“Paper… pure paper!” I think that crazy guy in the epic film “Waterworld” said it best when he uttered those immortal lines about paper. But how can the people in “Waterworld” make paper when there ain’t no trees? Easy. They recycle paper, and now you can to. Here’s how to recycle paper into homemade paper.

First, you gots to make your paper frame. Use some leftover wood and make a rectangle; whatever size this frame is is the size your homemade paper shall be.

Staple some old window screen across the frame, stretching it tightly. There, your frame be done. Now you’re ready to make you some homemade paper, hot dang!

First, get a bunch of scrap paper (some call it scratch paper, whatever floats your boat). Also, feel free to add some of the following:

• newspaper
• lint
• toilet paper (gently used)….. just kidding on that one!!
• paper bags

Remember, whatever you put in will affect the color and texture of your finished paper, so for the love of Pete, be careful in selecting your ingredients for your homemade paper.

Tear up the paper into lil’ pieces.

Put the torn-up paper into a blender, filling it about halfway. Fill the rest of the blender with warm water.

Blend the mess out of that paper, starting with short burts, and finishing with a 20-second blend that purees the paper into a pulpy soup.

Do this about three times, each time pouring the blended paper soup into a basin or tote.

Afterward, put in some more warm water, filling the basin about halfway. Add about two tablespoons of corn starch, too.

Stir the pulp around, then dip your wood frame into the pulp all the way to the bottom. Slowly raise it up, keeping it level. Your screen should be covered with pulp now.

Let it dry somewhere. Once the frame stops dripping, sort of peel the paper around the edges.

Next, gently peel the very wet paper away from the frame. Slap that bad boy on some felt. Fun fact: I got my felt for 20 cents, and it’s made from recycled plastic. Ta-dow.

Use a sponge and try to squish excess water out. Once you’ve done that, let it dry on the felt.

Let all the paper completely dry on the felt or some newspaper.

Voila, recycling old useless paper into new homemade paper is just that easy. If you want to get fancy (and these days, who doesn’t?), try embedding some crazy mess in your paper (feathers, leaves, pictures cut out of a newspaper). Your friends will be TOO jealous of your customized paper, maybe even jealous enough… to kill?

You may have heard about these new-fangled CFL bulbs. They last up to ten times longer than incandescent light bulbs, use only about 25% the energy (so they cost one-fourth the amount of money to run), and they produce 90% less heat (waste) than an incandescent bulb, so you get more light per watt!

But I digress. When these CFL bulbs eventually die, you can’t just throw them away, since they have some mercury in them. You have to take them to special CFL bulb collection places. I had to do this recently, and found these easy places to safely get rid o’ CFLs.

* Call your garbage service and ask them
* IKEA
* Home Depot
* If all those fail, check out Earth911, they should be able to help.

Good luck recycling them CFLs. Truly, you are on the path to being an eco-hero.

Deep in the sprawling Peck Estates there is a meandering brook, full of plants, wildlife, and brisk, babbling water. Whenever I grow weary of my toils to better this planet called Earth, I cast my eyes upon this creek, and tears of wonder carve clean trails down my dusty face.

But it’s not “all good in the hood”, as Mister Rogers would say. Over the last month or so, I’ve cleaned out a LOT of litter just from my small part of the creek. The litter has ranged in size from tiny shards of broken glass to a metal chair to a freaking stop sign.

After cleaning all that mess out, me and Tiff decided to make some creek animals out of the junk, since all the trash had come from the creek. What follows may shock and even horrify you. Prepare to look upon the creek creatures.
CLICK THE PICTURES TO SEE A BIGGER PICTURE

Glassy the Turtle

Tiff’s abstract masterpiece.

Turkey Thing

Made from a gen-u-ine 40 bottle (and maybe an old racquetball?).

Glass Frog

If you use your imagination, this pile of reused glass might look remotely like a frog.

Simple Snail

Another Tiff creation. My blurry picture does not do this glass snail justice.

Parrot with Coke Bottle Body

He’s all spirally and mess.

Snake made from Broken Glass

That’s his tongue on the left.

Glass Hell Monkey

Its tail is made from a LipSmackers brush. He is one menacing mamma jamma.

We recycled all the leftover broken glass and old cans and bottles. All in all, it was a good way to reuse some litter, and make some “art” from it. If anyone else has done cleaned up litter from a creek or stream and made something from it, por favor let me know!

