Refashioned T-Shirt Gauchos Tutorial

In Megan Nicolay’s newest book titled Generation T: Beyond Fashion: 120 New Ways to Transform a T-shirt she shows you how to make gauchos out of a tshirt on page 69. This is a photo tutorial to review this project. You can make these eco-friendly refashioned gauchos with just three t-shirts and a bit of your spare time. The length of time needed to complete these will be determined by your skill level and whether or not you choose to sew by hand or machine.

Here’s how DIY:

1. gather 3 tshirts (l or xl), chalk marker, ruler, scissors, pins, needle thread and Megan’s book.

2. Turn your shirts inside out and cut two of the shirts into 15″ wide rectangles that extend through the bottom seam.

3. lay all four pieces together and cut off the bottom seams.

4. separate into two pairs of rectangles and pin along one side of each to create the legs of the gauchos.

5. Lay the pinned legs together and draw a gentle arc on each side to form the crotch of the gauchos about a 1/4″ from the edge and extending about 2″ long. Cut along the chalk line to finish shaping legs.

6. Open the panels and place them design side together, matching the curved edges and lining up the seams. Pin and sew with at least a 1/4″ seam allowance.

7. Use the third shirt to cut 2″ wide tubes of fabric from the bottom, just above the seam to create the waistband ties.

8. pin to the tops of the pants with an even amount of fabric hanging off both sides of the pants and sew on.

9. Turn your pants inside right and rock out! To wear, start in the front or back and tie the first panel around your waist like an apron. Pull the other panel up and tie to overlap. Now go show everyone how awesome your new pants are.

If you don’t want to make these pants yourself, pick up a pair in my Etsy shop. If you don’t see the ones you want, just convo me with your measurements and color preferences I’ll make them to order.

DIY Sweater Boots Instructable

I adore this instructable so I had to post it. Grab yourself an old sweater and a pair of flats from the thrift store or a clothing swap and make some fashionable sweater boots.

Upcycled Sweater Boots – More DIY How To Projects

Rethinking the Cotton Round

Photo: Sproutzstore.blogspot.com

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the production of cotton uses a lot of water which is a valuable and dwindling resource. Shortages of fresh water worldwide lead to famine and starvation, war and terrorism, poverty and disease. In thinking about how I can do my part to help eliminate the unnecessary use of this precious resource globally I have been looking to reduce consumption of disposable products that I can replace with reuseable options. The first and easist switch for me was to stop purchasing new clothes and reuse fabric that I have available locally. Next, I began to investigate other household items that I could replace and while I was washing my face last night it dawned on me; cotton facial rounds! These little cotton pads are great for removing eye make-up and cleansing, but I use several of them each and every day. I thought,”surely, there must be some way to buy or make my own reuseable pads”. This morning I began to look for alternatives and was pleased to find that I can both buy and make my own easily and inexpensively. There are packs of Organic Reusable Cotton Face Rounds on Amazon and variety of homemade versions on Etsy like these cotton buds or facial scrubbies. There are literally hundreds in a variety of colors, textures and materials on etsy just type “facial cotton” into the search box and go. If you are of the DIY persuasion there are even patterns so that you can crochet your own and tutorials to tech you to reuse fabric you already have to sew a few. My takeaway from this is that I can keep pushing myself to reduce my consumption in ways that help my family and the world, with little inconvenience to our way of life. Each little change that I make helps and if we can each change a habit or two, perhaps we can begin to make some real change. So keep pushing new ideas and sharing them with everyone so that we can all walk the long road to reducing our impact and improving our way of life for everyone together.

Blown MTB Tube = New Wallet

bike innertube wallet – More DIY How To Projects

The Coming Water Crisis

While listening to NPR on my way back to Baltimore yesterday I listened to a very interesting story about the coming Water Crisis. Essentially the guest speaker, Steven Solomon, was discussing how global water usage is increasing at a leve that cannot be sustained. In fact, some of the hardest hit regions who will be facing water shortages soon are areas in which terrorism has taken, or is beginning to take hold. The global consumption of our limited water resources may even spark the next major conflict. You can read the article on NPR here and listen to the broadcast for more information, “Will the Next War be Fought Over Water?“.

