How we remember and repurpose children’s artwork

by on April 11, 2012
in repurposing · 24 Comments

As of now, we only have one real child-artist in the family. Brody is just starting to scratch the surface (literally!) of artwork, and Hallee has yet to touch a crayon, but Gigi… boy, does Gigi produce. Between preschool masterpieces, her Sunday school and Community Bible Study take-home coloring pages/crafts, and spontaneous artwork done at home, we are full to the brim.

We employ a few common techniques for perserving the best artwork without getting buried alive under all the paper, but we also try to repurpose some of it as well.

Read on to see what works for us, and to see my current favorite way to repurpose several pieces of art.

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Four Creative Ways to Repurpose Tin Cans

by on April 9, 2012
in repurposing · 21 Comments

 Written by Stacy Karen of A Delightful Home.

Cans are something many of us use every week. I, for one, usually keep lots of canned coconut milk on hand to make my favorite chocolate coconut drink.

I hate to throw all these cans in the trash.

Thankfully, there are lots of creative (and useful) ways to repurpose metal cans.

Read on for four simple projects that make good use of cans that would otherwise find their way into the garbage or recycling bin.

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How to Naturally (Try to) Get Grease Stains out of Laundry

by on March 16, 2012
in repurposing · 68 Comments

Written by contributor Katie Kimball of Kitchen Stewardship.

Ranch dressing. Straining greasy homemade chicken stock. Frying asparagus in bacon grease. Random unknown alien lifeforms.

All culprits in the “Where did that grease stain on my shirt come from?” game in my real food kitchen.

As I mentioned last month in 15 Natural Solutions to Kid Messes, I can handle getting blood, strawberries, and most poop out of my kids’ clothing.

But grease stains? My nemesis.

They show up unannounced, usually only noticed after they’ve been through the dryer, making them 5,729 times harder to get out.

I had some bad ones this month, which is good for you, because I got to test lots of ideas. Here’s what works and doesn’t work to get grease stains out of clothing:

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From Pinterest to Real Life: February 2012

by on February 24, 2012
in inspiration & creativity, repurposing · 11 Comments

It’s that time again… the last Friday of the month means our linky where you can showcase some of the fun things that you’ve taken from your pinboards to reality!

I don’t know about you but I found some great pins this past month. Here’s a few of things I was inspired to actually make and do.

[Read more...]

Homemade All-Natural Laundry Stain Remover

by on February 13, 2012
in repurposing · 24 Comments

Written by contributor Emily McClements of Live Renewed.

Last summer, I did a whole series on my blog about green and natural laundry care. I tried out many, many different types of laundry detergents and stain removers. And while I settled on a detergent that works well for our family, I still struggled with stain removal on a regular basis.

And it makes me so frustrated at times! I want clean clothes and clean laundry for my family, but I also really don’t want to use chemicals to get them clean, and I don’t want to spend a fortune on green and non-toxic stain removers.

Some natural stain removers worked really well on certain types of stains, I found, but nothing worked really well across the board. So, for every load, especially my kids clothes, I could spend at least 15 minutes treating different stains with different types of stain removers.  It was getting to be a big pain.

Recently, I came across another idea for a natural stain remover, and I combined it with one of the basic stain removers that I was already using, and I think I’ve finally come up with a natural stain removal method that works pretty well on almost every type of stain. [Read more...]

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