how to reuse beer bottles for your home brew

We're heading to the mountains tomorrow for a little weekend getaway with friends.  I'm packing the essentials: flannels, boots and home brews.  Since Beau moved to kegging instead of bottling, there's a real shortage of bottles around the house.  So how are we going to get the beer up north?  Per usual, I raided the recycling bin.

I started by soaking the bottles for about half an hour.  The labels will become waterlogged and be easier to rip off.  Return them to their kiddie pool for awhile and the adhesive will get easier to scratch off.  I used a leftover bread clip to spare my nails.

Eventually, the labels will come off with a bit of scrubbing (OK - some will require a LOT of scrubbing).  The labels on the brown bottles above were made of metallic paper and the adhesive was apparently super glue.  A little vegetable oil helped convince them to leave.  I used to swear by Goo Gone, but now I'm inclined to think it makes Al Gore and the polar bears cry.

Next up, the bottles went into a sink full of scorching hot water and dish soap.  They soaked for awhile before I scrubbed the residual cooties off of them.

Once they'd been rinsed and dried, Beau filled them up with home brew.  He used a bottle capper and some fresh caps to close them up.

Lastly, I slapped on some labels made by the Beer Labelizer to distinguish between the IPAs and the ales.  

Thanks to the scavenged bottles, we pulled together enough containers to have a proper taste test this weekend.  

something from nothing

I find two things VERY  exciting in the picture below.  Can you spot them? 

First, the most obvious thing is that Beau rigged up a makeshift grow light for me!  It's just an old fluorescent light fixture that used to be above his father's work bench.  Now it's hovering over my seed starting trays, just waiting for the broccoli that I'll be planting in a few weeks.

The second bit of upcycled excitement in that photo is a little harder to spot than the light.  Here's a hint.

The weird boards that used to box in the space over my cabinets were never thrown away when the kitchen was renovated.  They sat patiently in the basement until Beau had time to turn them into badly needed shelves - one for the brewery, one in the garage for gardening supplies.

As you can see, this one is approximately a mile long and has already been filled with all manner of man space paraphernalia.  


P.S. This entry is part of Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways.

my first purse

I finished upcycling my old purse into a new one this weekend!

I adapted a tutorial from Obsessive Crafting Disorder to create the perfect size for dog walking.  Big enough to fit what I need but compact enough to stay out of my way.  I also used a tutorial from U Handbag to learn how to insert the zippers on the front.       

The hardware, bright pink lining, and zippers were poached from my beloved old purse which had seen better days.  The button has been sitting in my stash for ages.  It probably popped off of some fancy winter coat once upon a time but since I didn't remember it, I consider it free game.  Really sorry if any of my house guests DO recognize it.  I promise to give it a good home.

the hannibal lecter of accessories

Have you ever loved a purse so much that you refused to let it go, even when it clearly needed to be put out of its misery?  I have.  The pockets!  The color!  The cowboy-chic hardware!

I can't remember how long ago I found it at Marshalls, but the important part is that I did and it was only $20.  If I saw it in a store today, I wouldn't buy it.  First, it was pleather and I'm working on reducing my plastic intake.  Second, it was made in China and if the manufacturer doesn't have a clear, public policy on labor rights, I tend to assume that the people making it abroad weren't paid a fair wage.  That sort of limits my options for replacing it, so I've been holding out for eons, unable to mend the pleather without breaking my sewing machine.  Meanwhile, the handles continued to catch on doorknobs, stick shifts, and bannisters, and my beloved purse ripped a little more every day.  

Finally, I got the message.  My mother-in-law bought me a beautiful new leather bag for Christmas that will last for ages.  Too beautiful to carry with me while dog walking.  As if my family members already knew that, my sister-in-law picked out some great sturdy fabrics for my stash.  All I need to turn the fabric into a purse is some hardware and lining fabric.  Guess where I found them.

Yep, I cannibalized my favorite purse.  Bags must tell urban legends about me - that girl who'll show you a good time and then steal your kidneys zippers when you least expect it.  The pleather has been deposited in the garbage, but these bits will live on.  


