Is it crowded under your sink with bottles of cleaning products? Healthy cleaning at home starts with some basic ingredients that keep toxins at bay, sickness the Econest sparkling, sick and your pocketbook happy. CLICK HERE for tips and recipes for creating pure and natural cleaning products for your home.
Watch this video to create simple natural cleaning products using baking soda, vinegar & lemon:
No More Plastic Hangers: An Eco-Friendly Project
Have you ever noticed that no matter how many hangers you have, there's never enough? Since hangers are the essential element for closet organizing, the choices are just a few – plastic, wire and cardboard (from the dry cleaner), wood, and fuzzy coated wire. I've mostly waved good-bye to the eco-unfriendly dry cleaner, and stopped buying plastic hangers. The dry cleaner was the major source for acquiring free wire and cardboard hangers. The cardboard on those last few hangers are either bent or disintegrated. I have a few plastic ones from years ago and wood hangers for the coats, but it's time for a hanger makeover.
Did you know that an estimated 8 billion polystyrene and polycarbonate hangers clog our landfills every year? It is enough to fill the Empire State Building 4.6 times! Read more about this in this Daily Green article titled, “How Many Clothes Hangers Does it Take to Fill a Landfill?”
Want to bring nature into your closet and keep hangers out of the landfills? Revamp your closet or make some beautiful handmade gifts with these quick, eco-friendly hangers projects. CLICK HERE FOR 3 DIY HANGER PROJECTS
Credit: Swissmiss
DIY Felted Laptop Sleeve
Here’s my latest mantra: Gotta new laptop. Gotta protect it from the elements. Gotta figure out how to make something to cover it. Its gotta be cheap (and stylish), capsule because who can afford a new laptop sleeve once you’ve emptied your pockets for such a beautiful computer specimen? When I travel (even to the local coffee shop), hospital I carry a laptop. It’s my traveling office companion. With my old laptop, that recently died, I would throw it into a tote bag. Not anymore...
I am offering up this DIY project for your traveling office. You and your computer can travel in eco-style with this simple, free and amazingly light laptop sleeve made from an old sweater.
DIY Felted Laptop Sleeve
What you need:
A wool sweater (use only 100% wool) Scissors Yarn Tapestry or yarn needle Pins Washer/Dryer Eco-Friendly detergent Velco dots
What to do:
1. Wash the sweater in a washing machine in hot water with a small amount of detergent two or three times. 2. Place the sweater in a dryer and check the dryer often to see how it’s shrinking. I kept checking every 15 minutes until the width of the sweater was close to the width of the laptop. The material should have a tight fit (felted wool “gives” a little). The sweater will take on a thick, felt-like fabric. You can check if the sweater is ready by snipping the fabric. If it doesn’t fray, it is felted. Since felting wool varies depending upon the weight of the sweater and tightness of the weave, to obtain the correct laptop sleeve size it is important to check often. Also, computers come in different sizes.
3. Leaving the ribbed bottom of the sweater open, cut the sweater to fit the laptop. I cut mine under the armholes.
4. With a piece of yarn and the yarn needle, secure the two cut ends together using a blanket stitch. 5. Turn under and pin both sides of the ribbed end in for a finished look. 6. Sew in place. 7. The laptop sleeve can be left open or Velcro dots can be sewn in to close. 8. Take your laptop and its beautiful new sleeve out for a test drive.