Upcycling

In my quest to live a simple life and trying to reduce waste I am looking to recycle and upcycle wherever I can.

I have always been a sewer but have not sewn as much for B as I thought I would. When I can go to Target or K-Mart and buy him a pair of tracksuit pants or shorts for $5 it is simply not economical for me to make any for him. However, I have this week upcycled a few items of clothing for him.

Firstly he had these jeans that were a hand-me-down so had already been well used. You can just see in the photo that there is extensive wearing in the knees - more than it's worth patching. So I decided to make a pair of shorts out of them to extend their life.

Jeans with worn knees

All ready to become shorts

All finished and ready for summer!

I also picked up this old men's shirt to make a new pair of pants. I found the instructions on how to do this here so I won't bore you with step-by-step instructions and photos. Suffice to say this shirt:

Became these pants:

I took a photo of the back as I used the pockets in the original shirt for back pockets of the pants (don't think the photo shows them clearly though). Unfortunately, B has a real aversion to buttons (not sure why) so I had to cut them off otherwise he won't wear the pants.

The shirt cost me $6 at the op shop, I already had the elastic and it only took me about half an hour to make. For a pair of "dressier" pants I think that it not bad. I only just had enough fabric lengthwise to make the pants so may have to make shorts in future. Of course I don't have a home supply of men's shirts so if anyone wants to send their partners my way when they are finished with it would be much appreciated. Hehe!

Any other tips for upcycling clothes would be much appreciated. I have a few other projects to try so I am a bit excited about the old and unwanted becoming new again!

Waste

I have been musing for sometime on my waste or lack thereof. I do make a very conscious effort to cut down the amount of waste that our household produces both by controlling what comes in and how we deal with what needs to go out.

Firstly, I try to be really mindful of what I purchase. Is it really needed? Is it going to be used? This is particularly true with food. I am very conscious of what I buy and that it is all used. If I am finding myself with some food that is needing to be used and I don't have a plan for it immediately I look at how to keep it until I do. For veggies that I'm not planning on using can I use them in a stew, soup or just cook and freeze until I need it? Bananas are of course easy - smoothies or just into the freezer to make muffins or cake. Other fruit is good for smoothies, ice cream or again just frozen until need.

A really good blog on this issue is by Kylie Kwong and you can find it here. It's quite staggering the amount of food that is wasted and I am consciously trying not to contribute to the problem. There are a number of reasons for this. Of course, cost is the major one - it's like throwing your money out. There is also the environment and all the resources that are consumed into producing the food to just be wasted doesn't make sense to me. I think it's also about respecting farmers who spend their time and money in producing food for us as well.

Any food scraps we have are then put into our Bokashi Bucket. I really like this system as you can put meat scraps as well as other traditional composting materials. It also produces a liquid fertiliser which I then use to fertilise my vegetable garden. So it's a winner on a number of fronts.

I also recycle as much as possible - paper, glass, cans, etc. Luckily there is a tip not too far from me that takes a lot of materials that I can't put in the recycling bin. It also has a tip shop which can be a bit dangerous (but I'll post on that another time).





So this is typically the rubbish we throw out in a fortnight. It is basically just the packaging that I can't dispose of any other way.

And then, I got this book yesterday which takes reusing to a whole other level. Hopefully I will get some more tips and tricks!!

What about you? What are your secrets for reducing your waste?