Going green

Saturday afternoon I was looking through some swaps on Ravlery and they had this one swap that said going green swap. Now i'm thinking this is a great idea. Then I read the description of the swap and it lists 1 thing that you can swap used. Books. hmmm, thats not going green in my opinion.

Going green is taking old sheets that you can't use and tearing them into strips and crocheting purses, rugs, dish clothes. Make something out of nothing. Take an old sweater that no longer fits or just wasn't your color and making an awsome handbag, mittens or scarfs from it. Did you get a kinda cute wallet for christmas. But its not in your color or the size you need. Pass it on to someone who might be able to use it. That to me is a going green swap.

Now I'm not 100% go green. There are still convinces of garbage I'm just not willing to give up. I still drink my water, boughten out of the store and thats not going to change. Even with a water filter our water not only smells like sewer it taste pretty nasty as well. So I AM NOT GIVING UP MY BOTTLED WATER. Not to mention that in the last 2 months we've had 4 boil orders. I'm not going to make my own laundry soap or dish soap. I do try to use towels in place of paper towels, I rarely get store bags. (I have my wonderful, huge aldi ruseable bags and few walmart reusable bags.) And the disposabe bags I do have I'm saving up to cut and crochet with. They also get used as dogging poop bags when we are are in puplic.

I take the little plastic rings from the milk jugs, water jugs and bottles and use them in my rings for crocheting angels and such. Why go buy a plastic ring when these work as well. I have been know to buy a crocheted blanket from the thrift store and either pull out the stitches and remake something or take the item and "make it better" by adding a cute border or bobbles and such to it. I've taken gigantic huge jeans (the biggest I could find) cut the legs off & sewed the bottom shut they make awsome craft bags. (pockets for crochet hooks and scissors). And even grocery shopping bags. Then I take the legs and cut them in squares for grease rags or rags in general around the house. I've taken sweaters and cut them into strips and made scarfs out of them, use the sleeves as arm warmers. (In the summer I can't have sun hitting my arms, i blister in a short amount of time.) I always keep sleeves from an old sweater or shirt in my van and slip them on my arms when one or the other arms is going to be in window and in the sun.

I love old t-shirts as hair clothes. wash my hair and dry my hair with a t-shirt and then wrap it on my head while I put on face cream or such. It stays in place so nicely, t-shirts also make great hand towels in bathroom for hubbys to dry their not quiet so clean washed greasy hands. (and it doesn't ruin your pretty set). I re use large envelopes that I receive items in (I rarely by those big shipping envelopes.) I take the envelopes from my mail and cut them into squares and staple them for note pads. Remove the labels from med bottles (and boy do I have a lot of them.) I use them for pins, needles, safety pins, rubber bands. no-salt seasoning salt to keep in my purse.

I lived in one place where I had a row of old purses I no longer used, liked, what ever hanging on the wall in my bedroom. I kept misc stuff in them. (Hosery, scarfs, slippers.) In the bathroom I had a couple hanging for combs, hair dryer and curling iron. I save all the napkins you get going through the drive through and have a little holder on both the driver side and passenger side that they go in for those nose blows. I have an old purse hanging in the front seat of the van on the hand rail that I keeps necesseties in. (comb, lipstick, stain remover, glass cleaner and cloth, bandaids and aspirin a measuring tape, a note pad and couple of pins, eye drops.) No searching or hunting, no bulging glove box. Look in the purse. Always there, always handy. I also keep two hand towels drapped across the same holder. Ever gone through a drive through, taken a bite of food and had your shirt ruined. (I asked for a sandwhich, not a slop burger.) Hubby and I drape the towel across our chest and if something squirts out, the towels catches it. No more ruined shirts.

We buy those lights that last forever and easy to dispose of when they do go.

One of my favorite things I use is I took the plastic tooth brush holder that we buy every so often. Covered it in pretty tissue paper, laqured over it and I use it to keep a large portion of my crocheting hooks in. Easy to grab and throw in my purse and I don't have hooks that our running around the bottome of my purse. I'm hoping I do enough extra things here and there that it makes up for my water bottle usage and I even try to make up for that by, buying yarn made from recyled bottles. Now one of the stranges things I do, is ziploc bags. Once I use the ziploc bag I turn it inside out and throw it into a linen wash bag, when that gets full, I throw it and a shot of dish soap into the washer and wash them. When done. I take them out and laundry clip them to drip dry and then reuse them. Some go into the bathroom for keeping things handy, and i love to use them when packing. Its so much easier to find my undies in the suit case if they are folded into a ziplock bag. Same with bras and socks. But I have no qualms about reusing them in the kitchen.

So what do you do to help the environment? What items have you repurposed??? I love repurposing items. I really think I get this from my momma who always found a 2nd use for things.