Plastic Bags

We all know that plastic bags are bad for the environment.    You know.   The ones you get from the store or that a newspaper may come in, for those who still read the paper.  But we all have them in our house and it might be nice to get at least one extra use out of them before we throw them away. 

My most often use for both kinds of bags are picking up after my dog.  This is way more cost effective than buying the bags at the pet store. She is a ShiTzu so the bags from the daily newspapers work really well.  What is even nicer, being in an urban environment, there are many free plastic wrapped circulars, ads and coupons that are deposited on door steps of apartment and condo buildings all over the neighborhood. Many of my neighbors are not interested in them and often leave them lying in front of their buildings for days at a time.  There is often a plethora of bags which I can pick up around the neighborhood to recycle the contents and use the bag later in the week.  Another bonus is getting multiple copies of coupons from the Sunday paper.  This is great for items I may stock up on at the grocery or drug store.   But, I digress.

My favorite magazine, Real Simple, has a number of other suggested uses. 

1.  Like Galoshes. Wrapping your shoe or slipper in them before you go outside to prevent the footwear from getting dirty or wet.  They make a note to be care on smooth, slick surfaces as you will not have any traction as you walk.

2.  Using them as knee pads.  If you kneeling on the ground while you are gardening or changing a tire, you wrap a bag around each knee to protect your pants before you kneel.

3.  Wrapping a wet umbrella in a bag to protect a purse, floors or carpets, when you are out.

4.  Head gear.  This one requires no pride on your part as you will have to unselfconscious to pull this off.  But if you get caught in the rain without an umbrella, you can use the bag as a rain hat to protect your hair.

5.  A paint brush protector.  Say you have started a paint job and get interrupted so you won't be able to finish the paint job you started until tomorrow.  By wrapping up the paint brush in a plastic bag and using a rubber band or string, you can leave the job without having to take the time to clean the brush or having the paint dry on it.

6.  Planter filler.  If you are transferring a plant to a bigger planter but want to keep the planter lighter and not use as much dirt, you can crumple a plastic bag at the bottom of the bigger pot before replanting the plant.  The article notes to not cover the drainage hole if the pot has one.


Kana Okada from Real Simple website





7.  As gift wrap.  Take three bags that might be different colors or don't have printing on them, and put them inside one another than put the gift in them.  Then tie the handles together at the top and cut the  handles and fan them out.  It looks pretty with multi-colored bags (see picture).  This one I thought was interesting although, I don't get too many bags that are any other colors than yellow or white and are do not have writing on them.

 

8.  This one is from my mother.  Since she lives alone and doesn't have a lot of garbage, she uses the plastic bags from the grocery store as her garbage bags in the kitchen.



While these ideas are not exactly eco-friendly and the bag will end up in a landfill, they each propose a way to get one more use out of the bags many of us have in our homes anyway.  And, in the case of the dog poop bags and garbage bags they offer a cheaper alternative to buying plastic bags.  In their own way they are kind of echo friendly as we are using these bags, which are often in the house anyway, instead of buying additional bags for these purposes.

New ideas for using Dryer Sheets

I love stuff that I can use for more than one thing.  Real Simple has an article on its website for new uses for the dryer sheets.  There is the old stand-by of rubbing a dryer sheet on the clothes you are wearing to cut down on static cling. 

Then there  is the dryer sheet as a deodorizer.  Now, I have used them in the past at the bottom of my kitchen garbage. While it doesn't cut through any really bad odors (if you had this coming out of the garbage, wouldn't you throw it away, anyway?) .    But, the article also suggests putting a dryer sheet in your gym bag, shoes and in drawers to either keep smells at bay (gym bag and shoes) or  more of a sachet duty (drawers).  One other deodorizing duty is to put them in books and it prevents that inevitable musty smell that can come as books sit, especially if packed away in a basement or garage.

Two cool uses for unused sheets that I hadn't heard of are to clean off the gunk on the bottom of your iron.  Set the iron on low and rub the iron over it until the gunk on the bottom disappears.  The second one was using a dryer sheet if you are hand sewing something.  After threading the needle, run the needle and thread through the dryer sheet and it will prevent the thread from tangling.

Even better, there were two uses listed for dryer sheets that were already used.  I love if I can get more than one use out of something disposable.  Without getting crazy, of course. There are some who go a little too far and re-use paper towels by rinsing them out and then line drying them for a future use.   Sawdust in a work area can be cleaned up quickly by wiping up with a used dryer sheet.  And the last is to take a used dryer sheet, sprinkle on a little water and you can scrub of soap scum from a shower door. 

Do you have uses for dryer sheet, other than mentioned above?

...but Mom... I don't want to eat my vegetables....



