Cloth bags instead of wrapping paper. An Eco craft Project.

Everyone is talking about the environment. It's as if we all woke up at once to the fact that the earth is a closed biosphere and that stuff we use has to be recycled or we are doomed! So I'm joining in, why not! I'm looking at presents and how we wrap them.

Paper is pretty easy to recycle compared to lots of things we make. And plain paper breaks down and composts nicely. But fancy wrapping paper, the shiny sort, the metallic sort, the glittery sort, doesn't. And Christmas and birthday wrapping can end up looking gorgeous but being very bad for the planet.

Some time ago I wrote about using bags for children's gifts, not because of the planet, but because children's toys are so over packaged that an impatient toddler can end up in tears of rage when 20 minutes after unwrapping their new baby doll daddy is still trying to undo all the ties and twists, and because so much toy packaging is geared towards gender.

But lately I realised that reusable bags would also be good for adults gifts, for any gifts really, and the best thing about a little bag is that it makes gifts easy to wrap, and it can be reusable too!

If you have a sewing machine they are a snap to make, but even if you hand sew they are far from complicated.

So with a doubly environmental plan that involved buying cheap clothes at Charity stores purely for the pretty designs on the material and then recycling them into bags, I set to work.

So far I have actually used new material because I found some cheap 'fat quarters', and the bags I have made are small, but I'm going to keep making them, as and when I have time, so that by Christmas I should have a good choice.

I have used ribbon for the 'drawstring' on my bags so that they can have a bow tied at the top.

The simplest design require no finishing of raw edges, just a simple rectangle of material, wide hems sewn at each narrow end for the drawstring (ribbon) , fold the rectagle into a square, and then a quick sew together of the sides.

Two loops of ribbons are threaded through the hems and ... ta da! a drawstring bag.

Beautiful Balloon Release...

Listening to Radio 4 about seabirds and plastic reminded me of this so I'm updating and re-posting.

Balloons are lovely aren't they. All shiny and floaty. Either being played with by children at a party or floating off into the wild blue after a wedding. Balloons are used for competitions too, whose will travel the farthest? And for sending prayers, or for memorials.  

Like everyone else I think the sight of hundreds of balloons soaring up into a blue sky is a beautiful thing, trailing tags with notes of love to heaven, what a gorgeous idea...

but balloons come down, and when they do they kill things, lots of things.

They fall into rivers, get snarled in trees, drift to the sea, and wildlife gets caught up or eats the burst 'skins' of the balloons (particularly turtles that naturally eat jellyfish drifting in the sea)

Click here to see the (distressing) photo gallery of balloon damage.

You wouldn't organise a mass litter. Please don't organise a balloon release.(Ditto 'sky lanterns')  Maybe you need more convincing, if so here are some links. I'd appreciate it if you spread the word.

 

Marine Conservation Society

Balloons Blow

But just telling people not to do something can be quite unhelpful, so I searched around for some celebration ideas. Here are some other things you could do that would not harm our planet.

I especially like this idea 

"Floating flowers- For a lot of people, the gently upward drifting of balloons gives them a sense of letting go, and at the same time thinking the balloon will eventually reach their loved one. Because remembering a loved one by potentially killing another life isn’t exactly the best feeling, there are many alternatives. Floating flowers or flower petals down a calm stream can give you the same sense of letting go. You will be able to be in nature and feel the energy of your loved one and all the life that surrounds you! Be sure to use non-poisonous flowers and not to let go an excessive amount."

We only have one chance, let's not screw it up - I want a beautiful planet for future generations. I hope you do too.

All Pictures Above Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

A Utopia of Dystopias

utopia - 1 ( usually lowercase ) an ideal place or state.
            2 ( usually lowercase ) any visionary system of political or social perfection.

Dystopia - noun, a society characterised by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding.

I can't help noticing the influx on the YA (young adult) reading scene of the 'dystopian novel'. It seemed to catch fire (see what I did there?) with The Hunger Games and has continued with the Divergent series. Both sagas have been made into films.

There are so many of these novels on the shelves now. Uglies, Matched, Gone, I'm sure you could name dozens. 

Of course dystopian novels are nothing new. There was 1984 and Brave New world. The brilliant Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep (filmed as Blade Runner) and Fahrenheit 451.

