Free for the Taking (and Making)

Anybody who knows me, knows that I'm cheap. Not the kind of cheap that tries to get you to buy my dinner (in fact, I'll probably try to buy yours), but the kind of cheap that hates to buy expensive things when I can get them for less or even free. I especially get a thrill when I can make creative use out of used or free stuff. You can imagine my huge joy when I discovered that our new town has a wonderful institution called the "Swap Shop." It's a little shed right next to what's rather euphemistically called the town "Transfer Station." Other towns might simply refer to it as the "Dump and Recycling Center," but no, not here in Berkshire County! The Swap Shop is where people (many of them second-home owners from NYC) drop off their used books, toys, home goods, clothing, etc. so that others might take them home rather than having them go to a landfill. Whoever came up with this idea is a genius, as far as I'm concerned! And I wonder, why doesn't every community have something like this???

Just for fun, here are a few photos of stuff I've found, and how I've repurposed them:

This is a lovely old porcelain light fixture. I taped the bottom with duct tape, poked a few holes, filled with gravel and soil, added a narcissus bulb and topped with moss. I found 3 of them at the Swap Shop, actually. But I don't know why the middle guy won't sprout like his brothers...

The little bird houses came from a gardening store. They were Christmas ornaments and half-off in early January. I added a couple "found items" to make them more interesting, like a pretty moth that had been hanging around near my favorite reading spot by the window for days, then eventually keeled over. A couple of fairies that had been passed down by the girls' cousins, found themselves "relocated" from their fairy home upstairs down to our dining room. I don't think they really minded the move.

 Another fun find at the Swap Shop was this bird cage. I still haven't decided exactly how I want to use it, but for now it houses a pot of herbs and a little white stuffed bird (a half-off Christmas ornament.) Unfortunately, the cage adds some not-needed clutter to this corner of the living room...

This one may have been our most valuable (to us) Swap Shop find yet: a pair of black Elefonten shoes, in exactly my big girl's size! The toes were fairly scuffed and she really wanted to have sparkly shoes to wear to church just like her little sister, so that's what we made them into, with a little help from Modge Podge and some polyurethane varnish:

Finally, last but not least, I was still feeling the glitter love and wanted to make something with a bunch of bottle caps we had collected during all the holiday festivities. With these, I was also able make use of some excellent images from a "Great Courses" catalogue that had come in the mail. I covered the images in contact paper, glued them to the inside of the caps and stuck a self-adhesive magnet strip to the back of each. Now our refrigerator is looking a lot more interesting, what with these and the rocks I wrapped in gold and silver wire!

It's pretty clear to me that these images are of the Parthenon, Buddha, Sphinx, and an old map of Euope and Africa, but I can't figure out who the other dude is. His statue was featured next to a Great Course on Italian History, but that didn't help me much since I studied African history in school. Is it Julius Caesar, maybe? This guy has on armor, and I always picture Caesar in a toga for some reason, but whatever. I guess you can't wear just a toga all the time...

Happy Last Year!!!

One thing I always have trouble with is getting rid of the last year's calendars. After all, we pick them because we love the pictures. And after seeing them up on the wall for a year, it feels like they are part of the family, in a sense. Especially when we have a Peace Corps calendar up in the house -- the gorgeous vistas, market scenes and playful little children stay with me long after their picture's month has passed. Year after year, even through house moves, I've held on to these calendars rather than recycle them. But never gave much thought to what to do with them until now, when I've got more free time. So my first project is making calendar picture gift bags. Probaby there are other DIYers doing the same thing out there in the blogosphere, but I haven't checked. It seemed like a novel idea to me, and while it's rather time consuming, it's definitely a labor of love. I can't wait to match the bags to their future gift recipients! (Picture of kittens to the cat lover, etc.) Basic directions below.

Okay, so you start with two calendar pages, ideally with the photos oriented the same way. Decide how deep and how tall you want your bag to be. You will want to mark the sides and bottom of each page so that you know where to fold. Ideally, there will be a significant overlap between the front and back, as well as the bottom flaps so that the bag is sturdy. You also need to decide whether you will fold down the top for extra handle stability. Alternatively, you can just glue small pieces of paper to the inside where you plan to punch holes for the handles.

Attaching the bag can mean glue, tape, stapes, lacing or a combination of these. I like the look of lacing down the sides, but it takes more time and having the sides end up the same height can be dicey. It's pretty cool if you have saved some curly ribbon from holiday gifts and can reuse that. Glueing, then stapling at the edges is a good option but it gets messy. Certainly, taping is the fastest method but it does use up a lot of tape.

Handles can be cut from the same calendar, maybe from the heavier paper of the front cover. Or they can be made from reused holiday ribbon. Strips of fun fabric would be another nice option. When I finally recycle old gift bags that can't be used anymore, I always remove the ribbon handles (since they are not paper). I have used some of these on the bags I made. (This falls in the category of perhaps extreme item re-use, I know. But there's a certain elegance to them going back to their original purpose. :-)

And there you have it, a fun way to upcycle one of the many items hanging around your house in the post-holiday season!

Windfall Applesauce

For me, crisp apples are synonymous with Fall. And as fun as it is to go apple picking with the kids, for me it's even more exciting to happen upon an orchard of gnarly old apple trees out in the middle of nowhere. There are tons of them around New England, sometimes at the edge of someone's property but often the abandoned trees are part of a state forest or preserve. When we come across old apple trees at this time of year, I love to collect an armful of fallen fruit. Though their skins may be tough and the ants or worms might have gotten there first, windfall apples can make great applesauce. This recipe is easy as pie and makes the house smell wonderful.