Immediately after hearing this story I was reminded of an article I read while back on Treehugger, where it lists the amount of water needed to produce a single new tshirt or pair of jeans. Fortunately I found that article here, “How Many Gallons of Water Does It Take to Make…”

Here are the facts straight from the article:

Pair of Jeans
It takes around 1,800 gallons of water to grow enough cotton to produce just one pair of regular ol’ blue jeans. [2]

Cotton T-Shirt
Not as bad as jeans, it still takes a whopping 400 gallons of water to grow the cotton required for an ordinary cotton shirt.

Now, if you think that just because you make your own clothes by knitting, crocheting, or buying fabric in the store that you are helping to reduce your water consumption, just look at what the article says about your raw materials:

One Pound of . . .
Wool: 101 gallons of water
Cotton: 101 gallons

In short, one great way to avoid consuming more than your fair share of water and starting on the slippery slope that will lead to famine, death, terrorism, and finally war is to stop buying new clothes! There are thousands of vintage stores, second hand and thrift shops available where you can purchase used, or as I like to call them, previously loved clothing. There are so many great resources online that can show you how to sew, refashion, and remake clothes, If you prefer to knit, but can’t find a sweater that you really like, buy a used one and recycle the yarn. If you can’t bear to take up sewing or knitting, but still want to do your part, but don’t want to dig through thrift stores, then buy online. Online sellers like Etsy have tons of shops selling recycled couture, so you can still look good and do your part to slow the damage to our Earth. I’ll include more links below to help you do additional research on the size of the issue at hand as well as places to purchase used clothes and links to groups of folks who have pledged not to buy any new clothes to help reduce their footprint on the Earth.

The Water Crisis:

The Coming Crisis: Water, Not Oil

Failing Wheat Crop Causes Afghan Food Crisis

Obscured By War, Water Crisis Looms In Yemen

We Use How Much Water? Scary Water Fooprints, Country by Country

Groups Embracing the Stop Shopping or Nused Clothing Movement to Recycle, Upcycle or Refashion Clothing:

Wardrobe Refashion

The Great American Apparel Diet

Great Places to Shop for Refashioned, Recycled, Vintage Clothing:

Etsy

ArtFire

Ebay

Goodwill

The Salvation Army

Rusty Zipper

Mod Cloth

Blu Vintage

So, maybe you can make one of your New Year’s resolutions for 2010 to stop buying new clothes? So go on, get shopping, just make sure it’s been previously loved. Maybe you can even check off two resolutions, by using all of the money you will save not buying new clothes to pay off debt…not a sermon, just a thought

Love Your Swiffer Mop but Hate the Waste?

Ah, the new year. I enjoyed celebrating the coming of 2010 with friends and family in my home with lots of snacks and libations. Unfortunately I now have to begin the dreaded clean-up. Fortunately, I purchased my Swiffer Wet Jet many moons ago and use it weekly. I love my Swiffer because it is easy to use and I don’t have to fill or empty buckets of water and cleaning solution to use it for spills, etc. For a really thorough cleaning I still go with the old school brush and bucket method, but for a quick kitchen clean-up and those high traffic areas of wood floor in my home you can’t beat it. However, the refills are both expensive and wasteful. They don’t make compostable Wet Jet pads and they are made mostly of plastic, which means that they will be sitting in a landfill sometime for just about ever. On Instructables they have great tutorials on how to remove that pesky cap on top of the solution bottle so that you can refill it with your own inexpensive and environmentally-friendly cleaning solution like this one:

Lemony Eco-Friendly Floor Cleaner Recipe
1 gallon water
3/4 cups olive oil
1/2 cup rubbing alcohol
1/2 cup lemon juice

or if you would still prefer to pay more to purchase floor cleaner, but choose one that is environmentally-friendly you can go with any of the products listed at the end. The second tutorial from Instructables shows you how to make your own Wet Jet replacement pads from recycled tshirts.  Finally, at the end there are links to the Wet Jet starter kit, if you haven’t yet purchased one, as well as links to green cleaning products that you can buy to refill the solution bottle.  Happy Cleaning!

