Dekalb and I went downtown again to harvest ‘garbage‘ today – one of our favorite ways to save money and recycle at the same time. Here’s the first spot we hit: A lot of this furniture was in good condition even after being thrown into a dumpster, but neither of us needed any so we left it there. Both of … Read more
It’s that time of year again, when consumer goods grow on the curb and around dumpsters as if by magic, all sitting there just ripe for the picking. In other words: the leases downtown are almost up, university students suddenly realize they have no desire to move all their crap with them, and they end up throwing perfectly good stuff out as trash: … Read more
Do you have one of those shirts that’s so comfortable and flattering that you wear it at least ten times as often as any of your other clothes? This wine-red American Eagle shirt with fabric-covered buttons is one of those for me. After being worn a bazillion times, it recently lost one of its buttons. Fortunately, there was extra fabric below the collar (where the label was … Read more
My friend Enid taught me an easy way to make applique with finished edges, and I’ve used it ever since. All you need is: your appliqué fabric used dryer sheets marker thread Here’s how to do it. I draw or trace the appliqué shape onto the dryer sheet and pin it to the right (show) side of the appliqué fabric. … Read more
Lilo thinks it’s too long since she’s been in a blog post. So she asked me to write a thriftiness post featuring one of her favorite forms of prey: The number 2 pencil! If your cat is not familiar with this wonder, just wiggle a pencil in front of its face a few times, or maybe tap it on the … Read more
There are lots of recipes out there for vegetable stock and broth, but I tend not to follow any of them. It seems a shame to take vegetables at their peak and cook the dickens out of them, then throw them away. I prefer to make stock from vegetable scraps, instead. Whenever I prepare fresh veggies, I put the peelings … Read more
To make this journal, I used things that would otherwise have been thrown away (or actually had been thrown away): the paperboard cover from a broken binder notebook odd-sized old-school computer paper with perforated edges that I found in a dumpster fabric from an upholstery sample book (the kind that fabric stores throw out on a regular basis) binder screws … Read more
Earlier this week I was in my office typing, and as often happens when I do this in the winter, my hands felt stiff and cold. I often wear regular hand braces when typing, which doesn’t have much effect on my hands’ warmth, but I remembered seeing fancier wrist supports on Amazon that offer compression, so I looked them up. The … Read more
A few weeks ago my friend Tania messaged me that her husband had gone rogue while she was out of the house and covered the living room windows with bubble wrap. She attached this photo: I snickered and asked her if this was his idea of Christmas decorating. Nope, she said. He’d read on the Internet that bubble wrap is … Read more
MAKE and Instructables are treasure troves of awesome ideas, although some are more involved than others. This particular lightbox for seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is pretty simple and can be made with spare and scrap parts, depending on what you and your friends have lying around the house/workshop. If you are using your light therapy box for seasonal affective disorder, check … Read more