Minimally Processed March

So.... yeah. Blogging once a week hasn't worked out. But I'm upping my goal, and slogging forward with MINIMALLY PROCESSED MARCH!



And that applies to everything- food, clothing, beauty products, craft supplies, medicine. Maybe an experiment in frugality, maybe an experiment in social responsibility, maybe an experiment in being healthy. In all actuality, probably an experiment in finally realizing my potential as a damn filthy hippie. We'll see how it goes. Today was easy until I got home from the gym and found an overlooked package of EL Fudge striped cookies in the pantry. Sheesh.



Crafty-minimalist thingie for the week: 3 ingredient all natural air freshener! So easy to make, so potently scented (but not overwhelmingly, they smell awesome!)! Here are some jasmine and lavender scented ones.



Just gelatine, water, and essential oil. That's it. Impressive, no?

Homemade Deodorant

So I have been on the quest to find/create the perfect homemade deodorant for quite awhile now. I have hidradenitis suppurativa, so I have to be very careful what products I use in the armpit region. I don't want to use commercial deodorants, because they all contain aluminumy stuff and antiperspirant. Both of those things are big no-nos for HS sufferers, because they just block up pores (which is pretty much what HS does). I've tried a variety of organic store-bought deodorants, but usually end up with a rash. I have a recipe for homemade deodorant that I've used successfully, but it's crumbly and stupid and makes a big mess. Yeesh.

After complaining about deodorant woes with a friend, she mentioned to me that she had pinned a new deodorant recipe for me. Not gonna lie- I was skeptical. I decided to give it a shot, though. I used this tutorial:
http://angrychicken.typepad.com/angry_chicken/2008/07/homemade-deodor.html
It worked really well. I did have cocoa butter, but no shea butter. I didn't want to buy anything, so I used four tablespoons of cocoa butter and one tablespoon of coconut oil. Neither of them were deodorized, so they smelled like chocolate and coconut, respectively. I tried out the deodorant today, and am stench free after a day of running around the museum district. I'm going to continue to use this deodorant, and we'll see how it goes!

Aaaaand..... Here We Go Again!

Yeesh. I always say I'm going to write more often, but somehow always forget. Then I don't remember to check on things for, like, 6 months. This has got to stop. So for 2012, I'm adding writing to my list of weekly activities and things that I must get accomplished. This is a very important list:

1. Get Etsy shop back up and running. For this to happen, however, I have to first craft many exciting things.

2. Get house painted. This would have been easier to accomplish if I wouldn't have told Handsome Husband to blow house painting budget on a new motorcycle, but I'm super glad I did. The look on his face when I told him to do that was priceless. And he deserves a new bike.

3. Get shelves up and library unpacked. I LOVE my house. I have this fabulous giant formal living room (complete with fire place) that I desperately want to turn into a library. We have this grand idea for floating shelves after the walls are painted. And I miss my books, which are still in boxes even though we moved here over a year ago.

4. Craft my way through my Pinterest boards/Complete the 50 Projects in 2012 Craftster challenge. Pretty self explanatory.

5. Lose 80 pounds. I'd actually like to lose more this year, but you gotta start somewhere.

6. Start working on my Masters degree. Boy oh boy, now's my chance to get super-historically-nerdy! Can't wait.

7. Post a new blog entry at least once every two weeks. I'd like to do once every week, but let's be realistic here.

8. Break my dependency on store bought foods/cleaners. Processed food is really scary! I went gluten free for a bit, and my hidradenitis suppurativa basically went into remission. Cleaners, laundry detergents, and personal care products are frightening, too. Have been making my own deodorant and soap for awhile, but time to expand. Also time to cut all processed foods out, save for occasional cheat meals.

9. In conjunction with number 8, I want to try to go shampoo free. Seriously. Look it up.

So that's what I know. I'll probably be adding a few things here and there, but for now, that's the list. Happy Resolution Time, folks!

Sewing Like The Wind! (Or at least a very slight breeze....)

So it's back to school time again. Seems like this happens every year (har har). Actually, I was telling handsome hubs today that I needed some clothes for this, and he said, "Don't you buy new clothes every year?" Now, keep in mind that as he's saying this, he's wearing the Spongebob t-shirt he's had since before we were married, and we've been married for over seven years. So I sighed, and started Googling tutorials for various pieces of clothing. Here are a few offerings, so far.

In this photo, our lovely model (ahem) is sporting original couture creations (again, ahem). Actually, this dress was made from fabric that my BFF's mom gave to me (Lisa's mom tends to by fabric by the bolt, as she's not quite sure what she's planning to do with it when she buys it. You know, she buys that much JUST IN CASE. This is one of the idiosyncrasies that makes me love the woman. Seriously, she's awesome.). I was following a tutorial for making a maxi dress with two rectangles of fabric and two lengths of elastic. I got the top done, but couldn't quite understand how the tutorial was explaining the waistband casing, so I just added a 'belt'. It's a scrap of fabric that I had laying around, and it will change. I'm making a belt that will match. The white cardigan is actually just a t-shirt that I cut up and sewed back in a different way. I discovered how to make t-shirt cardigans, and I'm in LOVE with them. So yeah.