How to remove the cap on a Swiffer Wet-Jet cleaner bottle. – More DIY How To Projects

Swiffer Mop Pad (a reusable one!) – More DIY How To Projects

Products to Buy:

Recycled Tshirt Bracelet from Instructables

Recycled T-shirt Bracelet – More DIY How To Projects

Environmentally-Focused Christmas Shopping

Maybe you had planned to handmake your Christmas presents, but they didn’t turn out, or you just didn’t have the time to finish them (both of these have already happened to me).  Even more likely, you just don’t have the time, energy or urge to make your own gifts, but you still want to buy something cool for your loved ones, but want to buy something recycled or refashioned to cut down on your enivronmental impact.  With expedited shpping in most cases you can still purchase up to a few days before Christmas, but always check your estimated arrival dates and read the shipper’s policies before you purchase. If your items don’t arrive you can always print a photo and description of the item frome the website and give to your relatvies in a pretty card and let them know that they’ll receive it soon (again, I’ve had to do this more than once). I’ve scoured the innertubes (ie, the internet) and come up with a few really cool items and here they are in no particular order.

Warning: Shamless self promotion plug – buy something from me You can always request a custom item as well from my Etsy shop.

Serendipit on Etsy

“SerendipiT sources fabrics from clothing purchased from thrift stores like Goodwill (and occasionally my own closet) and recycles the fabric into new, fun and practical items. Recycling these textiles ensures that they don’t end up in landfills and by purchasing repurposed, upcycled and refashioned goods you can reduce the harmful chemicals used in the production of new items. So reduce your carbon footprint, do something good for the Earth and your wallet by purcashing something fun or funky from SerendipiT.”

Here are some of my favorite Etsy items:

Upcycled Vinyl Record HEAVY Guitar Picks Free Shipping

Custom Vintage Silverware Garden Marker

Recycled DEF LEPPARD cassette wallet / iPod Nano case / business card holder

Antique Silver Spoon Ring, Avon Pattern.. Any Size… Free Shipping

UPCYCLED Blue Grey VINTAGE Train Case with RADIOHEAD Quote Black Star and Skeleton Keys

Try putting “recyled” in the search box and find thousands of goodies to suit your taste.

Amazon has lots of great recycled items too like:
terrasoles Women’s Tuckerman Clog,Charcoal,8 M
Nahui Ollin Itsy Bitsy Wristlet,Hearts,one size
terrasoles Men’s Snowmass Slip On,Charcoal,7 M
ROGUE Mingo Knee Boot,Honey,6 M
Nahui Ollin Large Cutie Pie Purse,Zig Zag,one size

There are so many online stores offering recycled and upcycled gifts that a simple search will reveal more websites than one can sift through in a day, but here are a few that caught my eye:

Eco-Artware.com

Eco Home Gear

Alchemy Goods

So hopefully, among your search for presents you’ll find something interesting, unique and sustainably crafted to give this year. Nothing says I love you like passing on a healthy planet to our future generations. Happy Shopping!

DIY Christmas Card Recycling

Every year I get and save my Christmas cards so that i can reuse them for packaging and tagging gifts. This year I found a handy gadget for quickly making tag-shaped tags here Uchida LV-SJCP74 Clever Lever Super Jumbo Craft Punch, Merchandise Tag and it’s arleady on it’s way to my home now. You can always do it the old-fashioned way (as I have for many years), but what can I say; I’m a sucker for gadgets that make my recycling easier. While I was surfing around looking for new and creative ways to recycle my old greeting cards I found this awesome tutorial for creating gift boxes out of old cards. This is perfect for gifting jewelry and other small items; I am sew doing these tongiht!

