What's Old is New: Mom & Dad's Upcycling

My parents aren’t wasteful people, they find a way to reuse almost anything.   Here’s a few things my parents have been reusing, recycling, and upcycling before they were on Pinterest.

Reusing glass jars

Reusing glass jars in a woodshop or garage

My dad had a woodshop in the shed in our backyard. Now thinking back on it, I wonder how much wood work he did, perhaps it was just to get away from me and my brother, but that’s another story.

On the underside of a long shelf, he had nailed the lids of jars, and in the jars were all kinds of nails and tacks and whatever stuff you need to build things with wood.  These were recycled jars – maybe pickles or peanut butter; they definitely were not purchased for this purpose.  As a kid, I thought it was a pretty cool idea and was for some reason, fascinated with unscrewing the jars to see what was in them, although I could see (they were glass, after all) and there was nothing ever more exciting than washers and nuts and bolts and nails.

Best of Just Piddlin': Top 10 of 2013

Thanx for Just Piddlin’ along with me in 2013!

I've had a wonderful year blogging and chatting with you.  Checking over my blog posts, these were the 10 most read posts of the year (no particular order).

Working moms and stay-at-home moms, alike, were represented in these motherhood and parenting posts:

• "Lean In" Isn't Such a Bad Message
• Now That You're a Stay-at-Home Mom
• Shall We Give The Kids a Sticker for Breathing

These dishes perfect for busy moms who want home-cooked food for their busy families were popular:

• Next Best Thing to Fried Shrimp - from Witchery in the Kitchen
• Asian Chicken in the Crockpot - selected as a Circle of Moms Recipe of the Day
• And for birthdays, holidays, or any reason to have cake - Cake Decorating - tips from Fancy Cakes by Leslie

Perhaps I’m not the only one struggling with the “where’s your family from” projects, as many of you read up on Another Family Heritage Project.

Fellow yarn-holics picked up their needles for this one: My First Knit Hat

Folks were busy cleaning out their closets & looking for tips on what to do with those old clothes: Re-Use & Recycle Old Clothes

And friends were looking for answers of why they were de-friended (or justifying why they de-friended folks): 5 Reasons You & I Are No Longer Friends

Was your favorite in the top 10?

In 2014, we'll continue striving to grow Just Piddlin' and make it better - for you, the reader, and me.  To learn more about this whole blog-o-sphere, I attended 2 blogging conferences - Disney Social Media Moms and Blogalicious - conferences will be in the plans again in the coming year.  We received a pile of products and books for review which was a lot of fun and look forward to continuing to bring you great products and recommendations.

Book reviews will continue, but I’ll be changing the reading plan a bit.  I’ll let you know in the beginning of the month the Book I'm Carrying Around and invite you to read along and discuss the book with me.  (I’m busy trying to pick out what to start the year with.)

I’ll still be In the Kitchen, cooking and trying out recipes, especially anything chocolate.  Feel free to recommend any great foods or coffee/chocolate shops you think I should try if ever in your city.

And of course, I will continue to be a busy mom of 4, who is always carrying around a skein of yarn, a book, and my perceptions of the world.  I hope you’ll keep piddlin’ along with me.

Please feel free to let me know in the Comments below what you would like to see in 2014.  We'll see what we can do.

Join the conversation on Facebook: Just Piddlin' with Frances

8 Ways to Re-Use & Recycle Your Old Clothes

Do a simple search on Pinterest and you will find a bazillion ideas for that old jacket or table or bicycle chain. Even before I was pinning stuff online, I was cataloging ideas in my head and putting things aside just in case I came up with an idea. Although I’m still pinning cool re-purposed stuff, I’m trying to get better about saving all the stuff only when I realistically have time to make them.

When I cleaned out my kids’ closets, there were a bunch of t-shirts and jeans that they had outgrown, were unwearable (ripped, stained, etc.), or didn’t like anymore. Most of the wearable clothes, I donated somewhere.  This is what I did with the rest.

Jeans

• Shorts – I swear, you’d think my kids played for the Baltimore Orioles or that they are required to crawl through school the way they wear out their knees.  The girls’ jeans get cut-off and worn as shorts, nothing new here. If you want to be fancy, you can add embellishments like edging and lace trim around the leg, iron-in designs to cover holes in the pockets, etc. (I don’t like the look for my son, so his get moved into another pile.)
• Make a quilt - A few years ago, when I was feeling quite industrious, I cut squares out of all the throw-away jeans and made a quilt, which we use as a picnic blanket. It’s great – it’s durable, washable, comfy.
• Recycle – Did you know that you can use denim, a cotton fiber, to insulate your home? I’m not stuffing my walls with our old jeans, but I did find a place that collects denim to recycle into home insulation: CottonfromBluetoGreen.org. You can send in less than 100 pieces of denim – in any kind of condition, any type of garment – and you can even have a denim drive! Check their website for more info. I figure its going to cost about $20 to mail the box but that pile is out of my house and I feel good about our used denim going to good use.

