Recently I stumbled across Green as a Thistle a blog (and now book) by journalist Vanessa who documents her endeavours at living a greener life. Her challenge was to:
"Spend each day, for an entire calendar year, doing one thing that betters the environment. The idea was that everything I did, I kept doing (so if I switched brands, it was a permanent switch; if I turned down my thermostat, I kept it down), so that by day 365, I'd be living as green a lifestyle as it gets. It was a gruelling year, but in the end, it proved that being an environmentalist doesn't necessarily mean being a smug hippie, nor does it have to mean compromising aesthetic values or good wine.
You can read the list here of her lifestyle changes. I was interested to read that many of the things trialed are common practice in Australia like reusable shopping bags, recycling glass and paper, reducing water use and using recycled toilet paper.
How many of this list do you practice? I found we practice lots of the ideas (not all were relevant to us of course) like cloth napkins, rechargable batteries, using organic and recycled materials where often and the link. I also found a few ideas I haven't heard of and got reminded of my pledge to ban tissues in the home (not really an option at work as many of my clients are in tears). I'll make a list of challenges for myself I think.
Showing posts with label recycling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recycling. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
More gift-wrapping goodness...
I like this tutorial for making a gift box from a Christmas card -good for little fiddly things that need a bit of protection:
Using newspaper...
Using newspaper...
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Christmas gift bags tutorial
I must confess, I've been known to wrap christmas presents in newspaper, reused fabric or a plain old plastic bag. Despite being a crafty person, it's just not really my forte, especially when it's done the day before gift giving...
Gretchen from Junk Mail Gems really places it up a notch with these wonderful gift bags made from recycled junk mail (No junk mail at home? Try your work place recycle bin):
Gretchen from Junk Mail Gems really places it up a notch with these wonderful gift bags made from recycled junk mail (No junk mail at home? Try your work place recycle bin):
You can view her tutorial here
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Weekly container Gardening Spotlight!
Sick of boring terracotta or woven hanging baskets? Kate Pruitt from Design Sponge shows us how to make these wonderful hanging baskets with a personal flair.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Weekly Container Gardening Spotlight-Tutorial
I've been intending to do something about my pot plants for some time. I have quite a few cuttings(mostly succulents) that I potted a year or so ago and conveniently forgot about last summer as it was so hot everything in a pot except these died. We got a heap of new pots and pans for a wedding present so I decided to do something with the old ones. They don't look particularly pretty yet, but once they are thriving I'll post some decent pics.
The benefits of reusing the old pots are that you get to remove the crappy 'terracotta' plastic pots that so many plants are invariably housed in. These were cracked so they went in the recycle bin. Further, the pot handles make them easy to move and rotate when it's really hot (even putting them inside) so you don't kill them off.
You need:
2. Assembly motley crew of pots in the meantime to demonstrate productivity in between cups of tea.
Do you like this watering can? Make Gardens Not War! Awesome wedding present!
4. Drill holes in pot and lid bottoms. Realise it is impossible to take an action shot by yourself. If you don't have a drill you could try a hammer and nails but that may only work on tin cans and olive oil containers.
The benefits of reusing the old pots are that you get to remove the crappy 'terracotta' plastic pots that so many plants are invariably housed in. These were cracked so they went in the recycle bin. Further, the pot handles make them easy to move and rotate when it's really hot (even putting them inside) so you don't kill them off.
You need:
- old saucepans/pots/big lids
- seedlings
- cuttings
- potting mix/succulent mix
- water (grey ish)
- power drill
Directions:
1.Get out power drill only to release the battery has died and it will require several hours of charging. Relax on the couch with the newspaper and a cup of tea.
2. Assembly motley crew of pots in the meantime to demonstrate productivity in between cups of tea.
3. Water all plants you will be repotting. I used water that had been used to rinse garden veggies for the veggie seedling and herbs and a little that had been for some mild cleaning for the rest. The succulents are pretty hardy and dont really know the difference.
Here we have thyme, cucumber, baby lettuce and baby spinach
Various succulents and some tired looking pelargoniums.
Do you like this watering can? Make Gardens Not War! Awesome wedding present!
3. Remove plants from their pots. If they are root bound like mine, chop em up as you wish.
4. Drill holes in pot and lid bottoms. Realise it is impossible to take an action shot by yourself. If you don't have a drill you could try a hammer and nails but that may only work on tin cans and olive oil containers.
6. Fill pots with soil. If you are feeling really excited you could buy potting mix specifically for succulents which is a bit more sandy.
7. Cut and tidy succulents and replant in their improved glory along with the seedlings.8. Arrange decoratively as you wish. These will be significantly more decorative once I get some more plants so I can make more pots.
I love the lid full of succulents here: The box is for our new bbq-the old bbq will be used as a herb planter once I buy more herbs.
You can see my pelargonium collection down the bottom. The pots were decorated by the wonderful Craftea Chat participants as a wedding present!
Close up of succulents. The jelly bean ones are cool.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, give it a try and let us know how it goes.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Make your own Worm Farm
This article had a little bit of guidance from a post found on Sustainability Victoria, which now seems to have disappeared off their website. It's a wok in progress project for us, so we make no guarantee that it will work, but I see no reason it wont. Our aims were to keep it as easy and cheap as possible, so in reach of almost everyone's budgets and limitations.
Worm Farms are great ways of making fertilizer from food scraps in any rental property with a bit of space. You can buy worm farms with everything you need, but they're quite expensive ($100+) and larger, it's not too hard to make your own, here's how!
Find yourself three (in fact two initially, the third is for future expansion) containers, old polystyrene vegetable boxes like the one pictured below are ideal.