How to Make a Gift Box out of a Greeting Card

from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit

This is a great way to recycle old greeting cards and make little boxes for small gifts (or for storing small objects). This box is different from an origami box because it includes a top and a bottom. It requires only a few simple tools and supplies, and the result is charming and eco-friendly. Click any image to enlarge it.

Steps

1. Gather your supplies and tools, listed below.
2. Cut the card in half along the fold. The easiest way to make the top fit over the bottom is to make sure both halves of the card are the same size, so you may have to trim a little. You will use the colorful front of the card as the box lid.
3. Decide how tall you want your box to be. This may depend on the design on the front of the card, or on how big the item is that you want to enclose. This demonstration uses 1 inch (25mm) for the top, and 1 and 1/16 (27mm) for the bottom. Add a little to the measurement for the bottom, so the top will fit over it.
4. Draw a square in each corner of the top and bottom of the card, the size of your measurements. You can mark just the corners, making a square so you can see where to cut.
5. Score the card all the way along all four sides, using the squares to give you the distance from the edge.
6. Cut along the score line from the edge to the next, perpendicular score line in each corner, but do so for only one side of the square you drew. Leave one side of the box uncut to make a tab. Do this for all four corners of the card.
7. Fold the sides up, and fold the tabs in.
8. Glue each tab and paper clip it into place until it dries.
9. Repeat the marking and scoring for the other half of the box.
10. When your box is dry, place your gift or other small objects inside.

Tips

• It is important to add a little to the measurement for the bottom, so the top will fit over it.
• To score the card, take your dead pen or other instrument and draw along the ruler from edge to edge on the paper, pressing down hard enough to mark the paper but not hard enough to cut through.
• Alternate the way the tabs fold on the top and bottom, so they fit together a little better.
• If you have trouble getting glue to stick to the glossy surface of a greeting card, help it out with a little tape on the inside. Or use an emery board or small piece of fine sanding paper to very lightly rough up the paper to take the glue better.
• Greeting cards are available for all sorts of occasions. Use a greeting card that suits your occasion.
• Reuse is a great way to recycle.

Warnings

• Be careful with the compass, if you’re using an old metal version with a sharp point.
• Use scissors and other cutters with care.

Things You’ll Need

• a greeting card
• a ruler
• a pencil
• a pair of scissors
• something to “score” the card stock (the point of a compass, an old ballpoint pen that is out of ink works perfectly, as does the tine of a fork, a butter knife, or a small-gauge knitting needle)
• glue
• paper clips

Related wikiHows

• How to Make Placemats from Greeting Cards
• How to Fold a Paper Box
• How to Make a Greeting Card Envelope
• How to Make a Word Search Greeting Card

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Make a Gift Box out of a Greeting Card. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Recycled Fabric Rugs and Walmart Joins the Recycled Tshirt Product Party

I need bathroom and kitchen rugs. I’ve purchased some in the past and my loving husband has destroyed them (one suspects this may have been with purpose). I did poke through Goodwill yesterday and came up with one useable brown rug, but that was it so I’m planning to make my own this weekend. I was doing some research on recycling fabric into rugs and found these great tutorials: making braided rugs from recycled denim and the sewn denim rug. I also found some great inspiration for recyled tshirt rugs in Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-Shirt. These are all great ideas so I’ll get to work and see how it goes. However, what I found most interesting was that Walmart, usually the antithesis of my recycled DIY lifestyle sells recycled tshirt shag rugs! It’s not exactly DIY, but at least they are offering recycled cloth products. Perhaps this is a bit of greenwashing because it is made from the process of creating new tshirts, but it’s a start right? At $38.88 + tax I’ll still be doing it myself though. Oddly enough its a real bargain compared to L.L.Bean’s braided rug in “denim blue” (wow that’s expensive!).