A visit to the landfill

I work for our local county government & had the opportunity today to have a tour, via car, around the local landfill.  It's now a transfer station as the trash is now taken to the next county.

What amazed me was the amount of recycling  and reusing that is happening at this facility.  For instance, the facility would like more land space.  So the answer is to use the concrete, brought by local contractors, to fill in one of the lakes on the property with the concrete pieces.  The piles are already building up.  The shrubbery brought in by the local pickup and the local landscapers is now being bought from a company who is converting it to ethanol.  Very clever.

There is always going to be trash - yucky stuff that is not reusable or recyclable, but it's great to see innovation take place and reduce what is sent to the landfill.

My 5 Thing A Day Challenge

I've fallen off the bandwagon and can't get up! Seriously, with so much activity swirling through my mind lately, I have totally lost my focus on decluttering. I thought about it this morning and decided to just focus on that primarily instead of all the other things that I'd like to do. Yes, I want to eat healthfully, make better consumer choices, eliminate plastic, etc.

I came back to blogging so I can chronicle my journey of decluttering. This morning I looked in the mirror, told myself to focus and to find 5 things, right now in this bathroom, that I could declutter. I opened my makeup drawer & found:

• 4 bottles of nailpolish
• 1 old tube of lipstick.

I trashed the lipstick and when I get home tonight from work, I'll dump the nailpolish & recycle the bottles. So, I am killing 2 birds with one stone, or maybe 3: I decluttered, recycled and got rid of something toxic in the house!

What have you decluttered today?

Great mini article on Going Green with Scrapbooking

I stumbled across this article and wanted to share it with everyone. I found it at Examiner.com and it's written by Denise Bertacchi. I thought it was super and I love the arms hugging the tree!

Go green with your scrapbooking

Mykl Roventine

It seems that "going green" is all the rage with other parts of our lives...but can you really go green with a paper intensive hobby like scrapbooking?

Sure you can.

Recycle. Not the big green can in your garage, but recycle the scraps of paper from other projects. Save all the used bits of paper left over from today's layout to use again tomorrow. Don't throw out any paper that's big enough to use as a photo mat or journaling box.

Reuse. Turn scraps and leftovers from other parts of your life into scrapbooking material. Why buy buttons when you can reuse REAL buttons from an old shirt? Use interesting art from junk mail and magazines in your scrapbooks. Just remember to use archival safe paper for your backgrounds and anything that touches photographs. Better yet, only use copies of photos, not the original, for cropping.

Reduce. Simplify your scrapbooking supplies to avoid waste. Pick a few favorite colors and stick to them. Use up all your old supplies before buying new. Use digital mats to highlight photos you print yourself.

More Info: Here's some tips on environmentally friendly scrapbooking from the tree experts at Abundant Forests.

Cool site to check out!

Hey all you earth friendly scrappers!

I just discovered a very cool site to check out. It's a scrapbook store in Colorado (too bad I'm in FL) and everything they sell for scrapping is environmentally friendly! Here's the site:

www.creatively-green.com

Here's a little bit about them:

We specialize in creative, alternative, handmade art and craft supplies with a conscience. As a family owned business, it is our mission to bring you unique, non toxic, and safe alternatives without compromising on quality.

They have their own paper line and handmade embellishments too! Their prices are very fair as well. Pop on over when you have a chance - they need some DT members too!

Reusing a cereal box!

Of course, cereal is the big breakfast around here! I do recycle my cereal boxes in the containers, but since I have a ton of magazines that I'm unwilling to get rid of right now, so I thought, "how can I re-use them?". Here's a project I started & will finish today and post finished pictures later. I took one box of cereal (see above) & cut it at an angle, like a magazine holder. I have 1 magazine holder and used it as a template:

I then chose a color scheme for my 'new' magazine holder & traced my template:

Sorry for the blurry picture! I then cut it out for both sides, cut out the spine and started gluing!

Stay tuned for the rest!

GoGoGirlz Featured Etsy Seller!

