DIY Christmas Gift Idea: Community Center Art Classes!

For the past 6 weeks, thanks to the suggestion of my husband, I've been really enjoying some pottery classes that I've been taking at my local city's art center. Below is a collage of some of the pieces I've been able to bring home so far...there are still a few left to fire before they are all done!

In addition to creating items to use around my own home, I purposely made some flower pots that I am planning to fill with a little herb or cactus to give as Christmas gifts. My class was on the pottery wheel, however, you can hand make so many things out of clay, including ornaments.

While I know this is probably too late for this holiday season, I wanted to post this as a great way to be green, make your own one-of-a-kind gifts, and support your local community! Check out your own local community center or community college and see if they offer art or craft classes, as many do. It's a really fun way to get out of the house (SO precious to a work-from-home mom!), learn something new, and create original gifts and decor for your own home.

Why not even start now for next year? It would make a great New Year's resolution!

Get $ to recycle your old, dead Christmas lights!

What do you do with your box of old Christmas lights that don't work? If you're not up for hours of checking each bulb to find the dud, there are several options out there for you! Why not start replacing them with LED strings? With 20x the lifespan and 90% less electricity required to light them, (not to mention they're much brighter!) they'll not only save you money in replacement costs and electrical bills, but you can now get money towards new lights as well...

THIS WEEKEND ONLY, Home Depot is offering $3 toward a new set of LED lights for every set of old lights you bring in as a part of their Eco Options Holiday Light Exchange Program. You still have today to bring them in, so now's the time to make the switch to LED while also saving some money AND properly recycling your old lights!

If you live in the Twin Cities area, the Recycling Association of Minnesota is offering a great program for recycling old Christmas lights. They will even come to you and pick up your lights for free!

Also in the Twin Cities, you can trade them in for $5 toward a $20 purchase by bringing them into Snyder's, and use it to get some LED's there or do a little Christmas shopping!

You can also bring them to the WCCO plaza at the Holidazzle parade to get the same deal.

Randy's Sanitation is also allowing you to place them in your regular curbside recycling bin.

Check out the web in your own area and you may find some of your own local deals...feel free to post any others here as comments for fellow readers! Happy halls-decking!

What to do with old, plastic CD ROM cases?

Hey everyone! I'll be the first to admit that my blog has been LAME-O lately. My slightly less lame-o excuses: we had a lovely little H1N1 scare last month in our house (all quarantined, including a toddler and pregnant woman...yay!), and then I ended up having to get into the new routine that comes along with gestational diabetes this month. But, things are medically calming back down and I'm finally catching up with all of you wonderful people who have emailed me comments and requests and waited so patiently!!

I got an email from "Beth" back in the end of October, asking for ideas on what to do to recycle old CD ROM cases. I've wondered about them myself, and thought it would be a fun thing to blog about. Here are a few ideas I've found while doing a little web surfing...

If you'd like to get crafty...

Craft Chi has a great idea and tutorial to turn them into pencil/pen holders:


Instructables has a tutorial to make a really cool wall mural:


Thread Banger has a fun way to turn a case into a desktop calendar:



For a great project your kids can do, check out Fave Craft's tutorial on making picture frames:


Or the Elk Grove Public Library's cool 3D photo cube ideas (you'll have to scroll down a ways to see them when you click the link.


Got a card collector in your family? They make cool little frames for displaying your cards:


Feeling more ambitious? If you've been following my blog you've no doubt seen many-a-lampshade possibilities, but how about this awesome chandelier made out of CD cases from Keetsa:


If you aren't up for doing a project yourself...

1) Put them up for free on Craigslist or Freecycle, as you may have someone in your area who has some kind of art/craft project in mind for them already!

2) Visit Earth 911, where you can look up a recycling center in your area that will take them. (Remember you can't just toss them into your regular recycling like you do with plastic bottles, etc!)

I'm sure I am just scratching the surface on ideas here, so if you have any others, feel free to share your own!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween Everyone! In case you didn't know, Inhabitat is having a Green Halloween costume contest...check it out here...there's only one day left to enter! You can even get some inspiration to make your own green costumes by checking out their gallery of last year's winners, here!


Also, remember to save your carved pumpkins after the trick-or-treaters have gone...they make great pie, bread, and snacks! Check out my tutorial on getting the most out of your pumpkins, posted last year!

Have a safe, happy, and green Halloween! :-)

Craighton Berman's Coil Lamp

Check out this cool Coil Lamp designed by Craighton Berman of Chicago.


By winding a 100' extension cable around a carefully designed, laser-cut plexiglass structure, Berman manages to turn an object that typically lives in a snarled heap in the garage into an accessory worthy of display space inside the home.



This object of desire is available for purchase already hand assembled on Berman's website, or for half the price, you can purchase a kit and do-it-yourself (cable not included...recycle your own!).

Freecycle

Freecycle has been around for a little while, but I've just recently (finally) joined the group so I thought I'd post about it!

Freecycle is made up of 6,540,000 members (4,808 groups) around the world. As their website states, "It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them's good people)." Basically it's a place where people who are looking for stuff and people who are giving away stuff can connect, and everything must be offered up for free.

Membership is also free. To sign up, find your community by entering it into the search box on the site or browse through the groups. I'm not sure if each group operates differently, but the Minneapolis group that I'm a part of is run via Yahoo groups. You have to offer up some items before you're allowed to start asking for specific items, and the first couple items you list need to be approved by the administrator. But, I just posted a ceiling fan that we're giving away from our recent remodel and am in the process of giving it away!

At first it was a bit overwhelming as my email box got instantly flooded with offers from the group. However, once I was able to go into the settings and sign up for the "daily digest" instead of getting every offer individually, that helped a lot. I now get a couple emails a day with a big list of 25 of the latest messages so I'm not swimming in emails.

If you have some "stuff" you are looking to give away or are looking to help recycle by re-using other people's stuff, it's worth checking out!

Junk Mail Gems Mentioned in Women's Focus Magazine!

September has been a big month for press coverage for Junk Mail Gems! Junk Mail Gems has just been mentioned in another great magazine called Women's Focus, in a wonderful article by freelance writer Bonnie D. Tharp:

You can check out the article along with others on my press page, or, you can read the article online via the Women's Focus page, here!

Thanks so much for the nice article, Bonnie!!