Every little bit counts right? I am diverting a little from pure upcycling projects to visit the bigger picture of what it means to be more green and reduce our carbon footprints, even if it is just a little bit. To that end here is a list of some small things I did this week.
1) Said no thanks to plastic bags when I only had a couple of items.
4) Managed some weeds with vinegar instead of pesticides using an upcycled milk jug as a spray bottle.
5) Dried my laundry outside in the sunshine.
6) Walked to the post office instead of driving. The dogs like this one a lot :-)
7) Swept my floor by using used dryer sheets on my swiffer sweeper instead of pricey new swiffer pads. I also like to use my dryer sheets more than once in the dryer. It softens them up more and makes them work better on the sweeper.
I know these are all tiny little things but it is all the small things that add up. And it starts with awareness. Of course there are hundreds of other ways to choose to be green and I will continue to try to make more green choices in the future. How about you are there some small changes you could make to be more green? Feel free to share your thoughts here.
No drum roll please but as promised here is my dryer sheet drawer liner creation.
I am sure it would have been a faster project if I had done machine sewing. But I have already covered my brand of crazy, like to sew by hand for therapy weird-o-ness.
As you can see I didn't really have a planned layout I just let the pattern evolve until the size was correct to fit the drawer.
Ok technically there are six of us in the house but only two of us ever wear pants.
I feel like I have been doing laundry for two days straight so its time for a break and some thoughts and experimentation with, what else, but dryer sheets.
A while back I started collecting my dryer sheets in this coffee container that I keep on top of my dryer.
I was born with an extra "hoarder" gene.
It's not an official disorder but it does on occasion cause a little marital strife. This coffee can is one of the ways that I try to contain some of my compulsive collecting madness. Of course the other way to manage the madness is to actually do something with all of the crap that I collect. So without further delay here is my list of 10+ ways to upcycle and re-use dryer sheets.
1) I save them primarily to use as swifer floor dusters. It takes two of the type of dryer sheet that I use to cover my sweeper but they still stay in place, work almost as well as the real thing and are much cheaper.
Here s my sexy sweeper dressed in dryer sheet chic. :-)
2) I also keep them on hand when I am painting small projects. I have used them like paper towels to wipe my hands on dry my brushes and as a blotter to add texture to painted backgrounds.
3) Today I was thinking about what else to do with these sheets and making flowers came to mind. A quick Google search revealed that many have gone before me into this territory.
5) Perhaps no bride would ever want an upcycled wedding but I thought that used dryer sheets would make nice rice bags. I didn't find any actual examples on line but I think this one is fairly self explanatory.
6) Or maybe some brides would like an upcycled wedding. There are several google search results for "dryer sheet wedding dress" and before you poo poo the idea as completely tacky or wacky you should check out what these ladies were able to accomplish with their humble little dryer sheets.
7) I thought that maybe I had an original idea to use the dryer sheet as an over lay filter on a photo or picture, but again I was wrong here is a version of this technique.
8) I stumbled onto this idea during my google search. You can use dryer sheets as small pieces of interfacing or as in this tutorial for applique.
9) Dryer sheets can be used as a blank canvas as this artist does.
Or in mixed media projects like this one.
10) And lastly I have decided to make some drawer liners for a dresser.
I will have to post the results later as the project is completely in my imagination at the moment.
That's it for now. More laundry awaits. So I had best be on my way.