Windfall Applesauce

• Wash and peel apples, then chop them into roughly 1/2 inch pieces. If part of the apple is inedible for any reason, simply cut it away. As you do this, marvel at the intricate pattern left by a tiny insect or worm who obviously enjoys apples, too...
• Add apple pieces to a medium-sized saucepan in a roughly even layer
• Add enough apple juice to barely cover
• Add a couple cinnamon sticks or ground cinnamon to taste
• Bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1/2 hour or so
• Remove cinnamon sticks, wash and set aside
• Mash apples roughly with a potato masher or use a handheld blender or food processor if you prefer your applesauce smooth
• Add a bit of honey or agave to taste

For the kids (or kids at heart), serve with the cinnamon sticks as makeshift spoons!

Sharing Our Abundance

A short reflection today about the nature of our abundance here in middle class USA. As my family and I prepare to move across the state, I am confronted daily with our modern materialism as I attempt to sort through and pack up all of our household belongings. Over and over again, I am reminded of how, when I was living in a small village in Africa as part of the Peace Corps, local children would sort through our trash each week before we burned it. They would scamper away happily with all manner of items, including empty match boxes, tomato paste tins, old newspapers, empty spaghetti boxes. There was no telling what each one of these things might become in the hands of children accustomed to playing primarily with sticks and the mud they scooped up from giant termite mounds.

So this time around, I am determined to conduct an "environmentally responsible move", for lack of a better term. For example, we have made endless trips to our local grocery stores for empty fruit boxes (banana ones are the best!). I have been hoarding newspaper from recycling bins for wrapping delicate items, and using clothing, towels and scarves for that purpose as well.

We also wanted to avoid throwing away all the things we that don't want to bring with us to our new place. How much stuff does the average household contain that is truly extraneous? The answer, for us, was appalling. Instead of simply filling up the trash bags, we are making a serious effort to pass along or upcycle everything we don't need. Boston Boys and Girls Club picked up a large load of baby clothes, furniture, toys and books recently. They will sell the items and use the proceeds to fund their youth programs. A selection of textbooks and classic fiction was mailed to a group that ships them to African libraries. I also hosted a clothing swap a few months ago with friends and donated any items that didn't get swapped to a local thrift store that supports HIV outreach efforts. If we weren't moving, I had planned to organize an art/craft supply swap this fall to clear out that cluttered part of the house.
Over the past couple weeks, I've spent many hours posting descriptions of items to Craigslist, our community Freecycle group and parent listserv. Friends and strangers alike have come to claim things as diverse as frozen yogurt containers of home-cooked black beans, boxes of extra floor tiles languishing in our basement, and repurposed styrofoam coolers that have already had a second life as yogurt fermentation vessels. The parade continues... right now my front porch holds neatly labeled bags for pickup: suede couch pillows, a maternity belt, a dust buster, yoga videos, kitchen cookware, travel guidebooks, brass mail slots and the deadbolt from our old front door. They will all go home with someone grateful to have saved themselves both a stressful trip through traffic to the mall and a bit of their hard-earned cash.

As for us, after these efforts I know we will sleep just a little better in our new home, knowing that we didn't fill a small landfill to get ourselves there. For now, though, all is chaos!!!

http://www.freecycle.org/ (Give stuff to people in your neighborhood)
http://www.booksforafrica.org/ (Donate books to overseas libraries)
http://www.goodwill.org/get-involved/donate/ (Donate used clothing, home goods for resale)
http://www.habitat.org/env/restores.aspx (Donate surplus home fixtures, building materials for resale)
http://www.actrecycling.org/ (upcycles VHS tapes and provides jobs for the mentally disabled)

Potato Blues

The potato harvest is in, about a month or so early due to the unforeseen circumstance of deciding to move to Western Massachusetts with about 3 weeks' notice (!). According to my notes, I planted 1 lb of All Blue potatoes back in mid-May, which should have yielded 15-20 lbs of potatoes... but I only dug up 7 lbs. Admittedly, most of them are quite small and would surely have increased in bulk if I had waited long enough to harvest them. But not even half the expected yield??? It's also true that they were in a less sunny part of the plot this year. This is only my second year of growing potatoes and last year's crop also got pulled early due to the much-bemoaned late tomato blight of 2009, so I'm just not sure what to think, although I am grateful for what I got. Seven lbs of potatoes is still...seven pounds of potatoes! An abundance of potatoes by anyone's count.

I may try potatoes again next year, although since our new living situation includes all meals, vegetable gardening would be a gratuitous exercise. If I do, I probably won't grow blues again. I have to say, even though these are considered "gourmet", I find them just a bit creepy to look at! The blue is actually more like grey once cooked, and their insides lost their color completely. Fortunately, they are quite tasty in the various ways I've served them so far.

Below is a very simple, delicious recipe that requires almost no time to prepare: roasted rosemary potatoes. I've shamelessly borrowed the method from another blogger who posted it back in 2007. The recipe is reproduced below with a few small changes, including using fresh instead dried rosemary since it was all I had.

Rosemary Blues

Preheat oven to 425.

Combine in a cast-iron skillet or other large, shallow, oven-safe dish:

1.5 lbs blue potatoes, washed and cut into bite-sized pieces
1/4 cup olive oil

Cook 20 minutes in the middle of the oven, then turn off heat, stir potatoes to loosen their bottoms and let sit in the oven 10 more minutes.

Now toss with:
1 tablespoon sea salt
2 tablespoons dried (crushed) or fresh (chopped) rosemary

Serve alongside another dish with some nice color, like a tomato salad!