One night in Bangkok and the world’s your oyster. But what about the rest of Thailand? Journey with me, if you please, 370 miles to the north-east of Bangkok to the Wat Pa Maha Chedio KaewSisaket temple (nicknamed Wat Lan Kuad, or “Temple of a Million Glass Bottles”).


Wat Lan Kuad monks started collecting discarded glass bottles way back in 1984 so they could decorate their buildings. Apparently, their creativity with how they reused the glass bottles inspired tourists to start bringing bottles to the temple. Today, their seemingly fragile (yet actually pretty sturdy) temple is infused with over a million reused glass bottles! Hot dang!

I’ll leave you with some pictures of this magnificient temple. It’s purty cool how they used the glass bottles and even the metal caps of the bottles. ¡Disfrute los fotos!





I found out about this from good ol’ Been-Seen, who in turn found out about it from some Yahoo page that don’t exist no more.

Welp, here we are for the “Festival o’ frugality“, a mish-mosh of different ways to save money, many of them having to do with the environment. Without further ado, I present to you, the festival.

DestroyDebt has compiled a whole 76 ways to save money while helping the environment.

Condo-Blues is on a mission to seal up his ducts and save some electricity and cash money.

Here’s yet another way to save money by cutting electricity costs from DepositAccounts.

BargainBriana has some good tips on how to cheap out on your various holiday parties.

Carole takes some time out of her busy day to teach us all how to make a natural birdseed wreath. Cheap, and it helps our animal friends.

The Well Run Dry shows just how dang easy it is to save money (and lower your eco-footprint) by riding a bike.

Here are some handy dandy ways to save money on groceries, brought to you by Fire Finance.

Here be some timely Thanksgiving leftover tips from A Simple Walk.

Stolen Moments has some easy tips for sticking to her grocery budget.

When you’re traveling for this Thanksgiving weekend, Savvy Frugality says why not think of the good ol’ train system?

Madison shares some free mess for this Black Friday.

Here are some frugal ways to have Family Fun© with your children, brought to you courtesy of Grey.

Oh snap, mom n’ dad have found out how to get Legos cheaply. Kudos, y’all.

LuluGal has written a beautiful piece about how to “magnetize money”. Give it a looksie.

David Mitchell dares to ask the age-old question: real or fake Christmas tree?

Martin Dasko flips it on everybody and explores when it’s NOT okay to skimp on money.

How in the world can you save money AND the planet whilst remodeling your abode? Aahz knows how.

vh waxes philosophical while also thinking about potential money savings.

Heather Levin shares some ways to save money on laundry day (many of them are “green”, if you will).

Wow, that was a LOT of submissions. A big muchas gracias to everybody who submitted to this week’s festival. Sorry to anyone who didn’t get posted, there were HUNDREDS of submissions, so don’t feel bad. Until next time, this is Joe, signing off.

If you’re like me, you probably have at least one really old pair of shoes lying around somewhere. They’re too old/holey/torn up to wear, and yet you cannot find it in your heart to throw them away, discarding all those hours of hard work from child labor in the Philippines. But hearken, there’s a way to recycle your old sneakers!

Good ol’ Nike has set up a shoe recycling program, wherein you turn in your old shoes and they ship them to a processing plant. At the plant, they separate the old shoes into 3 different materials (rubber, foam, and plastic) and grind them up. They’ve recycled more than 21 million pairs of shoes since 1990!

Once they’re ground up, they can be turned into running tracks, new shoes, basketball courts, or even new clothes. That’s a lot better than just throwing away your old shoes to just sit in a landfill for centuries. So take a look around your house, find some old sneakers, find the nearest dropoff location, and recycle your old shoes.

The Free Cloth Tote Bag Bonanza continues with a superbly crafted tote bag from Stouffer’s. Yes, Stouffer’s, maker of famous frozen dinners, is giving away free grocery tote bags. Here’s how to get your very own so next time someone asks if you want flimsy plastic or wasteful paper bags you can rudely thrust your cloth bag into their jealous face.

• Go to Stouffer’s and register
• You will get 100 points
• Donate at least 20 points to get a free tote bag!
• Send me $4 via Paypal

It’s just that easy. That last step is very important people! So register for that site, donate your points, getchoself a cloth bag, and start eschewing plastic and paper bags once and for all.