Next up, we have wrap pants. I'm OBSESSED with wrap pants, seriously. They are SO easy to make, and so completely comfortable. Handsome Hubs calls them my Shogun pants, and then does the whole introduction to Sho Nuff from 'The Last Dragon'. Because that's how we roll. But anyhoo, I used this tutorial. It took me four yards of fabric (will take way less for smaller folks), and I ended up cutting/hemming about half a yard because it was too much. Total time was less than an hour. The red ties are the ribbon I used for ties on the pants. The blue tank was bought, and there's that white cardigan again. Here's a photo so that you can see leg width:

I also made a skirt with some of the BFF-mom-donated fabric. I have some left, too. I'm planning on a pair of brown wrap pants in addition to the black. Will keep on truckin'..... what a long, strange stitch it's been.

Frugal Laundry

Hey Gang! I know it's been a million years, I always feel like it's easier to blog in the spring and summer than fall and winter. I promise to get back into the habit.

Anyways, today's frugal offering is line drying laundry. Between myself and handsome hubby, we run about four loads of laundry a week. I know, it seems like a lot, but a. I'm clumsy and spill all kinds of stuff, and b. hubs works outside/with machinery, which wreaks havoc on his clothes. I've made the process of washing as inexpensive as possible- I only use cold water, only run full loads, and make my own laundry detergent (you can find the recipe I use here ). My dryer, however, runs literally all day once a week, and that's expensive and wasteful.

I wanted to run a clothesline in the backyard, but it's not fenced, and the entire neighborhood uses our path the greenbelt (like nature trails that run through our fair city, and our house backs onto one of them), and it's pollen season in Texas, so everything outside is COVERED with a thick layer of yellow. I decided instead to run a line in my attic. My attic is SUPER HUGE, and is accessed via a regular staircase, and not a ladder and trapdoor like most attics, so I have ample room. Check it out, two loads of laundry hanging-










Total cost to me was $2.91 for 150 clothespins at Wal Mart. I already had the rope. So far, so good. I hung the clothes yesterday early afternoon, and took them down this morning. I ironed the hanging clothes, and threw the non-hanging clothes in the dryer for 8 minutes (literally, I timed it) just to make sure they wouldn't mildew in my drawers (I'm paranoid, so sue me). I'm going to try for two months, and see how much my energy bill changes. WOO!

Aaaaand.... I'm still alive!

Good news, everybody! I'm still alive! I know it's been almost 7 months since I posted, but spring break is coming up, and I'm going to update then! After that, I'll try to keep current. YEESH.

Bookmarks

Yes, bookmarks. I NEVER use them. For one, I'm a dog-earer, from WAY back. I wholeheartedly believe that the shabbiness of a book is a fairly good indicator of how much it is loved. This makes dog-earing not only an act of self preservation, but an act of love (which just happened to be validated by one of my favorite college professors, who told me that reading without a pencil in hand to make notes in the book is just stupid). Secondly, I own a Kindle, so I've really cut down on reading print books. But I joined a bookmark swap on Craftster, pretty much because I couldn't call myself a self-respecting bibliophile without joining.

So for my swap, I was put in a group of five (counting myself), which means I had to make four bookmarks to send to my partners. I tried to go with individual bookmarks catering to the recipient's taste, but I didn't want to make them TOO different. I ended up with two that have cut felt letters, and two that are embroidered.



Starting from the left:
Green and blue: For my partner that likes Oscar Wilde. It has a Wilde quote, "Illusion is the first of all pleasures."
Brown: For my partner that likes dogs. It's embroidered with Milhouse's infamous quote, "Dogs are outstanding!" I've heard it said before, but I'll agree... I laugh like a moron every time I hear that!
Red: For my partner that's a big True Blood fan. It's an 'official' souvenir from the vampire bar Fangtasia. The logo is embroidered.
Purple and green: For my partner that likes fairies. It has a Charles de Lint quote, "We call them faerie. We don't believe in them. Our loss." I thought it was cute.

I'm hoping to get some super cute bookmarks in return. Don't know if I'll actually use them or if they will be strictly decorative. Either way, fun swap.

Cost breakdown of swap: $0.00
Cost of materials for bookmarks: $0.00. I continued using my current stash-busting momentum, and did not buy any new materials. The felt was $0.10 on sale at Hobby Lobby when I bought it, and the cardstock was purchased in a bulk package for $9.99 for use in a Christmas present for last year. So I guess, technically, it could break down as about $0.17 per bookmark, if you're going to get all picky about it.
Shipping: $0.43 each for stamps, $0.01 each for envelopes.

Total cost of entire swap: FREE in that I didn't have to buy anything, or $0.61 per bookmark if you count stuff that I'd bought before, working out to a grand total of $2.44 for eight bookmarks (you're probably asking yourself why I am counting eight, but only made four. I sent out four. I will receive four. Four plus four equals eight. Duh.).

Gotta love stashbusting.