Miomarmo

Simple Statement of the Day

We won't have a society if we destroy the environment.
~ Margaret Mead

Crafting on the cheap

As a mom of three small artists-in-the-making, I am always on the lookout for good craft ideas. I just discovered Dollar Store Crafts, a website that shows crafts you can make with, well, stuff from the dollar store, as well as loads of recycled and free projects from things you probably have around the house. They show how you can take something simple and/or cheap and turn it into something absolutely lovely. The categories make for interesting searching as well. Some of my favorites, which all can be made from recycled stuff and even trash:

• How to make beautiful Kanzashi flowers using leftover fabric scraps and a button.
• Fork curtain tiebacks.
• Make a Trashcycled Hermes Birkin Bag - I think the homemade one is so much better looking than the real one!
• Create a field of paper bag mushrooms (and then make friends to live underneath them).
• Make a bracelet out of an old cassette tape. I so totally want to make this!
• Create your own beads from plastic soda bottles. Colorful and fun!
• An adorable peg doll necklace from clothespins - we make fairies with ours, but these look fun too.
• And for the incredibly ambitious: The Alien Abduction Lamp!

Who Knew Saving Trees Could Be So Easy!

Unfortunately, not all municipalities recycle newspapers/magazineS that are acquired from everyday junk mail within corporate business parks.  Petitioning the township/municipality that you work in to start doing this is a great idea!  But an even easier start is to take the newspapers/magazines home and throw them in with your weekly or bi-weekly pickup.  You won't believe the difference you'll be making when you see how much junk mail offices can actually get.  By doing this, thousands upon thousands of trees are saved every year.  START NOW AND MAKE A BIG IMPACT WITH A SMALL EFFORT!

Our favorite things (to do to save the Earth)

In honor of Earth Day and the almost-one-year anniversary of Miomarmo, we’ve got a list of some of our favorite green tips and practices.

Nichole:
Grocery stores, Staples stores, Wal-mart all now have bins at the entrance to the store or just inside to recycle the plastic shopping bags.  I’ve doing it for a while now & I’m noticing more & more people.  It’s pretty cool because even though I mostly use my tote bags when I shop, we all still wind up with these plastic shopping bags that we all never wind up using (well…not all of them at least).

On your weekly, monthly, whatever trip to the grocery store…bring the bags back & recycle!

Chintan:
Go veggie! I don't know if I can be anything but a vegetarian. There are far too many reasons to list here, but some of the most important ones according to me are:

• It’s good for the animals. Stop the cruelty towards animals. What have they done to deserve this violence towards them?
• It’s good for you health. Simply doing a google search on vegetarianism and health will get you tons of information proving so.
• It’s good for the Earth. We are destroying pristine forests and converting them into farmland that can provide food for cattle.

Some links to get you started:
http://www.goveg.com/
http://www.peta.org/
http://www.vrg.org/journal/

Elena:
Check out yesterday’s post! Seriously, turning off lights and appliances you’re not using has to be one of the simplest things you can do.

Tim:
Some things we do on a regular basis are:

• using minimum amounts of detergent when doing laundry (you really don't need a full cup)
• re-using towels and work cloths
• find other uses for otherwise discarded items (I made birdhouses out of old deck lumber)
• using the fireplace more often in the winter (I use my own trees when possible and ask the neighbors if I can have the one they plan to discard)
• I no longer use bottled water; instead I use a filter pitcher
• discard batteries and other contaminates appropriately (our public library has a bin just for old batteries)

Matt:
The reusable grocery store bags – my family all uses them.

Dany:
Seek out sources for refilling containers, such as laundry and dish detergents. Our local coop has this service available for these and a few other items.

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

Simple Statement of the Day

Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man.
~ Stuart Udall

Stick wins best toy award

I love this:

The lowly stick, a universal plaything powered by a child's imagination, landed in the National Toy Hall of Fame on Thursday along with the Baby Doll and the skateboard.

The cardboard box was inducted in 2005. :)

Simple Statement of the Day

Knowledge is power, but without wisdom it is deadly.
~ L.A. Banks (author of "The Wicked", 2008, pg 328)

Sometimes Older Can Be Better

                                     

When I was in 7th grade, my grandfather bestowed upon me his pin collection. I don't mean pins like the ones used to keep a hem in place, but the ones that were kept on lapels to support presidents or opinions. At first I was confused: where was my awesome Christmas gift of Beanie Babies? Then apathy kicked in and the bags were tossed into the back of my closet.

Years later I dragged the bags out and sifted through them. To my surprise, there were pins inside supporting FDR, Nixon and even Adlai Stevenson. Some even proclaimed "Don't Panic!" in the charm of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. All of a sudden, they were cool.

