Paper Towels Of My Un

Stan Smith: I'll give you $48 to assimilate.
Ma Ma: Shoes off in house.
Stan: What are you...? You don't have to wash paper towels. I'll buy more.
Ma Ma: Wasteful! You waste. Every penny counts.

                                                                           - American Dad, "Big Trouble in Little Langley" husbands

UnPaper towels, or as my husbands grandma  said (successfully taking some wind out of my sails) dish towels - another simple solution when it comes to needless waste.

I found out about UnPaper towels one day while wandering around on Pintrest and was pretty much immediately obsessed.

The idea of using shop towels, wash cloths, or other similar items reoccurred to me while I was reading Green Mama: the guilt free guide to helping you and your kids save the planet. Realizing the possible savings I told my husband that from then on, before he reached for a paper towel to think if this was a job that really needed a paper towel or if it could be just as easily taken care of by using a regular towel. Although he's not against using a towel to clean a mess rather than a paper towel, the walk down the hallway to the linen closet trumped ditching paper towels.

This was just the excuse I needed to begin making my own UnPaper towels. Having them in the kitchen and by the sink should be the incentive he needs to help us save pennies. Maybe having the last of the commercial paper towels under the sink will result in the same reaction of doing what's easiest.

Right now they aren't ready to go on a roll yet so I'll just have to make a space next to the sink for now. Hopefully I'll have these finished up very soon.

Lessons learned from this experience:
1) If you're not sure why your rotary cutter isn't getting anywhere - check to make sure the blade is out
2) Terry cloth isn't as easy to cut as you'd think
3) Using a cutting mat that is only 35 x 35 to cut yards and yards of fabric is kind of the suck

Going Green - How Far Is Too Far?

When it comes to the wide and wonderfully eco-responsible world of the reusable - how far is too far? To me, a reusable diaper wipe doesn't seem too terribly out of school but I can see how for some that may be where they choose to draw the line.

Personally, I think my line is right down my butt crack. That's right, reusable toilet paper isn't causing my little, increasingly greener heart, skip a beat.

Although I and the environment appreciate that there are those out there willing to go the distance that others are willing to make. For now I'm just not ready to make that sort of change.

After discovering The Budget Savvy Diva on Pintrest I went digging through her pins and came across this pin, which is what, in a roundabout way, lead to this post.  

Related articles:
Reusable Toilet Wipes (Poopy Cloth Patrol) (2009)
Eco Etiquette: Reusable Toilet Paper - Too Gross For Comfort? (2010)
Reusable Toilet Paper- Family Cloth (2010)
Reusable toilet paper -- ewww -- on TLC's 'Extreme Cheapskates' (2011)  

Video: TLC's Extreme Cheapskates

I Finally Got To Use My Jersey Mike's Bag!!!

Saturday I was out and about and running around and found myself asking my husband, "Do you want me to bring home food?"

"Sure"

"Anything in particular?"

"How about Jersey Mike's?"

"I was thinking the same thing"

The staff members of Jersey Mikes noticed the coincidence of how my two giant subs neatly, and easily fit into this bag. I told them it was made special for just this case and the girl who was putting them in for me remarked, "I want one."

Once again thank you SO much to Kara of Love For Earth for my very special and completely helpful bag.

Etsy Trade Tuesday - Love For Earth

Living in Columbus has definitely been an experience. Columbus has a bohemian aspect similar to my native Fredericksburg, Virginia; but here I noticed that a lot of people do trades. I've known small local business owners to trade wares for services or goods from others. I've seen these trades fail but more often I see them become great successes for the involved parties. Having recently lost the Etsy shop I spent the last six years of my life working on, I now have stock that I don't have too much use for, in fact, it's taking up quite a bit of space. Another recent life change for my family and I has been our choice to increase our green actions. This has left me with a renewed love for green products, in this case re-usable sandwich/snack bags. I didn't have enough Tupperware containers to cover a weeks worth of packed lunches for my husband and found myself using DUN DUN DUUNNNNNNNN . . . ZIPLOCK BAGGIES! Enter, the reusable sandwich bag. Despite my general annoyance for how Etsy handled the harassment that lead to the close of my shop my love of handmade, particularly hand-made in the USA, has kept me continuously perusing Etsy. Yes, you can easily find an online tutorial to make your own sandwich bags and if you don't like the ones you find, I'm certain people out there have patterns you can pay for. Having a 16 month old doesn't leave me with a lot of time to sew (a problem only made worse by my Pintrest obsession that only adds to the list of things to knit or sew). My current living situation hasn't left me with enough space to set up my own sewing machine here at the house so I drive over to my husbands grandmother's house and use hers. Enter the wonderful Kara K. of Love for Earth on Etsy, added bonus - she lives in my home state!

Kara enjoys making unique, custom, eco-friendly bags and it really shows through in her work. We agreed upon a trade and when the two of us set to work fulfilling our ends of the bargain. Not only did I get an insulated snack/sandwich bag but she made me a custom bag as well! I told her my woes of forever having my hands full and my usual inability to juggle two giant Jersey Mikes subs. Jersey Mikes subs don't come with bags with handles. After discussing the length of a giant sub from Jersey Mikes (15") and determining what the width of two of them should be, she created a special, insulated,

Jersey Mikes sub carry bag

- WITH STRAP!

I luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurv it! The quality is out of this world! About a week later my other bag came (she too was excited about our arrangement and forgot to send the other bag) and it too was wonderful. It even came in recycled packaging!

Tell Kara your reusable bag woes and you'll be sure to walk away with a custom creation that you'll love.