Each week I am featuring an Etsy seller who either recycles or upcycles when producing their product. This week, I am featuring GoGoGirlz and you can see read about how this beautiful necklace was created by clicking here:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=20383198

A little bit about GoGoGirlz:

We are two CRAZY ladies that have been creating together on-the-go for
about 4 years. The G in the word "GO" is from my friends' last name and the O is
from mine. And, yes, we were young girls when Go-Go boots and mini-shirts were
latest trends in the 1960s. Today, we are still always on the go as chauffeur
moms to school and sports activities. Our favorite places to go are to the craft
shows, craft stores and to "craft paradise" -- that quiet place where we can
escape to, and create without interruptions of "Mom, take me here -- Mom, take
me there".

They also have some vintage items in their store and other handmade goodies. Please be sure to check them out!

Recycled Fish!

Ok, here's my latest eco-friendly embellishment:

A box of Rice Chex can go a long way! All I did was use one of my templates & trace the fish on the box. Then I traced the template on red & blue scraps of paper, cut everything out, adhered them using 3-in-1 Adhesive (that stuff is the best!), and voila! Two little fish to adhere to your card or scrapbook page. Plus, if you want, you can further embellish them. The edges of my fish are chalked for a little dimension. If I was using these instead of selling them, then I would add some of those little googly eyes. For now, these little buggers are for sale at my Etsy store:

RememberWhenCreation.etsy.com

What have you come up with using cereal boxes? I want to know!

Stay tuned for my 'new' magazine holder!

Use for yogurt cups!

“Because we don’t think about future generations, they will never forget us.” -Henrik Tikkanen

I know in most areas of the country, you can throw your yogurt containers (or sour cream containers) in the recycle bin. However, what do you do with them if you can't? Or, if you don't have a recycling program in your town?

I have an old cutting board that I have designated as my painting board for chipboard letters or for painting the edges of papers, etc.

You can see where I have squeezed out all colors of paint on the left side of the board. So, in an effort to try & keep it a bit neater and not have lumps of dried paint on it, I decided to put my yogurt cups to use. Our county does have a recycling program, and trust me, I fill up our bins as much as possible. The beauty of using the yogurt cups is I can use them and wash them out & still throw them in the recycle bin.

If you are in a part of the country that doesn't have a recycle program, then you can keep a bunch of them & use one for each color that you paint with. Stay tuned for more uses of yogurt cups!

Recycling Ribbon

Don't we all just love ribbon? Maybe it makes us think of when we were little girls and our dresses would have ribbons on them or maybe our Mom adorned our pigtails with them.

Ribbon is a major embellishment in scrapbooking, and it can add up. So where can you find some ribbons to repurpose? How about this:

• Christmas or other gifts received throughout the year


• Clothes you no longer want


• Gift Baskets


• Thrift Stores!

I'm sure you can come up with some other ideas - share them with us by posting a comment!

New uses for bottlecaps

New Uses for Bottlecaps!

My husband loves his IBC Root Beer, and I love the bottlecaps! I am designing a Word Book for my niece, Allison, and I had a few bottlecaps lying around, so I decided to incorporate it into her book.

What can you do with a bottlecap? you ask. Turn it into an embellishment! A 1-inch circle punch is the perfect size for a piece of paper to fit inside the bottle cap (oh - wash the cap first as it can be a little sticky!). I also grabbed a rub-on word and stick for rubbing.

I used the word 'courage' because I feel Allison is taking a giant step next year in leaving home for college. I know when I was 18, I was not ready to leave the roost. I admire this quality in her.

After adding the rub-on, I simply adhered the circle punch to the bottle cap. You can use a glue dot or any other strong adhesive.

Finally, I used the remainder of my 3-in-1 adhesive in adhering the bottlecap to the Word Book:

Here's the full Word Book. It's not done yet, and if I find some other goodies to recycle and use on the book, I will post them as well!

And remember, if you are interested in a custom made Word Book, please visit my website at http://www.rwctc.com/! Thanks for stopping by today!

Use an old map!

Don't forget - I'm still on vacation!

Tip #2 - Do you have any old maps laying around? Or maybe you picked up a map from your last vacation. Don't throw it out - use it in the following ways:

• a background paper
• matting your vacation photos
• cut out the states or countries you visited & use it as an embellishment on your page!

Save Money on Your Scrapbooking - Go Recycled!