From Newleaf on Flickr

A common phrase uttered most dinners at my house growing up. I still don't like most vegetables...and it is a struggle to put them in my daily diet. As an adult, it is easy to ignore and omit these daily since I am the one in charge of what I eat. As I get older and am more aware of the benefits of vegetables, I was trying to figure out how to get those nutrients into my diet. First, I tried supplements to get the benefits without having to eat the yucky things. I found gummy vegetable supplements, of course made for children. Yummy, but had added sugar. Then Centrum came out with a veggie and fruit supplement....hallelujah....a tablet to swallow, and, no added sugar. But, if you do any reading, the experts tell you that eating whole foods nutritionally trumps any pill.

Then, I was watching an infomercial for the Magic Bullet. Yes, I do watch them occasionally. Some of this stuff is really cool! Fortunately, I hardly ever succumb to purchasing items. Anyway, the hosts were talking to their guests about getting their kids to eat their vegetables was to make a smoothie with vegetables and fruit and the flavor of the fruit can hide the taste of the vegetables.

What a great idea! I was already making smoothies in the morning. If I add the vegetables, I get them into my daily diet! I was doing this for a little while with any frozen leafy green veggie I could find. My smoothie was still mostly fruit, yogurt and soy or almond milk. I stopped doing this but have recently started again. This time I am using more of the vegetables, fruit, protein powder (flavored), and cocoa powder.

The key for those of us who don't like our veggies, is to put enough stuff to cover the taste of the vegetables. The smoothie is a great way to incorporate foods/nutrients that your diet may lack in a tasty beverage. And, as noted in the Magic Bullet infomercial--it works for kids too!

Little changes to a Room can Mean Alot

I have to stop watching renovation shows--with the number of home decor and interior renovation shows on television makes it near impossible for me to remain content with the space I live in.  Who doesn't want someone from HGTV, TLC, or these days even, ABC or NBC to come over and do a total makeover?

That is usually my wish since, I, like many other people, don't have a budget to redo a room.  I have found adding color to a room with a new coat of paint, helps.  I even tiled my own back splash in my kitchen.  These are things that you can do yourself or in the case of painting my condo, I had a couple of good Groupon deals and brought in professionals.

Something I hadn't thought of until recently, was changing out the old cabinet and drawer hardware in my kitchen or bathroom, especially with the all the different types of hardware that are out there.  A friend of mine brought this up to me and as I looked at some of the designing shows, it began to sink in.  New hardware in the kitchen or bathroom can brighten a room up like a new pair of earrings.

Even changing out hardware in your dining and living room can make enough of a difference that you feel like you have new furniture.  Some of the coolest transformations I have seen are furniture that was purchased at the thrift store.  With a coat of paint and a change of hardware, made a twenty or thirty year old dresser or credenza look contemporary.

There is a manufacturer,Sietto, in Chicago that creates glass hardware.    They start by crafting a design then cut pieces from various sheets of glass to produce that specific design.   The glass pieces are placed together and then set in a 1500 degree Fahrenheit kiln to fuse the glass together to form the finished knob or handle.  The glass is then attached by hand to a brass base with a special bonding agent.  The display board below that gives you an idea of some of the designs they create.  For their current line, please click here.

My apologies.....plus something actually useful

Hi All:

My apologies.  2011 was a difficult year overall and several thing fell to the way side.  Please know, I have been saving up snippets and articles over the last year, so lack of content has not been the problem.  Anyway, I am going to try to bring you 2 to 3 posts a week.  Hopefully, you will find somethings that are useful you too, and, please feel free to pass any on to your friends or family.

So, without further adieu, first and hopefully not last post of 2012.

About a couple of months ago, the knob on my dryer broke again.  This time, it appeared that no amount of duct tape was going to fix it this time.  I was without a dryer.  So, I started line drying my clothes, which is great during the winter since it added a little moisture to the air.  Not so great, was the fact that my clothes dried stiffly, not all soft like when they come out of the dryer.  Now, I had read (heard, so long ago, I can't remember) that using fabric softener on you towels makes them less absorbent over time so I didn't want to use the store bought kind.  I started looking online for other options, there were a number of recipes for homemade fabric softener, including one using hair conditioner.   I did find something online that suggested using a cup of vinegar and a cup of baking soda in a load of laundry.  I was already using vinegar in my laundry because it helps with general odors in the wash, as well as helps get out the smell of sweat in  shirts on warmer days.

I tried this and although the clothes are not "Downy" soft or totally snugly, they are less stiff and  baking soda is a little extra natural deodorizer.

The other added benefit to not using the dryer is I am using a little less energy, which does seem to be reflected in my gas bill.