My Bulletin Boards are Better Than I Thought!

A while back, I wrote about putting up multiple bulletin boards around my house, making some of them myself from Homasote. I've just read at Apartment Therapy, via this post on Not Martha, that homasote is a recycled material, made from old newsprint. Cool!

Two of My Favorite Things Come Together: Jewelry and Recycling

Check out out this post on Inhabitat, about jewelry made from reclaimed and recycled textiles. I went to the artist's site (you can get there from the Inhabitat post linked to here), but alas, my Spanish is way too rusty to be able to read more than the occasional word... I love the necklaces, though I'm not sure I could really pull off the look.

Institutional Surplus - Great Source of Great Stuff

Various institutions, such as schools, hospitals, etc. sometimes have great stuff that they need to dispose of. I got these crocks from my college's 'barn sale', where they sell the furniture, etc. that come out of building which have been renovated: I paid $5 each. My friends Julie and Joe got a great set of oak chairs to use in their dining room for only $12 each: They are good looking, comfortable chairs, and as you can see, they came from Ohio State University: I heard recently that Colgate University, about half an hour from me, has a regular 'store' for their surplus stuff, so I have it on my already-too-long list of things to do to go there and see what they've got. And I've also heard that somewhere in Boston is a regular surplus sale of Harvard's leftovers. What surplus furniture have you found in your area?

A Use for Vintage Suitcases: Sidetable w/ Storage

The top suitcase in this photo did come straight out of the trash. Some neighbors were cleaning out an attic when I spied it on top of the dumpster. I asked if I could have it and they gladly handed it to me. (That I didn't get in on the ground floor and get things out of the attic before they were put in the dumpster is a long, sorrowful story...) But the other suitcases I've bought at various thrift stores and garage sales over the last few years. Stacked together they make a cool looking bedside table, and they offer some extra storage space for sheets, towels, etc. And I don't know about you, but I am always in need of extra storage space. (The only thing is that I suggest only using them to store things you don't need very often, since you have to unstack them to gain access. They would work great for holiday decorations, for example.) This is not an original idea, I know, but I think it's good enough to bear repeating.

Bye Bye Clothes Dryer!!!

So, as I said a while back, my dryer broke about a year ago, and as I was broke myself, I decided to get by with just a washer. (Though this is where I draw the line. I won't be doing my laundry in the sink, or at a laundromat.) For the last year the old, broken dryer has been just a waste of space in my basement, where I need all the space I can get. And one of the many things I love about my neighborhood is that on trash day, there are guys with pickup trucks making the rounds looking for scrap metal. (I love it because it means that all that metal won't end up in a landfill, and won't get wasted.) So, I nabbed one of these guys yesterday, and he took down my address and came back this morning to get it. He took it apart, and it looked to me like he was salvaging all of it: the metal for scrap, the heavy duty cord, the motor. So, here it is in my driveway: And there it goes! Next, I'm going to have him come back and get the old oil tank taking up space in yet another corner of my basement!

What a Waste

This is the kind of thing that drives me crazy. I bought some new underwear a few days ago, and when, at the cash register, I went to remove them from their little plastic hangers, the cashier said that they would just throw them out, not reuse them. I assume that the manufacturer puts them on the hangers and doesn't want them back. They are recyclable, but still! It is such a waste for all those hangers to get made, and then to have to recycle rather than reuse them.

Thrift Shopping = Green Shopping

So, I went to the Sal Army in Lancaster, Ohio yesterday with my friend Julie. This store is well worth the visit. If I were you and I were anywhere in the vicinity, I would go out of my way to go to this particular store. (I don't understand the great differences in quality between different Sal Armies. They must have some sort of distribution system that accounts for the fact that some of the stores really suck,as does the one where I live in Utica, NY, and others are great. It is not that they depend on donations from the place where they are located. There is a more complex distribution system than that.) Anyway, spending a couple hours in this store was as close to a religious ecstatic experience as I am likely to have, although nothing compares to the Garage Sales held at the Sal Army in Cleveland. Back on point, (I can stick to a point, I swear), I spent $54 and change, and here is what I got: All together, my $54 got me: a large bag of candles, which one of these days I'm going to recycle into candle cup gifts; a vintage wool blanket, with someone's name tag on it (love that!); a nice old Boater's straw hat, in great condition that I'll put up on Ebay; 2 cool vintage dresses; a very nice antique ironstone serving bowl in great condition; a little old-fashioned nightgown; a pair of brand new tights (I do draw the line at used underwear); a very cute polka dot lightweight jacket by French Dressing; a very cute reversible wrap skirt WITH ITS TAGS STILL ON IT (I swear, buying clothes and giving them to Sal Army without ever having even bothered to take off the tags strikes me as very weird behavior - wouldn't it be simpler just to burn your money from the comfort of your home?); an oldish white cotton slip (no, slips aren't underwear); a nice queen bedskirt, which I very much need; 5 large men's cotton shirts, which I'll use for more of these; 2 old silk scarves; a Texas Ware sugar and creamer, also destined for Ebay; a little white tea cup, which I'm going to use for those candles gifts I mentioned above; a pair of socks (no, socks aren't underwear either); 2 stretchy tops; 2 sleeveless blouses; a basket ware cup; 2 long linen dresses that I'm going to turn into skirts; 2 long linen skirts that I'm going to shorten; a Flax linen shirt I bought just because I like the fabric; and a matching linen skirt and top set. Not bad for $54, huh? Here are some closeup pics:
I am, as you can probably tell, pretty pleased with this score. I spent as much as I could have easily spent on a single thing, and got over 30 things instead. And, given that a few of those things will end up on Ebay (the hat, the sugar & creamer), I may in fact break even or make a little money. But as pleased as I am for myself, I am also disturbed by how much we overproduce in this country. Most Sal Armies have to regularly take things off the racks in order to make room for the enormous quantities of stuff getting delivered daily to their stores. (All the shirts I bought yesterday were 3 for 99 cents, because they are desperate to get rid of inventory. So at the last minute I scooted over to the men's section and quickly picked up the 5 men's shirts I bought.) I'm not sure what happens to all that stuff, but at least some of it simply gets thrown out, or so I suspect. And, it isn't true, as some people assume, that the clothes in thrift stores are worn out, or cheap, or hopelessly stained, and so on. The wrap skirt I bought was brand new, and I saw lots of other things still bearing their original tags. I always carefully look over what I buy, and nothing I bought yesterday is obviously worn, or stained, or torn, etc. Why waste $54 on a single skirt, when you can spend the same amount and get this much instead? So, my suggestion to those of us who are concerned with such issues as sustainability and are distressed by the extent and ubiquity of waste in the world, I say "Thrift Shopping is Green Shopping!" We all have to consume, but we don't have to do it in the 'normal' wasteful ways.