P.S. A warm welcome to anyone joining from the Homestead Barn Hop!

upcycling a wall calendar into a monthly planner

**I originally posted this entry over on the Crafty Christmas Club back in October 2010.  I've made a few changes here.**

At the end of each year, I get a slew of wall calendars from charities.  And every year, I ask them to take me off their mailing list to save paper and funds.  There's already a chalkboard wall in my kitchen that I use for my calendar so these unsolicited ones usually end up in the recycling bin.  What I really needed at the end of 2011 was a book version to keep track of appointments for my new business.  So, when I received the wall type from the Nature Conservancy, I decided to convert it into a hardcover monthly planner.  Here's how I did it:  

Materials:

Wall calendar

Scissors

Glue stick

Corrugated cardboard

Water activated paper packaging tape

Clear packaging tape

1) Start by cutting up a wall calendar into individual pages.

2) Fold each page in half so that the calendar part is on the inside and the picture is on the outside.  Stack them in chronological order.  

3) Glue the back right side of each page to the back left side of the next one.  When you're done you should have something that looks like this:

4) Now it's time to start the cover.  Cut three pieces of cardboard: one for the spine that is 0.5" x 8.75" and two for the covers (each 5.5" x 8.75").  Fold paper packaging tape over the edges to finish them as shown below.... OR... hop over to this awesome Instructables tutorial for an even better version of book binding that will make a more finished looking product.  

5) Put the three pieces of the cover together to form a triangle (see photo below).  While they're in this position, use a strip of clear packaging tape to connect them.  I centered the strip on the spine and pressed it down on either side.  It's important to do this step in this position to make sure the book opens and closes properly.   

6) Open the covers so that the side with the clear packaging tape is facing down.  Put a strip of paper packaging tape down the center of the spine to connect it again to the covers.  Before activating it with water, I made two creases in the tape where the covers would bend.  You can see the creases on either side of the spine in the photo below.

7) Time to add the pages that were put together earlier.  Glue the back left side of the January page to the front cover.  Open and close the book a few times to see where the back page should sit.  Once you've found a good spot, glue the back right side of the December page to the back cover.

8) I used an extra page that was left over from the wall calendar to pretty up the cover a bit.  Just make sure you glue it on while the book is closed.  

And done!  Mine is now filling up with dog walking appointments and dinner plans instead of languishing in the recycling bin.


P.S. I submitted this entry to the Patchwork Living Blogging Bee.  Bee sure to hop over there for other great ideas! (Oh now, that was just an uncalled for pun...)

upcycling trash into wrapping paper

Hidden deep in the recessives of my craft room for the past five months has been my personal shame.  My husband accused me of hoarding when he found it.  Stacked precariously in the closet was a collection of seeming garbage.  Now it looks a lot more reasonable.  It’s my holiday wrapping gear.

Way back in the heat of summer, I decided not to buy wrapping paper this holiday season.  No new boxes, no unrecyclable paper, no metallic bows.  Instead, I raided the recycling bin and removed a variety of wrapping superstars: newspapers, old boxes, catalogues, brown paper bags*, and, yes, one outdated textbook that no self respecting professor would have used after 2007.  I found a bagful of supplemental ribbons for $0.50 at a thrift store on the Cape.     

There are brown paper packages tied up with string...

Catalogue pages to make old boxes sing...

Newspaper pages from sometime last spring...

And a textbook from that guy who gave me a ring.

These ideas and tutorials can help you get started if you also want to limit your contribution to the four million tons of trash created annually from gift-wrap and shopping bags:

Making a Gift Bow from a Magazine Page

Pretty Add-Ons For Brown Paper Bags

Wax Paper Flowers (I used old pattern pieces for mine) 

Snowflake Toppers

* Beau can attest to the fact that I frequently get into arguments with cashiers when attempting to refuse bags in favor of using my reusable canvas one or even my purse.  Home Depot is the worst.  Sometimes, they’ll continue to put things in plastic even as I pull them out and repeat “No really.  No bags needed.  For real.”  On occasion, I just give in and walk out with one.  Mostly though, our brown bags are conspicuously in the shape of wine bottles, which appear on my doorstep in the hands of friends.  I’ll never, ever turn those ones away.    

