Paper, paper everywhere

but no surfaces left!

I have had just about enough of the piles of magazines that have been building up. Even the wooden stool we made a few months back has somehow changed it's purpose and is now just extra space for stacking magazines on and under. Grrr.

We subscribe to a few different magazines (and read them!). I know we should transition to electronic versions, but for magazines, for me, nothing yet beats paper (if anyone would like to send me an e-book to trial please feel free, I'll happily review it for you!!).

The thing with the magazines is that we just don't want to compost of recycle them, the articles are too interesting and we know that will need to refer to them at a later date.

Time to file the magazines. The thing is how to do it without punching holes in the paper, or squeezing them into plastic sleeves? I didn't want to spend out on fancy embossed magazine archive files they are far too freaky. I found some magazine holder "clips" online that you use with ring binders that looked as if they might fit the bill, but made from plastic and then I'd have to buy some files.

The answer hit me when I found out that my workplace was going to bin a load of lever arch files. The files were old and the lever arch mechanisms had failed, you know the way they do when the metal pins that goes through the paper holes no longer match up, very annoying. But I didn't need the metal bit, just the file cases. My lucky day.

Here are the first finished magazine storage files.

After I had drilled out the rivets holding the metal mechanism to the board casing the rest was really easy. I wound string around the spine so the middle page of each magazine could be secured into place. Each lever arch file holds approximately 15 magazines. In no time at all, I will have my surfaces back. Hooray!

Tetra pak purse

I was given one of these rather super recycled tetra pack purses recently and need to know how it was made, so I took it apart.

I'd volunteered to make a load for the local food initative. They are running a stall at a country show and are looking for some interesting things to draw the crowds in. I think they'll need a few more ideas, but hey, it's a start!

It turns out that they are really easy to make. I reckon they would make great party bag gifts for eco-conscious mums, or as an unusual crafty present for any green friend.

The rest of this post consists of instructions for making the purse. If you can't get your head round the stages or don't have enough time to make one and you've decided that now you know they exist you simply can not live without one, please just send me an email and I'm sure I can sort something out for you; transition dot housewife at google mail dot com (removing all spaces and were "dot" = "." and "at" = "@").

Instructions for making a tetra pak purse

1) You'll need some tetra pak cartons. For this purse I used the tall 1 litre type.

2) If you're going to save up the packs and create a lot of purses in one go, rinse out the cartons as soon as they are empty (reduces the likelyhood of that final drop of juice going mouldy and smelly while you store them).

3) Cut off the top and bottom.

4) Clean thoroughly, then dry.

5) Neatly fold (concertina) the sides of the cartons inwards, so that the carton lies flat.

6) Decide which what side of the carton you'd like to me most visible and put that side on the table.

7) Fold the bottom of the carton towards the top, and the top towards the bottom, so that it has three (aproximately equal - but the top can be shorter) parts.

8) Cut down each of the four orginal corners from the top of the carton to the nearest (top) fold.

9) Cut away the top sides between the cuts you made in step 8.

10) Round the top of the flap on the external side of the carton.

11) Cut the internal flap to about 1.5cm (half an inch) above the crease and diagonally cut from about 1cm along that edge to the nearest corner (on each side).

12) Fold the bottom of the carton to the middle

13) Put the shorter flap over and inside of the bottom compartment. You will need to secure this some how. I've used a paper clip in the photo because I couldn't find a darning needle to make some holes and sew the sections togther - that would be my preferred method, but you could glue the flap in place.

14) Make a hole in the middle of the top flap about 1cm from the edge. I used a hole-punch.

15) Put an elastic band through the hole, then through the elastic band and tighten.

16) Loop the elastic band around the purse to secure the contents.

17) Hold the complete purse up and feel jolly proud of yourself.

18) Recycle any of the bits you cut off at the nearest tetra pak recycling bank if you have one.

If you can't be bothered with all of that, but really really want one of these fabulous purses, please send me an email at; transition dot housewife at google mail dot com (removing all spaces and were "dot" = "." and "at" = "@").

Story of stuff

I've been meaning to watch the Story of Stuff for a long time now. I don't know why I didn't watch it earlier, just one of those things. It's a 20 minute long animated story of the mess our consumerism is getting us into written by Annie Leonard. Concise and nicely illustrated. Definately watch it if you have 20 mins spare, and encourage others to watch it too.

The Story of Stuff reminded me of a great book, The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken. Get it from the library (it's going to take longer than 20mins to read though!).

Plarn purse

A quick update about the plarn knitting experiment (hate plastic, love plarn post). A friend gave me a load of plastic bags that were nearing their re-use (as a plastic bag) life, so I was able to get on and start knitting with plarn.

As it was just an experiment I wasn't too fussy about the colours of the bags I used, but as I like the finished texture I now wish that I had thought more about the combinations! The colours kind of work.. erm.. possibly...