T-shirts

• Dust rags – This is how my mother used our old tees. I’ve found thermal shirts work great, too.
• Scrunchies & headbands – Cut the body and arms into strips for quick, easy hair ties. My daughters and I go through so many headbands and hair ties. They get worn out, they get lost. These are easy, they cost you nothing. I throw them in my gym bag so I always have one handy. They will lose their stretch after awhile, but surely you’ll have another t-shirt ready to use by then.

• Tote bag – Great for the tees that have a design that you like, for instances a sports team or school logo.  Or a Girl Scout shirt. I cut off the neck and arms, and sewed across the bottom. Ta-da! Perfect for carrying cookies and badge projects to the next meeting. This took me no more than ten minutes to do.

• Quilt – Again, in an industrious mode, I cut my daughter’s t-shirts in equal size squares (13”, I think) and made a quilt out of them when she finished elementary school. The t-shirts squares have to be lined with interfacing so that they do not stretch; this is easy if you use the iron-on interfacing. Sew the squares together in a row, then sow the rows together. Use a large piece of cotton fabric as the backing, and whichever loft of quilt batting that you select (someone in the quilting section of the fabric store can help you with the backing and batting selections). I hand-quilted hers simply by tieing it in certain points. If you have the skill to quilt, or you have a wonderful friend who does, you can do something more intricate (you can also find services who do this specifically).

Sweaters

I kept the ones that had a hole or stain in it, not worthy of being donated. My plan is to unwind the sweaters and reuse the yarn for a future crochet or knitting project. I’m not making any promises, we’ll see.

These are the things I thought that I could handle with our old clothes. If you are feeling more crafty, again, just search pinterest – or peek at my board - and you will find all kinds of ideas to refashion jeans into skirts, t-shirts into fancier t-shirts, sweaters iPad cases, and all sorts of stuff.

Let me know of any re-use/recycle projects that you’ve come up with for your old stuff. I’m always looking for new ideas!

I spent spring break cleaning out the kids' closets. This is part 3 in my series of posts about what to do with all of that stuff. Read more in previous posts on  cleaning out the closet and donating your used items.

Decluttering in 15 Minutes

Every January, I add decluttering to my list of other impossible goals.  Truthfully, I started in December.  Okay, well, I started to panic in December because I still was working on last January's plans to declutter.  It is my perpetual goal.   You'd think at some point, the goal would be reached and we would exist in an absolutely organized, everything in it's place little world.  But, alas, the junk drawer has a permanent place in my kitchen.

In an effort to be more productive, my task continues with these two simple guidelines:

• 15-minutes at a time
• find a re-use for anything worth re-using 

Why only 15 minutes? Doesn't sound like a lot, but it's just enough of a time constraint to feel like I need to focus on the task.  If I give myself unlimited time, even an hour, my mind wanders and I end up on some tangent.  You know, go from cleaning out the fridge to reorganizing the entire kitchen type thing.  

And the re-use thing?  Because I do have a habit of holding on to things that may or may not be useful right now, but might be later on.  (Some people call this being a packrat, I call it being prepared.)  But with these guidelines, if I can come up with a good use for something, I can keep it.  Otherwise, it needs to be thrown out, recycled, or donated, as appopriate.

My intention is to pick one space a day, allowing that if I can't think of a space, I'll skip that day.  And space needs to be also narrowly defined to keep the task do-able.  This one yarn basket rather than my entire yarn stash (crafters, you know what I’m saying).

So far, I’ve done my lingerie drawer and under my bathroom sink.  Yes, each in 15 minutes.  What got thrown out, what was reused? 

Lingerie drawer – My weight has gone up and down during my pregnancies and since then.  Now that I’m at a pretty consistent weight, I threw out the underwear and bras that were too big, too small, the wrong size, the wrong whatever.  Never liked how the wire poked me in the side, didn’t like the fit of the bra.  Wasn’t as cute on me as the mannequin?  Yeah, got rid of all that.  Nothing to reuse.

Bathroom cabinet – I did the hallway bathroom, so the main task here was putting stuff back where it really belongs, rather than here where it was stashed by people too lazy to go upstairs.  I threw out expired pain relievers in the first aid kit, old sunscreen, and miscellaneous junk. It’s a good idea to keep lotion, toothpaste and toothbrushes in this bathroom though for the kid who “forgot” to use these items and needs to hurry up and get out the door. 

I almost threw out some used jar candles, but instead they became my re-used items.

Burned down jar candles?  Fill with warm water to loosen the wax.

I filled them with hot tap water and let them sit a few minutes to soften the wax.  I spooned the wax out and washed out the jars.  Ta-da - sparkly new little jars!  I can use them as little flower vases for a few blooms or to hold little knick-knacks – make-up brushes, pens, crochet hooks.  I found that the rounded jar is perfect to hold a ball of yarn and keep it from rolling away while I’m working with it. 

Jars from candles after being cleaned out - perfect for re-use around the house.

I think my desk drawer is next.  And I’m sticking with 15 minutes.

I’m not an organization expert so I don’t promise any earth-shattering tips on how to get your space in order.  But if you, too, need to get some orderly space, I invite you to join me through the month.  I'll post here and/or on FaceBook any interesting re-uses or tips.  Feel free to share!