We'll start here with two boxes and add a third in the future, so take one box and using a sharp implement (I used a small screwdriver) make some holes in it's base, they don't need to be particularly regular, but you will need a fair few
These holes are for oxygen, but also for the worms urine (which forms one part of the fertilizer) to pass through into the second box below. Ending up with something like this.
Next you need something to cover the bottom of the box, to allow the urine to pass through but so the worms don't fall through, we used several layers of newspaper, which should hopefully work. We also placed a few sheets of dampened paper around the inner edges of the box.
Next we add the worms! When I first started down this path I thought I could go digging in the garden and chuck a few earth worms in a box. Firstly you actually need special worms and secondly you need about 1000 of them to start, so I would have been there for a hell of a long time! This is the singly most expensive part of the process, but 1000 worms cost me $50 and included a healthy amount of dirt for the worms to live in. Carefully pour the worms on top of the news paper and evenly spread them about.
Next add another thin layer of paper on top of the worms, paper is mainly good to balance out the heavy nitrogen content of the food scraps.
Now it's time for the food scraps, again spread them thinly and don't put too much in at once. Ensure everything is nice and moist, when we made our worm farm it was raining, ensuring that everything was sufficiently damp!
Now find a cool and shady spot and something to raise your farm off the ground (perhaps an ever helpful milk crate weighed down with some bricks), place this box (with it's lid) on top of our unmodified box and voila!
Add your food scraps on a regular basis, ensuring that you don't add too much, keep everything damp and be patient, things wont happen overnight.
We shall return to this topic as we discover more and as our own little farm develops.
TIPS :
What composting worms like to eat
- Plate scrapings (cooked vegetables and stewed fruit leftovers)
- Fruit peelings (not too much orange or lemon peel)
- Vegetable scraps and peelings (not too many onions)
- Hair clippings and vacuum cleaner dust
- Stale biscuits and cakes
- Coffee grounds and tea bags
- Crushed egg shells
- Saw dust
- Soaked cardboard
What composting worms don't like to eat
- Manures
- Acidic foods (onions, citrus, garlic, shallots)
- Garden waste
- Dairy products
- Meat
Worm Farms are great ways of making fertilizer from food scraps in any rental property with a bit of space. You can buy worm farms with everything you need, but they're quite expensive ($100+) and larger, it's not too hard to make your own, here's how!
Find yourself three (in fact two initially, the third is for future expansion) containers, old polystyrene vegetable boxes like the one pictured below are ideal.
We'll start here with two boxes and add a third in the future, so take one box and using a sharp implement (I used a small screwdriver) make some holes in it's base, they don't need to be particularly regular, but you will need a fair few
These holes are for oxygen, but also for the worms urine (which forms one part of the fertilizer) to pass through into the second box below. Ending up with something like this.
Next you need something to cover the bottom of the box, to allow the urine to pass through but so the worms don't fall through, we used several layers of newspaper, which should hopefully work. We also placed a few sheets of dampened paper around the inner edges of the box.
Next we add the worms! When I first started down this path I thought I could go digging in the garden and chuck a few earth worms in a box. Firstly you actually need special worms and secondly you need about 1000 of them to start, so I would have been there for a hell of a long time! This is the singly most expensive part of the process, but 1000 worms cost me $50 and included a healthy amount of dirt for the worms to live in. Carefully pour the worms on top of the news paper and evenly spread them about.
Now it's time for the food scraps, again spread them thinly and don't put too much in at once. Ensure everything is nice and moist, when we made our worm farm it was raining, ensuring that everything was sufficiently damp!
Now find a cool and shady spot and something to raise your farm off the ground (perhaps an ever helpful milk crate weighed down with some bricks), place this box (with it's lid) on top of our unmodified box and voila!
Add your food scraps on a regular basis, ensuring that you don't add too much, keep everything damp and be patient, things wont happen overnight.
We shall return to this topic as we discover more and as our own little farm develops.
TIPS :
What composting worms like to eat
- Plate scrapings (cooked vegetables and stewed fruit leftovers)
- Fruit peelings (not too much orange or lemon peel)
- Vegetable scraps and peelings (not too many onions)
- Hair clippings and vacuum cleaner dust
- Stale biscuits and cakes
- Coffee grounds and tea bags
- Crushed egg shells
- Saw dust
- Soaked cardboard
What composting worms don't like to eat
- Manures
- Acidic foods (onions, citrus, garlic, shallots)
- Garden waste
- Dairy products
- Meat
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Make your own shelves
God bless Pura Crates! God knows what any rental property would be without them...
This is really easy and obvious, but I have seen people take this further and make really glamorous shelves out of old crates, but we'll stay simple here....
Get your Crates, I'm never sure where people actually get these from, they seem to just be in every rental property... Clean them...
Then simply stack them, with the large hole to left of the right so that no items fall through. If your items are too small and fall through the gaps in the crates then you can use wood or card to prevent this happening.
Voila! Who needs Ikea!
This is really easy and obvious, but I have seen people take this further and make really glamorous shelves out of old crates, but we'll stay simple here....
Get your Crates, I'm never sure where people actually get these from, they seem to just be in every rental property... Clean them...
Then simply stack them, with the large hole to left of the right so that no items fall through. If your items are too small and fall through the gaps in the crates then you can use wood or card to prevent this happening.
Voila! Who needs Ikea!
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Recyclable storage #2
Book rack
From a coathanger!
Yep if you clicked on the link, it's in Portuguese, but pretty easy to suss out from the pics.
And this would be pretty easy to make. I found the pic on flickr.
From a coathanger!
Yep if you clicked on the link, it's in Portuguese, but pretty easy to suss out from the pics.And this would be pretty easy to make. I found the pic on flickr.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