The human race will be the cancer of the planet. ~Julian Huxley, attributed

In our financial crisis, many of us are looking for ways to cut costs and curtail our spending. This is definitely a possibility in scrapbooking, if you think outside the box a bit. Let's talk about storage first. Here are some ideas for uses of household items to aid you in organizing your scrapbooking:



Jars - we all have empty jars of sauce, baby food, jelly, peanut butter, gravy -whatever you have eaten! Now, I know most of us wash them & throw them in the recycle bin, but what if you can use them for storage? See my post: http://scrapwithjan.blogspot.com/2008/12/scrapbookcraft-room-challenge-pt-ii.html
Wash them out with warm, soapy water and let them dry. Voila - pretty storage solution for flowers or ribbon!

Priority Mail Boxes: Instead of recycling them, they are very sturdy & make great paper holders! You can use them 'as is' or cut out a 'magazine-style' holder to see your paper. Use your scraps to make them pretty!

Nut & Bolt Organizer: Sometimes the man in your life may have something to repurpose. You know those cool metal or plastic boxes that have all the little drawers in them for different screws, nuts & bolts? Why not clean it out, maybe repaint it in a pretty color, and use it to organize your alphabet stickers or brads or buttons or other embellies? I'm on the lookout for a used one (hopefully for free) that I can use in my scraproom.

Silverware Tray: Do you have an extra one of these lurking in the attic? You can use it to organize your colored pencils and pens!

Cigar Boxes: How about these? Are they hanging around too? Use them to store scraps of paper or ribbons or other embellishments. You can also either decoupage them or paint them to match your room.

Yogurt containers: Eating yogurt is huge in my house. We each consume at least 1 a day. Of course, I wash them out & recycle them, but I had an abundance of glue sticks and didn't know what to do with them. So, I took a bunch of paper scraps, some modge podge & now I have a nifty holder for my glue sticks. I have also used another one for a set of alphabet stickers.

** I am on vacation & unable to download photos right now. Please stay tuned for pictures starting the week of Jan. 19th! Thanks for understanding! **

What ideas do you have? Share them with me! Together, all our small steps can make an impact on Mother Earth.

K & Co introduces 2 new eco lines!

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. ~Native American Proverb

K & Company has introduced two eco-friendly paper lines and a tree donation program! I was very happy to stumble upon this on their website:

http://www.kandcompany.com/shop/pc/viewContent.asp?idpage=90

This link will explain their 2 paper lines and their Plant A Tree program. Let's face it - scrapbooking, at its very core, starts with paper. And we use A LOT of it. By supporting these 2 paper lines from K and Company, we are reducing paper, packaging and fuel.

Even though I pledged not to purchase anything new this year, my fingers are itching to get my hands on some of this paper and try a layout. How about you? Have you used either paper line?

Scrapbook/Craft Room Challenge, Pt II

As the new year quickly approaches, it's time to clean up and organize the craft room. As my new business is about to unfold, I have a LOT of stuff to get into order.

I'm saving pasta sauce jars, soaking the labels off of them & using them for my flowers. I consolidated the pink flowers into the big pasta jar & used the smaller jar that held some pink flowers for my white flowers.

It's an easy & earth-friendly use for a glass jar. Plus it looks pretty!

Ok, so how many more colors of flowers do I have to sort through? How many more bowls of pasta do Tom & I have to eat?

What creative uses do you have for leftover jars?

Goodies from a Thrift Store

As I change my business over from selling 'stuff', a.k.a. supplies to creating meaningful memory pieces, I am also embracing using recycled or gently used items in my creations. I think one way to not only save money while supporting my business (or habit) but to also save our planet is to thrift store shop, as I have mentioned in previous posts.

I visit the Hospice thrift store quite regularly as I have found some really great treasures in there before. The other day I stumbled upon packages of these little goodies:

I found an unopened package of these royal blue, puffy, material hearts and 2 packages of these acrylic stars, for the whopping price of 25 cents per bag! The original Wal-Mart stickers were on each of the packages and were priced .83 and .57 respectively.

As long as these items don't touch my photos, there is no reason why I can't use them on my layouts or other projects. Pretty cool, huh? What goodies have you found lately?