Anyway, I created the plarn and started knitting. The plarn as described is a kind of two-ply yarn, that was quite thick to work with, but no knots because of the way the strips are joined. The plarn would go further if the lengths of plastic are knotted as single strips, so I'm trying that now. It will of course effect strength and texture as the knots might get in the way of the knitting, but I'll see and post up the next creation.

Guerilla bagging

I've made my first guerilla bag!! I know I should give it away, but I'm going to keep it. I figure it gets the message out whoever is carrying it. Plus I haven't sewn with a sewing machine in ages, so the stitching is a little wonky and I think, actually, I've sewn the wrong three sides together - I'll call it a "practice" bag.

The idea is to make a bag out of material that would otherwise be landfilled and give them away to shoppers so that they use that instead of plastic bags. I got the material for my bag from a local charity shop (St Elizabeth Hospice shop came up trumps again). The old blanket was in the "rag bag", which means that it wasn't good enough to be sold, but seeing as I was going to cut it up it didn't matter that there was a hole in one section.

A label is sewn onto each new bag so that people can go to www.morsbags.com and find out about why plastic bags are soo wrong.

More and more people are taking their own re-useable bags with them shopping, especially if (like in our town) the main supermarket no longer gives bags away for free. But there are plenty of people (and shops) who use plastic bags, so I think guerilla bagging is a good thing. If you have a sewing machine the bag is quick and easy to make, there are instructions on the morsbag.com website.

You need to register a "pod" if you want to get the morsbags labels. If you'd like to join my pod it's called "presents" - I'll just be making bags to give away as presents in the first instance (I'll put something wrapped and lovely in it too).

Sticky backed plastic

A text. A friend has just given birth to a baby girl.

Now obviously I had plenty of time to buy an appropriate card, but you know time - it has a way of disappearing.

But "buy"? What am I thinking? What could be nicer than a lovingly hand-made card? Well pretty much nothing according to my new bible The Thrift book by India Knight. Let hope she's right.

A quick tour of the house and I'd found everything I needed including the sticky backed plastic (I keep absolutely all wrapping paper and interesting cards). A few Blue Peter moments of cutting, glueing and sticking later and the card was created, I hope she likes it.

A hand-made card for the cost of a stamp, bargain. Now who's next? Ah yes, Valentine's day.

A bag is just a folded scarf

Following on from the "Hate plastic, love plarn" post. The bin didn't contain enough plastic to make a ball of plarn. So, while I build up my supplies, I found some wool to practice on.

I thought I had some ordinary wool in the house, but if I do I couldn't find it. I found instead some ridiculously fluffy yarn that is very pretty, but, as I soon discovered, not very easy to see what you are doing with.

1) Casting on using the learn 2 knit instructions was easy. Then I knitted and purled rows of between 30 and 33 stitches (depending on how many I dropped and accidentally created - don't ask me how, I couldn't work what I'd done because of the fluff!) until it was long enough to create a decent sized bag. After all a scarf is just a bag that hasn't been folded and the edges sewn together, right?

2) Feeling confident about casting on, casting off looked like a doddle. So I curved the end. The shoulder strap I managed to keep at 8 stitches wide all the way along (I think I was getting the hang of it) and had enough wool left over to make a decorative pompom.

I had an old pillow case that was part of a set that has long since gone. I decided to use the material to line the bag so that the knitting doesn't stretch when I fill it.

3) Et voila! The fluffy wool hides a multitude of errors, so that turned out to be a good choice :)

Hate plastic, love plarn

We recently had our first rubbish weigh-in. I suppose, compared to some, it wasn't a great deal of rubbish (mainly plastic) heading for landfill, but given the objectives of this experiment we need to do better. We have since discovered that we can recycle some of the plastics at the local waste and recycling centre (or "tip" as they used to be called), but that's a journey we don't make very often. In anycase "re-use" is better than recycling. So in my new found creative thriftyness I am going to make the plastic into something fabulous. Well, that's the plan.

I've discovered "plarn", plastic yarn or plastic bags turned into something that can easily be woven, knitted or used to crochet.

The only problem is...

although I used to knit as a child, it turns out I can only do the middle bit (knit one, purl one etc). My aunt, gran or mum would cast on and off for me (or for those of you not knitting minded, that means start and finish, what was usually, a scarf). So my first step is to learn how to knit, properly this time. Thank goodness for the web, the library books were way too advanced. I'll follow the instructions on learn 2 knit and see how I get on. I think I'll practice with some old wool first though.

Charity shops are always great

I popped into a nearby St Elizabeth Hospice shop and picked up three pairs of knitting needles for just 30 pence!! Plus a load of advice about what size needle would be best to learn with. Fab. They had an entire draw full of knitting needles, so I know where to go for more.

Now to rescue that plastic from the bin ...