust, which I mixed with a small amount of wallpaper paste, and then stuffed into those little roll. Once dried (takes about 2 weeks), I did the accelerant drips and hey, presto! Fire ball! But I have this curious nature, once it is satisfied, it goes onto other ideas. Can't see myself filling toilet rolls with gummed up sawdust every summer to feed our voracious fire-lighting habit. No, siree! The stuffed toilet roll habit is far less time-consuming and fun - you can do it while on the loo! A great little time filler while you wait!
Oh, and then there are the cost saving recycling exercises, like paint. We have only bought two cans of paint for this house - one a deep crimson red for our Indian-inspired Bollywood bedroom, and more recently, a bright Mediterranean yellow for our passageway. The rest (and our house is definitely colourful) was all gleaned from a commercial painter who was getting rid of some of his old stock (every time they paint someone's house or office, they are left with little bits of paint). I loaded up my boot with various tins of paints and when I got home, my daughter and I pretended to be paint scientists - what fun! If they were the same type of paint (i.e inside acrylic or outside acrylic), they were mixed together to create a genuinely unique colour (unfortunately, 5 years down the track, we cannot buy touch up test pots - the colours don't exist in paint shop swatches!) I still highly recommend the exercise! Beats all those commercial paint residues ending up in the landfills.
 |
| From coffee pouches.......... usually designated to the bin.. |
 |
| To this trendy little shopping bag. |
This week I was thrilled when my teenage daughter set about making a "denim jeans" bag for her friend's birthday - a successful, unique little hip bag! Thinking outside the ka-ching shop-shop square, life can really be quite a whole lot of fun, fun, fun! We are always looking at ways to re-use or re-invent things useful out of things we would normally throw away. It is evident in our home and lives and I am proud to be a little Earth Fairy, even if it is supposed to end this weekend!
(People been talking about Mayan calender prophecy)
 |
| My daughter's cool recycled jeans handbag. |
PS: 13/08/14 Obviously those people were mislead, here we still are!!
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