But lately two things have struck me. The first is that they are very firnly aimed at young adults rather than adults and the second that they seem to also be aimed at girls. Female leads and heroines have been popular for a long time, Mina Harker in Dracula, Julia in 1984 to name a couple. But suddenly it seems the female lead is back with rather a bang!

Suddenly the 'feisty' (I hate that word!) female is the norm, the woman that notices the rot in the supposed utopia, revealing the horror beneath. The young girl  that dares to kick out against the society that controls everyone including her.


Is this only a blip? Or are our authors (male and female) seeing the important role the female lead can have in society?


Or maybe, they just realise that it's still the girls that do the most reading...


What do you think?


(and are there any great Dystopian Novels I've missed, with excellent female leads?)

 

I'm a Crafty Sew and Sew

DD being crafty

I'm not the best seamstress in the world. Maybe I would be on the Discworld...but not in this one.

I inherited a sewing machine from my MIL and I was taught needlework at school (and yes it was only the girls, boys did wood work of course!) and I learned the ways of the sewing machine under the stern eye of my needlework mistress. She was scary. "Gels! I do NOT want to see any lipstick on your thread! LADIES do not lick or bite their thread, they cut it neatly!" but she taught us well, I know the uses of the various 'feet' on a sewing machine, I can sew a button hole whether by machine or hand. I can sew a button on too - including into a coat (slightly different technique needed to avoid it being too tight) I can sew a tacking stitch, a blanket stitch and I can do a double seam on denim. I can hem too. All because I learned at school.

BUT even if you don't have all of those skills and even if they, quite frankly, terrify you, you should ensure your home has a sewing kit. Everyone, of every gender should be able to fix stuff! No one should be throwing away a pair of trousers due to a lost button or a jumper because of a frayed hem.

In the time of the internet you can even learn online using youtube tutorials or friendly bloggers and once you are feeling happy with a needle then you can craft! It needn't be perfect either. I learned to make a rather cute strawberry at a festival last year under the careful eye of RedTedArt and it was super easy and fun!

Ditch the wunda-web, the hem-bond or whatever it's called, grab a sharp and get sewing! Be not afraid.

This year I plan to learn to knit (other that finger knitting which I learned at Camp Bestival) and it looks like Wilderness Festival might be the place as they are planning a Naked Knitting Circle!

Do you sew? Do you knit? How 'crafty' are you? and did you learn at school?

So This is a Mooncup

I bang on about the Mooncup quite a bit on Twitter, and on the blog. People ask what I'm on about, why do I love it, how easy is it to use?

This video is great - it shows very simply how the Mooncup works, what it looks  like, how soft it is, and how it gets in and out!

I'll add that it works out MUCH cheaper than buying sanitary protection each month and it's MUCH greener. Buy one and never run out of sanitary protection again.

Click to go to the Mooncup Website to order a mooncup or for more info.

Disclaimer - I am part of an affiliate program and receive 20% commission on any sales via this link

Mooncup

It's going to get all TMI for many of you from this point in....you have been warned

How Green?

As you will know gentle reader (mainly because I can’t shut up about it) I am off to Glastonbury this year (for the first time) as Citizen Journalist for Ecover. This fact, and a few tweets last night have made me wonder about my ‘green’ credentials. What do I do that is ‘green’? Is being green only about the planet or does it go further to help people too?
When I entered the Ecover competition I said that, to me, being ‘green’ meant ‘doing no harm’, like a Dr. Looking after the planet and leaving it in the same beautiful state as we found it. I realise that already as a human I have to admit we are failing badly. Climate change, land fill, pollution, famines, wars, and extinction of animals spring to mind as just a few ways we are failing. 

Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

So anyway – what do I do, and can I improve on what I do already?
First things first, big discussions on twitter about nappies (diapers to you US readers) and are cotton washables really any more ‘green’ than disposables? When I had my DD 13 years ago it was a clear choice to use cotton towelling squares predominantly , they were cheap, easy to use (with a couple of plastic wraps) quick to wash and dry, and disposables were full of chemicals, never broke down in landfill, were really expensive and were just nasty (causing nappy rash for DD among other things!). But today the choice is wider – cotton nappies are stupidly expensive and in a myriad of shapes and types, disposables are now available that are made of wood pulp so they can be chucked onto the compost! Maybe today I’d opt for compostable disposables? I certainly wouldn’t pay some of the prices quoted on twitter for some fancy shaped cotton nappy! So for nappies I was pretty green.

