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I got a new toy!

No, not her, you perverted bastard.  She’s my friend, Kristi.  And I took that beautiful picture of her, thankyouverymuch.  Kristi gave me my new toy today.  Its a happily used iPod Nano, and I LOVE it.  See, when it comes to mp3 players, I don’t ever buy them new.  At least, I haven’t needed to yet and we have 3.  Two of them were used and completely free.  The other was only $25.  I see this as a little eco-friendliness in a world of wastefulness, since most mp3 players are upgraded when the old one is perfectly fine.  This has been a nice upgrade for me, since I have been using a 1GB shuffle, which holds about half of an audio book.  My “new” nano, however, is now holding 3 whole audiobooks and hundreds of happy songs, with room to spare.  HAPPINESS!!!  Thank you, Kristi!  If I weren’t married, I would TOTALLY kiss your face.

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Coastal Cleanup, Kitty Cats, and Punched Faces

Coastal Cleanup is tomorrow.  8am.  Be there or be my bitch.  If you would like to know what happens when one becomes my bitch, see the clip below.

See you tomorrow!

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Eco-Friendly Friday

I saw these two wonders on Etsy this morning and just HAD to share them!  I want them.  Like, bad.

Reusable Snack/Sandwich Bags

These are amazing!  Think how much less plastic we would waste if we use these instead of ziploc baggies every day.  I’m going to get this retro design for myself and a set of black ones for The Hubs.  And at only $14.50 for a set of 3 bags, I think these will make excellent birthday presents as well.

Organic Reusable Vegetable Bags

Don’t you just hate wasting all of that plastic at the grocery store?  I personally have a set of reusable grocery bags, but still have to use the plastic bags in the produce section.  With these reusable veggie bags, I can feel good when filling up my basket with fruit and veggies!

Happy Weekend Everyone!

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Rave Reviews!

I have a lot to do today, but one thing I’m looking forward to doing is going to my favorite local consignment shop, Rave Reviews!  And I’m taking everything in this basket with me:

Can’t wait to show you what I find!

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Philly finds!

Our first day in Philadelphia, we just walked and walked, without any actual destination in mind.  What we found was an art festival going on down at Penn’s Landing, which made is very happy campers!  I found some pretty neat upcycled and recycled clothing, as well as other businesses, stole some business cards, and promised to blog about them.  So here are my two favorites!

Recycle My Dress

You know those bridesmaid dresses that you will never wear again?  Or that vintage dress you found that has amazing…potential?  Well, Recycle My Dress can turn it into a whole new look!  I loved what they had on the rack, but couldn’t buy anything at the time.  My favorite transformation that I saw on their website was turning this vintage dress:

into this gorgeous piece:

You can purchase already revamped dresses from their Etsy shop, or you can send them your own by contacting them through the Recycle My Dress website!

Dahling Accessories

Gretchen, the designer at Dahling Accessories, makes one of a kind handbags mostly using vintage fabric.  They are absolutely adorable!  You can read more about her on the Dahling Accesories website, or shop in her Etsy shop.  Here is my favorite item from the shop:

Happy Etsy shopping everyone!

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Happy Earth Day!!!

Happy Earth Day!  I’m going to make this short and sweet.  I want to challenge you today.  If you see a piece of garbage or litter on the ground…PICK IT UP!  And throw it away in an actual garbage can.  That’s all I’m asking.  Think about the difference we could make if every single person did that once a day.  Or better yet, if nobody littered!  Yeah, right.  If only it were that easy.

I hope you have a fantastic day enjoying this precious planet.  We wouldn’t be here without it.

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the nerd gets crafty…

The Hubs was blown away by my craftiness the other day.  As you may already know, I have Mondays off, so I enjoyed that special day this week to prepare some “wall jewelry” for our freshly-painted-and-soon-to-be-redecorated-home-office.  Weather permitting, we will be driving up to my grandparent’s in Montgomery to get our ‘new’ antique office furniture this Sunday.  I can’t wait!

Anyhoo, I have some habits that The Hubs despises.  First, I write little notes and lists to myself and leave them all over our desk.  Since our new desk will be half the size of our current one, this will not do.  Second, I put things in boxes and pack them away, saying, “I’ll do something with that soon.”  I never do….

…until now!

Ladies (and gentleman), I took one measly little unused picture frame that has been taking up space in our closet for years, and turned it into 3 important objects for our office!  How freakin’ awesome is that?  Not to mention good for the environment.  Just sayin.’

Object #1: Corkboard (to take care of the notes all over the desk)

To make the corkboard, I used the frame, a piece of foam poster board (to keep from sticking pins straight into the wall), and a thin sheet of cork from the craft store.  All I did was attach the cork to the foam with hot glue, cut it to the exact size that would fit into the frame, and insert it into the frame.  The foam was so thick that the back of the frame wouldn’t go back on, leaving me no way to hang it on the wall…so I improvised….

