do stuff! & Ten minute no-sew recycled t-shirt bag! Tutorial time! I got a gig teaching a recycled t-shirt project at the library a few months ago, with a request for a recycled tee bag – the only bags I’d made from tees in the past had required sturdy sewing, and I didn’t want hand-sewing to be the only thing holding the bottom closed in a class version of the bags, so I started brainstorming about some kind of hand-sewing-friendly or no-sew bag idea…. and here’s what I came up with! The simplest version of these bags is great for smaller tees, or the more light-weight kind of girl-tees – just turn the bottom of the shirt into a drawstring and tie it closed! As you can see, even with a not huge tee, this will still leave a significant hole in the bottom of your bag, but for purposes like grocery shopping, this size hole shouldn’t really matter… But to make smaller holes, just make more than one of them! Here’s a bag bottom with 2 holes: You could make it rounded, V-shaped, or squared like this one: My finished Sonic bag!
17 Apart: Growing Celery Indoors: Never Buy Celery Again Remember when we tested and shared how to grow onions indefinitely last week? Well, at the same time, we've been testing out another little indoor gardening project first gleaned from Pinterest that we're excited to share the successes of today — regrowing celery from it's base. We've figured out how to literally re-grow organic celery from the base of the bunch we bought from the store a couple weeks ago. This project is almost as simple as the onion growing project — simply chop the celery stalks from the base of the celery you bought from the store and use as you normally would. Instead of tossing the base, rinse it off and place it in a small saucer or bowl of warm water on or near a sunny windowsill — base side down and cut stalks facing upright. We let our celery base hang out in the saucer of water for right around one week, give or take. We watered it generously and after planting in the soil, the overall growth really took off. Discover More:
Recycle Used CDs | Making This Home Lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about recycling and repurposing odds and ends that can’t go into our recycling bins. The latest target in our house? CDs. Thanks to our decision to go digital, we don’t buy a lot of CDs or DVDs. Not now. Turn CDs into a craft project Curlby and Make-Stuff have both compiled a slew of different projects from disco balls like the one below to clocks and driveway reflectors. Great for kids, RePlayGround has simple ideas for making sun catchers that I know the volunteers at day camp would have been all over if CDs were actually floating around when we were kids. Mail them to Recycling Centers Mail CDs, DVDs, and cases to the CD Recycling Center for a $2.00 donation. Wanna chip in on any ideas you have for recycling or repurposing CDs? As you probably know if you’ve stuck around us, we’re always looking for more recycling topics (Like remember what we found about recycling contacts and glasses? (Images from MakingFriends & CD Recycling Center)
The Universal Principles of Sustainable Development By Terry Mock and Tony Wernke, SLDI Co-founders Follow Terry and Tony on Twitter: Terry @SustainLandDev; Tony @Sustainable4U This article is Part 3 in the Fractal Sustainable Development Trilogy. Part 1: Designing a ‘Big Wheel’ for Civilization Part 2: Like Life Itself, Sustainable Development is Fractal As a comprehensive sustainable development decision model, The SLDI Code™ functions as a completely integrated, fractal matrix which leads decision-makers from the foundation of triple-bottom-line sustainability to sustainable results. This unique model (depicted graphically by the logo to the right) is a result of the input and vetting of numerous sustainable project leaders. NOTE: The principles embedded in the SLDI Code Sustainable Development Matrix are universal in their application and need not be confined to land development projects. The SLDI Code is not designed to replace or compete with other more narrowly defined programs or regulatory constraints. Profit (Economic Capital)
Create Something Saturday's- DIY Stencil Art | 8th Continent Soymilk Blog - StumbleUpon by 8thlopez on July 26, 2010 If you are a fan of graffiti or any type of street art, chances are you have come across an artist named Banksy who does impeccable stencil art installations and is now a world-renowned artist, even though he keeps his identity a secret. You may not be an aspiring Banksy, but would like to make some stencil art yourself. If you follow these directions you will be able to easily make stencil art of your own all by doing a quick picture edit, printing it out, cutting it out, and then painting! What you will need: A printer with black inkXacto KnifePaintsCard Stock Weight PaperCanvasRegular Paint BrushSponge Paint BrushBright Colored Marker Directions: The first thing you want to do is find a picture that you would like to make into a stencil. Recolor the picture to grayscale. Turn the contrast all the way up to 100%. After you have printed the picture, take a bright marker and trace the parts that you will be cutting out. WARNING! “Oh cool stencil art?!? “Me.”
What is Sustainable Development? Soothe Winter Skin with this Homemade Sugar Scrub Winter skin has been an issue for me, for as long as I can remember. All summer long I swim, garden and hike around in the Southern California sun. Occasionally I will leave my skin outdoors for too long, turning it bright pink (never the deep, creamy brown my mom and sister have) but it always bounces right back to my soft, milk-white and freckly skin. In the winter months however, my skin completely dries out on me. This year, I’m fighting back against winter skin with a homemade sugar scrub. This scrub not only feels amazing, it also smells amazing, is so cheap to put together, and it requires only FIVE ingredients. White sugar Whole Vanilla Beans Olive Oil (Or Mineral Oil) Almond Extract (Or Vanilla extract, mint extract, lavender essential oil- Whatever you’ve got handy!) I started this project by putting some white sugar in a jar with two vanilla beans, and leaving it alone for a few days. After a day or two in the jar with the vanilla beans, your white sugar will be ready to use.
Shroomery - Magic Mushrooms (Shrooms) Demystified Survival of women during SHTF | SHTF School JL is a female member of my survival course and she asked a lot of woman specific questions about my SHTF experience. I decided to interview women because of that. I can talk about my experience but women live often in different world of feelings and emotions. I spoke with first woman named Una, now 52 (so in her 30s back then) who took care of her family during that time. I asked JL to send me some questions she had on her mind and she did. Una started to describe her situation My first and worst concern was what is gonna happen with my kids, I had two toddlers, and I did not have any clue what is gonna happen, or even what is gonna look like when hell broke lose. I never had question am I going to leave this place, I found it normal to stay in my city, with husband, in my house. If I want to describe my worst feeling trough all of that, it was not hunger, danger, fire, cold or anything like that. Anyway I choose to keep my kids with me, still do not know if it was right decision.