Sanitary protection (men and squeamish types look away now) I didn’t discover the Mooncup until I was well into my 30s and so I dread to think how much landfill I caused of used sanitary protection, I used pure cotton tampons mostly as was convinced by the brands of the time that this was fairly eco friendly. No bleach was used and only cardboard applicators. But now I have my mooncup my sanitary protection landfill each month is zero. Like nappies I think there are flushable biodegradable sanitary towel options but they don’t seem to have really caught on and can be hard to find. I was recently sent a sample of a new product – softcup but they can’t be used by IUD users and also they appear to be another ‘throw away’ item (I checked and they are indeed non-recyclable and a landfill product) .

Cleaning products. I use Ecover for some things and the more I read about their plastic manufacture, the revolutionary idea that not only can we stop using petroleum based plastic in favour of plant based, and not only can we recycle plastics direct from home, but that we can clean up the seas too, I think maybe I should use more. I also think I need to look more at beauty products – I remember fondly in the days prior to The Body Shop being bought up by multimillion pound company L’Oreal (Nestle) , when you could take bottles back to the shop to be refilled or recycled. Lush seem closest to eco-friendly in the packaging stakes, with solid shampoo bars and bubble bath wands. Do you know of any other ‘green’ beauty product companies?

I run a small car, petrol consumption being high on my list of priorities. I drive quite a bit but I hope that by using a smaller car (Fiat Panda – still loving it!) with a good CO2 score I’m doing my ‘bit’ there. I should probably cycle more when I do local trips. I holiday abroad very rarely. DD and I did one big trip to the USA and we have had about 3 trips to Spain in all of the 13 years she’s been here. We camp a lot. Using second hand recycled tents.

 

I shop at charity shops a lot! In fact my long suffering husband will attest to the fact that I like them more than regular shops. I use ebay and buy lots of things second hand. I use freecycle to give things away rather than landfill. I donate to charity (WorldVision since you ask) with a monthly direct debit so I can’t forget, I donate extra to a homeless shelter each winter and other charities when I have any ‘spare’ money.

I’m not a vegetarian and have no plans to become one (despite being vege for lent) I wear leather, I own rabbit fur items, I’d draw the line at wearing endangered species. I own three Victorian Stuffed Squirrels and love taxidermy (I see no reason to kill any more animals simply for decoration however). I ‘ve added one extra person to the world’s population. (she is a bit great though)

I’m not trying to pat myself on the back, I’m just trying to look at my life and see how green it really is. How much of a footprint am I leaving? Am I the hippy I’d like to be or a middle class mum playing at it? Or somewhere in between? Being green can be expensive, but it can be cheaper too, and maybe if you save money on one green thing you could use it on another? How green are you? And do you care? 

Message in a Bottle

The ocean. 

Vast, fathomless, endless, aquamarine beauty, rippling waves, sparkling white horses, leaping fish, spouting whales ... and plastic.

Image credit: joruba / 123RF Stock Photo

Plastic. Loads of it. Amazing. The world, so beautiful, we humans have been here a mere blink in its evolution but we manage to find new ways to pollute it on an almost daily basis. I'm not against progress, invention is part of what human is after all, but surely we need to do things thoughtfully. Doing, (as Drs swear) doing no harm. Leaving only footprints (as they say).

Plastic is one of those things (like balloons) that doesn't just 'go away', but it's amazingly useful, and in bottles we use plastic a lot. Look around you, water bottles, milk bottles, washing up liquid bottles, shampoo bottles, hand cream, soap dispensers so much 'useful-but-never-going-away' plastic.

Image credit: bluebullet / 123RF Stock Photo

So I'm delighted that there are companies that realise that innovation doesn't need to be destructive and that keeping the world safe and beautiful is as important as profit.

I was already impressed to read about Ecover's plant based plastics, but then I was told that that's not enough, they want to help clean up plastics that are already out there. I know I'm an old hippy but we can do this! We can not only keep our planet beautiful in the future, we can start to mop up the past!