Now that I'm out of college and on a budget, I've found myself flocking once again to older things: vintage slips that I turn into tops, old postcards pulled from a bargain bin in Gettysburg, costume jewelry that used to be my grandmothers, even books from a massive thrift shop in New Jersey. New things can be lovely, but to buy an item someone else cherished if only for a short time can be a real boost. I always considered it owning a piece of history, no matter how recent or short lived.

Flea markets, thrift shops, antique shops, the Salvation Army, Plato's Closet (for Illinois folks), second hand stores, garage/yard sales, Goodwill, anything along those lines can hold unknown treasures to keep and cherish for as long as you live. Donations to Goodwill and the Salvation Army are other amazing ways to dispose of clothes and other items you no longer treasure in the hopes that someone else might.

What I've learned from shopping secondhand is that things you love but that aren't exactly up to date can be remodeled by a tailor or cleaner to keep the beauty of the piece. Just ask my patent leather purse!

For more information on where to go to buy secondhand, click here.

Happy Sorting, Sifting and Shopping

Take the Handmade Pledge

If you didn’t see the “handmade pledge” button last holiday season, here’s your chance to be a part of it for this year. Instead of adding to the commercialism of the season and spending extra money, why not try to make your gifts, or purchase them from those who do?

Why buy handmade?

Buying handmade is better for the environment.

The accumulating environmental effects of mass production are a major cause of global warming and the poisoning of our air, water and soil. Every item you make or purchase from a small-scale independent artist or crafter strikes a small blow to the forces of mass production.

This year, I’ve already told friends and family that if they’d like, I’ll paint a picture of pretty much anything they want for Christmas this year, instead of buying a gift. (And yes, if they want action figures instead, my feelings will not be hurt!) My kids know also that they will be getting homemade dolls and can pick out some of their clothes as well, and my husband already has asked for a painting with “lots and lots of trees.”

Buying from small businesses and crafters assures artists that they can keep doing the work they do so well. And if you’re lucky enough to be the one doing the creating, you’ll see the joy that comes from making – and giving – a present that’s one of a kind.

♥ Take the Handmade Pledge here.
♥ Check out Etsy for all sorts of simply gorgeous artwork, jewelry, and other homemade items.  

Hollywood Goes Green

    As being green becomes the new trend in Hollywood, us average folk have probably wondered at least once, whether or not we’re avid readers of People magazine, if the recyclable Hollywood icons live up to their claims of green living. Established tabloid favorites such as Jennifer Aniston, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus and all the up and coming High School Musical kids are not touted for their eco-friendly ways. Even with the new “in” of greenness, a specific agenda is in place to promote a small contingency of celebrities who are ecologically sound. In order to find out the truth about as many celebrity greenies as I could, Google.com was consulted.

      The first entry on “green celebrities” yielded Grist.org’s 15 Top Green Actors. Some of the top ten include Leo DiCaprio, Ed Norton, Robert Redford, George Clooney and Cate Blanchett. DiCarpio has an environmental documentary in the works entitled 11th Hour, Norton helped BP launch it’s Solar Neighbors Program, Redford launched weekly 3 hour slots of eco-programming on his Sundance channel, Clooney was Vanity Fair’s cover boy for their green issue, launching Oil Change to discourage America’s dependence on oil and Blanchett has converted her entire home to solar power. 

      Also on the list is Ed Begley, Jr. coming in at number six. Truly, with all the things he’s done including driving electric cars, running his home solely using solar energy, launching his own eco-domestic show entitled “Living with Ed” and even powering his toaster with a stationary bike, he should have topped the list at number one. All that bike riding for a slice of toast would wear anyone out. 

      Surfing the wave of ecological awareness are fashion designers, most notably Stella McCartney. In a recent issue of Style and Design supplemented in Time magazine, McCartney was praised as having an eco-friendly line which she claims is a throw back to her mother, hippie-chic Linda McCartney. She refuses to use fur or leather in her designs and instead uses natural materials; she’s quoted as saying “why…are we not questioning the fact that it’s barbaric to raise an ostrich for a bag? They say it’s a by-product. Well, I didn’t eat lizard lately”. Despite the lack of animal skins, her clothes are flying off shelves in high-end boutiques. Some of her top clients include Madonna, Natalie Portman and Gwenyth Paltrow.  

      After all this searching on the internet, a big player seemed to be missing: what happened to Al Gore? The Nobel Prize winning creator of An Inconvenient Truth was notably absent from Grist’s list and from any of the websites searched. Gore eco-warped his home in 2007, but quickly discovered, according to Fox News, that his “carbon-neutral” home used twice as much power in one month as the average US household does in a year. Despite the incredible usage, Gore put in energy efficient windows and added solar panels to his roof. Extra profits from AIT went to globe-friendly education.

    For some, being “green” comes naturally, but celebrities have easy access to funds that can transform their homes and lives into ecology friendly environments. It begs the question: why not be a little greener with your green?