Just a short post today to tell you that my Christmas present finally got finished. My husband Dan and my friend Dan built a Little Free Library for me, out of scraps we had in our garages, and my friend Holly painted it to match our house. It only took contributions from a couple of people, and we were in business - the business of book exchanges. Little Free Library was started by a Wisconsin man in 2009 as a way to honor his deceased mother, a teacher. Now there are thousands of Little Free Libraries in the United States, and some in other countries, as well. It's really just a book … [Read more...]
Readers Story ~ Reuse/Recycle by Sanna
I'm rather proud of my "new" recycled pantry organization - i.e. mason jars, and I thought, I might share this with you. For the last year or so I worked at collecting jars with lids of the same size, in order to be able to stack them and to make canning easier. There are two very common lid sizes in German supermarket jars and I chose the wider one of the two (also to make refilling easier). They sell pickles, canned veggies, canned meat, jam and so on in these jars over here, so there is a variety of sizes. My collection has small jars that hold about 200ml and big ones that hold … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom – Alternatives to Gift Wrap
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom I am coming to the end of a multi-year Use It Up Challenge: To use up all the copious amounts of wrapping paper that I purchased on sale after Christmas like clockwork every December 27. TreeHugger has a great article on holiday waste and sites estimates of 4 million tons of wrapping paper and gift bags thrown away. My girl friend Corinna has made cloth bags that she reuses year after year. She does a lot of sewing and cloth crafts so my guess is that she was able to make these bags with remnants. Here are great step-by-step instructions; even a non-sewer can … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom – One Person’s Trash Is Another Person’s Treasure
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom One person's trash is another person's treasure. That's a saying we've all heard and probably have said. I first truly appreciated the saying at the first garage sale I ever held as an adult. As we raised the garage door at 8:00 am, shoppers began ducking under the rising door, eager to be the first inside. The very first thing that sold was a men's electric razor for $5. The next thing to sell was a rusted kitchen knife for 10 cents. That's when I first came to believe that you really can sell anything. But, of course, decluttering doesn't have to be about selling, … [Read more...]
Finding homes for your clutter
A couple of Saturdays ago, you will remember, I asked for people to send in requests for blog posts for me to write about. Everyone who wrote in had wonderful ideas of which I have made a list and will most certainly address each and every one of them in the near future. I received the following request from Nicole which I felt needed addressing sooner rather than later. Although I can't comment on the intricacies of her specific area of residence, which is somewhere in France by the way, I can give you all some general ideas that would then have to be translated into actual possibilities in … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ It’s Not Easy Being Green
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom Raise your hand if you consider yourself an environmentalist. Mine is up! But as Kermit the Frog says, "It's not easy being green." Being "green" and decluttering often do not feel like they go hand in hand. After all, you might *gasp* throw something away. You might discover that you cannot find another home for an item you no longer want or need. You may have to face up to the fact that you made foolish purchases that you now recognize as being bad for your wallet and bad for the environment. I was once told that for someone who's such an aggressive recycler / … [Read more...]
I uncomplicated this decluttering effort
Keeping in mind that I have been fitfully decluttering craft supplies for the last two years  today I did something a little outrageous. Well outrageous for me anyway. I threw some perfectly good mat board in the recycling bin. Yes you heard me I threw something perfectly usable in the recycling bin. The thing is they were also perfectly recyclable but it was a case of faff around with them forever or make an instant decision to get them out of here. I chose the later. You see I have a hard time wasting anything that is even remotely creatively useful and the mat board has been shuffled … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ Are You Hanging on to Too Many Papers?
According to a survey I saw recently, 67% of people said that paper clutter is their hardest area to deal with. Who knows if this is truly accurate, but I'm going to assume that it means that a lot of people, possibly including you, are having trouble dealing with paper. I think there are a couple of fundamental mistakes that people make regarding paper: Believing that every piece of paper is important or has the potential to be important Believing that if a piece of paper was important at one time, it's important forever Not intentionally minimizing the amount of paper that … [Read more...]
Simple Saturday – Complete the Circle
A Simple Saturday Post by Cindy The thrift store has been quite the topic of conversation this week, hasn't it? Today I want to look at it from another perspective - completing the circle. If you only donate to the thrift store, and never shop there, you are not completing the circle. Now, for those of you who already like to shop in thrift stores, this is not permission to run out and purchase willy-nilly "because Cindy says it's a good idea." No, no, no! The idea behind my list is to give you an idea of all the really great stuff there is available in this world that you can purchase used, … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ My New Year’s Challenge to You
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom I love New year's resolutions, don't you? Ok, most people really don't love them, but I do. Because of them, I have (finally!) learned how to use chopsticks, and I (finally!) had a charity party that I'd been intending to have for 4 or 5 years. And I have one for you this year: Less trash. It makes me crazy to drive through my neighborhood and see people's trash cans literally bursting out the top with trash. The City of Austin provides a choice of 3 cart sizes: 32 gallons, 64 gallons, and 96 gallons; each is more expensive than the size before it, although even the … [Read more...]