Ecover are commited to 'Closing the Loop'

"The latest innovation – the aspiration to create an entirely new plastic incorporating a percentage of sea waste into its Plantastic/PCR packaging by 2014 - is an exciting addition to Ecover’s already impressive ecological packaging credentials.  Research from the Marine Conservation Society reveals that plastic debris accounts for almost 60 per cent of all litter found on UK beaches and it is widely recognised that vast amounts of beach waste ends up in the sea.  Working closely with Waste Free Oceans (WFO) and UK plastic recycling plant Closed Loop, Ecover will be working with fishing communities to collect plastic* and reintroduce it into the recycling chain via its bottles – a solution which will help protect the delicate sea-based eco-systems and give a whole new meaning to ‘catch of the day’.  Trials have already begun on the exact mix of the three plastics which allow the brand to deliver what will be the first ever fully sustainable and recyclable plastic."

I think you'll admit that's pretty clever! I can't wait to discover more about this, especially as I live by the sea! 

Do environmental issues feature in your purchases or do you think it's a bit of a luxury? Is a clean planet a luxury too? 
 

It's a funny old world

I like the internet. It makes the world a small place. Like an intimate soiree. And like a party you chat, you listen, you get talked into things....

So when a Twitter buddy sent me a link to an online competition saying 'this would be great for you' I had to take a look. How flattering! It was a competition to be the Citizen Journalist for Ecover (a company I love and use and have reviewed on the blog in the past) and part of the deal was you had to attend a festival. We all know I'm a sucker for being drunk in a tent in field so how could I refuse!

I entered. I panicked a bit that I didn't write much (about 140 characters per answer I expect!) Then I imagined that was the last I'd hear of that.

But I only went and won! So I'm now on a roller coaster ride to discover Ecover's 'Secret Thing' and to write articles for their online news magazine The Splash., To attend Hampton Court Flower Show (will I need a hat?) and then of course the festival.....

 Yes gentle reader this middle aged self proclaimed hippy is only off to Glastonbury this year in the company of Junior reporter DD! - who knows what adventures will befall us! Stay tuned!

I won't be alone as I cannot be trusted there were two winners. So I'll take a moment to introduce you to .... Lemon!

Plastic Bags - #NationalPoetryDay

A rustling in the trees, as of crinolines in halls

A swoop and slide, as owls in flight.

Whisper quiet, on white feet along the pavements they run

Hiding and sliding from the weather's breath

A flash of colour, a sudden sight as they soar into the air

Dancing on sunbeams as light as butterflies.

5p? Too cheap the price for disposable beauty that clogs the land with poison.

• Plastic bags are rubbish and in the EU we create more than 800,000 tonnes of plastic bag waste each year

• Use of plastic bags in the UK has gone up this year to over 8 billion single use carrier bags produced

• These plastic bags will litter our environment for over 2,000 years - polluting our seas, our cities, our countryside and killing our wildlife

Now for some optimism

It's not inevitable! In countries where a ban or 5p charge has been introduced plastic bag use has typically dropped over 95%.

Lush are supporting the Break the Bag Habit campaign and asking the Government to implement a 5p charge following the model introduced in Wales.

With this model retailers would be required by law to charge 5p for bags with all profits from the charge going to local environmental charities! Everyone's a winner!!

Lush are running a competition to coincide with the initiative. Click the picture below for more information.

Lush Monster Bag Challenge

  

There are so many great places to buy fabulous cotton bags - we really have no excuse!

here are a few I love

Etsy - Crocheted goodness from Aniknits

Ebay - Simple bags you can get the kids to paint at home! or draw on with Sharpie style permanent pens.

Or make a statement With 'We are what we do'

Do you carry a bag 'just in case'? Do you use plastic bags? What do you think about a 5p charge? Would it make you remember your bag?

No ice cream. AKA the sad tale of Movenpick and the Nestlé Boycott

At the weekend I went out for a meal. The meal was to celebrate 20  years of marriage. We of course took along our adorable Darling Daughter. For dessert we had ice cream, but not just any ice cream, Movenpick Ice cream, I had pistachio and DD had coconut, DH stole some of each :-)

It was so delicious that the following day I was determined to track down a local store to buy some (argh I typed store! SHOP - I'm online in the world of the USA WAY too much!) any way I asked the lovely Twitter who suggested a garden centre chain, so I went online to search, a search which led me to the Movenpick website and a sad discovery.

Movenpick is owned by Nestlé.

Nestle make all the yummy things. Cheerios, Mint Aero bars, but unlike the ice cream I can't recall the last time I ate them because I boycott Nestlé.

