Going Green...

Wow..three posts this week. That's probably a record for me. But don't expect it to continue. I know myself too well! LOL

Anyways, I thought I would post a picture of the latest crafty thing that Amberly and I have been working on. We decided that we wanted to try to do our part with "going green". After watching an Oprah show on the subject, I went out and bought the energy saver lightbulbs and decided that I wanted to use fabric shopping bags. I have searched everywhere to find ones that I like that I didn't have to sew. However, all the ones that I found were either too small, too narrow, or cost way too much. $6 per bag? I think that's a bit much if you shop every two weeks like we do.

So Amberly and I sat down a made our own pattern and purchased the fabric and webbing with 40% off coupons so I think our bags came in around $2 each.

They really were easy to sew, once I got the sewing machine to work! LOL It helps if you thread it right. We managed to make 20, 10 for each of us and that was the perfect number when I took them to the commisary this week.

I also am trying to cut down on paper towel and napkin use. This statement from Oprah got me thinking about it all: One of those simple things you can do is to reduce your use of paper napkins…by just one a day! "Napkins make a huge difference," Elizabeth says. "We use 2,200 of them a year, per person on average. Six a day. So if we all gave up one napkin a day, we could save a billion pounds of paper waste … from going to landfills a year." Such an easy thing to do, if you're aware of what you're doing.

And of course, we're really try to recycle our paper, boxes, and cans. A week doesn't go by that Kaden doesn't find something around the house and tell me that we can recycle it and then names a list of things that we could make from the object. It cracks me up every time. I guess cartoons really do teach something-"Reduce, reuse, recycle"-Bob the Builder

If anyone is ambitious and wants to get on the bandwagon and make some bags, I'm willing to share our pattern.

Good luck-and "GO GREEN"!

Family Room Makeover

Ok. This post might be a little boring for some of you, but for others (the naggers know who they are!) this post has been long awaited. My brother, Tyson, came out here back in Feb. I believe, and helped us make over our family room. I know, many of you thought that it looked "ok" to begin with, but it wasn't me. Not that I know what is "me", but I knew that it wasn't a room that drew me in. I think it may have been the oversized fireplace and the avacado walls that just screamed "country" to me. And I've learned in the last couple years that my style isn't country.

So here is the one picture I could find of the old room... Note the large brick fireplace, oversized mantle, tv on the small stand in the corner and the comfy blue chair that didn't match anything....

   

I took a video of the new room, but I can't get it to load on here, so these pictures will have to do...