…with a paper clip.  A-to-the-MAZING!

Object #2: Memory Collage (to take care of the Italy memorabilia that I crammed in the closet)

After making the corkboard, I had the back of the frame left and a whole lotta maps, tickets, and pictures from our trip to Italy stuffed in a box in the closet.  As I sat on the office floor, staring at this perfectly good frame back, I had a epiphany: cover this with Italy memories and hang it on the wall!  Duh!  I meeeeean, it already has wall hanging thingamabobs, so why the heck not?!?!?!

For the background, I attached our map of Rome that helped us get from place to place for 3 days.  This map is fan-freakin-tastic.  It has all of our writing on it, like circles of certain sites to see, lines on which roads to take, bus routes, metro routes, etc.  Then I placed various tickets and whatnot on top of the map.  Top left is a train ticket from Florence to Venice.  Top right is a ticket into the Vatican Museums.  Bottom right is our Roma Pass, which gets you on the metro and the buses.  And bottom left is a ferry ticket to get from our hotel in Venice to the Venice airport….which is a whole other blog entry…fun times.  Fun.  Times.

Finally, in the center of all of this Italy goodness is a collage I made on Picnik of our fave pics from the bunch.  There are 36 pics in all.  You have to get really close to see them all, but I plan to put this in my new reading area in the new office, so the memories will be right next to me when I relax every night with a glass of red and a great book.  The Hubs loved this.  LOVED it.  I’m glad.  I did it for him.

Object #3: Book Table Top

I don’t have a picture of this yet, but as soon as our office is put together, you will see what I’m about to explain.  I love to read.  LOVE to read.  It can sometimes be difficult to get my read on when The Hubs is lounging on the couch.  So I will be setting up a nice little reading area in the corner of our new office.  Check it!  The area will consist of a recliner, a lamp, and a stack of large books acting as a table.  That is what I will be putting the glass piece from the frame on top of, to protect the books.  I cherish the books I will be using for this table.  The stack includes my grandmother Algie’s old dictionary that she passed down to me (that happens to be the size of a small child), my new and antique bird identification books (also huge), the world’s largest bible, and some more dictionaries.  Oh, I can’t wait!!!!!!

So, have you gotten your craft on lately?

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Being green at home

So many people have it stuck in their heads that being “green” is a difficult thing to do.  I have news for you: Its super easy!  The only time-consuming part is rinsing out used containers for recycling, but you can feel free to put your dishwasher to work for that.  Which brings me to my first “green” lesson:  It takes less water to run a full dishwasher than it does to wash all of those dishes by hand.  So fill that sucker up and go!

I want to show you just how easy it is to be green at home.  It all starts with minor changes, but has a huge impact on our beautiful planet.

1. and 2. Set up a home recycling area. Find out what your city’s recycling center will accept and separate accordingly.  Your at-home center doesn’t have to be as fancy as ours.  You can just use old cardboard boxes and label them with a sharpie.  We accidentally found our stackable wicker baskets while spending some wedding money at Bed, Bath & Beyond.  We were searching for the right kind of containers for the job and couldn’t find anything.  When we got to the checkout area, they had these beautiful wicker baskets stacked up with things for sale inside of them.  But I just happened to notice a price tag on one of the baskets and said, “Drew, I found them!  These are perfect!”  Of course, the employees at good ol’ BB&B weren’t very happy about having to empty out these bins, but I didn’t care.  I found my home recycling center at last!

As you can see, we have things separated by weight in our baskets.  At the very top are plastic containers (milk jugs, soda bottles, sour cream containers, etc.).  Underneath those are plastic bags.  Then we have steel and aluminum cans.  And finally, the heavy glass bottles are on the very bottom.  I’m not even gonna lie, we fill up that glass pretty darn quick with beer and wine bottles…I heart my red wine.  Always and forever.  ;)

3. Reusable grocery bags. I absolutely heart the fact that these have become increasingly popular.  Its a wonderful thing.  I actually don’t even shop at Winn-Dixie anymore, but I will not waste these wonderful bags…so I tote these suckers into Target once a week.  Yep.  Target knows I’ve converted.  Its cool.

4. Eco-friendly cleaning products. So many cleaning products now come in an eco-friendly variety, such as dish soap, laundry detergent, all-purpose and glass cleaners.  Get your hands on these.  For the love of Earth, please use these in your home.  Its such a small switch that can have a huge impact.

That’s all for now, but I plan to have more “green” tips in the future.  If you have any suggestions, please let me know!

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