I know it's a middle class luxury. I've heard the arguments that one housewife refusing to buy a packet of cereal is unlikely to bring down one of the biggest and ruthless conglomerates in the world. But still I do it. I changed hair dye manufacturers and then stopped dying my hair altogether (learning to love the grey - DD recently commented "your hair sparkles" so maybe it's silver!) I stopped buying Cheerios, I no longer buy Body Shop products (did you all notice BTW when the labels subtly changed from 'Not tested on Animals' to 'Against Animal Testing' ? not the same, not the same at all) I don't drink instant coffee anyway but I do like coffee whitener, so I have to find other brands than Coffee Mate...

Why you ask? Why boycott? Well it's all been said by lots of people already. Here is an article  which covers everything and then some! (main reasons are killing babies indirectly through the aggressive advertising of formula to mothers who don't need it, have no access to clean water etc)

Is the boycott working? I don't think so.
Could it work? of course, it just needs enough people.
Will that day ever come? Who knows, but until them I'm a sad ice cream-less middle class woman.

International Nestlé-Free Week: October/November

we interrupt your usual blog for a message from a sponsor..

I do reviews, not too many I hope, but I do them. I only review products I use or would use. So was quite pleased to be asked to try Ecover Zero. I already use Ecover non-biological washing liquid, but this was new, no colour, no scent (yes @mamacrow NO SCENT!) no additives, just a basic, kind to the environment, kind to skin, range of clothes washing liquid and, amazingly, fabric conditioner.

I was also sent a dish washing liquid to try in the same, colour-free, scent-free range. We do not have a dish washer (except me) so that was put straight to work. Very foamy, cleaned grease very well and DD noticed the difference from our usual liquid on the first day.

"Mum, this glass is really clean, we never have clean glasses" (*ahem* obviously we always have clean glasses but she meant that it was streak free)

So I'm fairly sold on the dish washing liquid, I love the lack of smell left on the dishes and the lack of stupid colour (why is washing up liquid the colour of methadone btw?)

But for clothes washing reviews we must ask my darling husband, yes ladies, I realise you are jealous but in our house the lovely Mr Tattooed Mummy does the housework, including the washing.

So I asked him for a verdict. He was a little surprised about a clothes conditioner with no smell, "it's the smell I like" he said, but the washing came out clean, fresh (no 'artificial' 'air freshener' type smell) and the clothes don't feel scratchy (we have no tumble dryer so they are line dried) So I think that's a result. He is happy to use it again as he doesn't like biological liquids, both he and DD have delicate skin.


If you have an aversion to artificial smells, if you like the environment, if you have sensitive skin, then EcoverZero might be just what you are looking  for. And if you spill it, it doesn't leave green/blue stains all over the kitchen.

• Looks 9/10 
• Value For money 8/10 
• Usability/Usefulness 10/10 
• Fun 6/10

The one where I post some old poetry from the 80s

OK so my cop out, I wrote this when I was 18 or so, the world was a black and white place and I KNEW what was right and what was wrong.. Obviously now I'm a grown up (haha!) I'm no longer so sure, but despite that, and while many of my teen poems (more later if you are good!) have aged very badly, I still rather like this one. (I've copied it as I originally typed it on my typewriter! LOL all the punctuation is original!)

Tiger Tiger (with apologies to William Blake)

Tiger Tiger, shining bright,

Tell me what you see tonight,

Do you see the blood red moon?

Hear the guns they'll bring here soon?

Tiger do you smell the sweat?

Hear the rustling of the net?

See the glinting of their eyes?

Crouch so low and purr them lies.

Tiger how you loved to run,

Sniffed the moon and heard the sun.

Now you lay in aching fear,

Sense the hunters coming near.

Tiger never fear a man,

They weren't here ere you began,

You roamed the earth and paced the sun,

Don't fear man - just fear the gun.

Tiger hear a shot rings out,

There a beater, here a shout.

Crouch a little longer yet,

Stiff and cold your bones are set.

Tiger swipe with glowing paws,

Tear the men-shapes with your claws,

Kill a million; drink their blood;

Feel the bullet; taste the mud.

Tiger proudly on a wall,

Your head displayed for one and all.

The snarl that killed one hundred soldiers

Looked much better on your shoulders.

Watching the BBC show, Lost land of the Tigers, last night made me remember this poem. and @verymuchreality made me brave enough to blog it