canned broth personally offends me

Since our condo complex neighbors wouldn't appreciate a heaping pile of compost in my backyard, I'm still trying to find ways to reuse food scraps.  By far, my most successful endeavor since learning how to regenerate scallions, was figuring out how to make my own chicken broth.  It starts with a giant tupperware container that I keep in the freezer and periodically fill with dinner scraps.  Things you'll find in my freezer stock pot:

     -  Carrot peels and ends
     -  Celery scraps and leaves (especially the leaves)
     -  Onion ends and skins
     -  Garlic ends and skins
     -  Parsley shoots
     -  Leftover chicken parts (bones, skin, fatty pieces that are trimmed off)

Once the tupperware container is full, fill a dutch oven with water and dump the block in - I don't even defrost it first.  Add salt, pepper, garlic powder and a few bay leaves.  

Bring it to a boil and then lower to a simmer.  Leave it there for a 2-3 hours.  Strain the solids out and retain the liquid.  You'll be left with beautifully golden chicken stock that blows away the flavorless stuff they sell in a can.   

After trying homemade broth, we're ruined for the canned stuff.  There's no going back.  It has revolutionized my risotto and changed the face of every soup in my repertoire.  It's that tasty.  Best of all, it's made entirely of things that would have been thrown out.  Keeping in mind that it's made of scraps that could have been garbage, how do the processed brands get away with charging so much for it?

simple substitution

Despite working in an eco-friendly building, my office’s restroom stocks paper towels instead of electric hand dryers.  If there’s one thing I hate, it’s using something once and then throwing it away.  To combat this issue, I brought a seemingly strange item to work: a favor from my sister-in-law’s wedding.  It was originally intended as a lobster bib or a golf bag accessory but since we don’t regularly lobster or golf (and its way too cute to turn into a dust rag), it’s been sitting in my basement for about two years.  Now it’s been repurposed now as my personal office hand towel.

 

I did the math to figure out how much paper I would save by making this easy switch.  Excluding weekends, vacations, holidays and sick time, I work about 218 days per year.  I visit the girls' room about four times per day and on each visit, I use two to three paper towels to dry my hands.  We’ll call that ten paper towels per day and a grand total of 2,180 towels or 10.9 lbs per year (yep, definitely got busted weighing a small stack of them on the mail machine scale).  That’s a sizeable house cat worth of paper products that I’m not consuming and not tossing into a land fill, where, as William Rathje, director of the Garbage Project found out, newspapers can actually take decades to decompose.

As you can see from the picture, my hand towel conveniently has a grommet and carabineer poked through the corner, which makes it perfect for hanging it on a bathroom stall hook.  You don’t need either to make your own though.  Simply snipping a hole with scissors and threading a lanyard or bit of string through would work just as well and save just as many trees. 

stick it in water, see if it grows

Awhile back, I read about a woman who takes random produce - garlic, potatoes, onions - and puts them back in the ground to see what will happen.  Sometimes she's rewarded with fresh growth, sometimes she digs up a rotten tuber.  I admire that entrepreneurial spirit of homesteaders who aren't afraid of a little failure now and then.  It's a wonderful attitude to adopt.  The last bunch of scallions that I bought were the first victims of my own experimentation.

After cutting off the tops for dinner one night, I plunked the rest in a cup of water, using skewers to keep the bulbs from completely submerging and potentially getting the ick.  The photo above was taken less than 24 hours after I plunked them in their new hydroponic haven.  As you can see, after that short amount of time, there was already new growth creeping up from the cut line.  

A few weeks later and they've completed regenerated.  They just require a change of water every couple of days.  I have no idea how long they'll last this way but considering I've learned how to cut the cost of a bunch of scallions at least in half, I'd call this test a success.  

My First Refashion

It's difficult for me to say "No, I don't like that" when someone buys me a piece of clothing. That's why I've had a white dress sitting in my closet for two years that was downright unwearable.

The elastic top, the oddly placed waist, the horrific neckline. Nope. Can't do it. But I also have a hard time disposing of those items. It just seems too wasteful. So this past weekend, I reinvented the dead-end dress into my new favorite summer skirt.

My last skirt project lasted months but this took only a few hours over the weekend. I detached the top, installed a zipper and gave it a clean waistband. It's officially saved from the donation bag! Do I hear the Salvation Army calling my name?