Paper Garbage Liners

There is nothing too crafty about today's post. It is something I happened upon while browsing. 

I am not very fond of composting at home owing to the space constraints and my apprehensions about the process. 

We all have garbage bins and perhaps two or three nowadays, owing to the waste segregation to be done at source. The wet waste needs to go out daily and hence a garbage liner each day. I usually used to use the bags in which grocery came or buy the garbage bags. 

One particular day, when I became a little too environment conscious, I browsed online for garbage liner alternatives and learned that newspapers could be used. I had to try it out to see how effective it was. But I had to have an easy bag tutorial, which would take probably just a few minutes. And my search landed me here - thealternative.in. 

The page has clear instructions on how to create the bags. To circulate to our ladies in my apartment, I compiled all the pics into one. 

I just improvised a bit on it by stapling the two triangles being folded in (step 7). And I fold the bottom corners to give it a flat base.

Now coming to using it, it was tough initially. Somedays it would become soggy and I had to put in it plastic bags before taking it out of the house. Now gradually I have become used to the method. I would add one more sheet of newspaper, or add a folded sheet at the base. 

While disposing of the very wet waste, I try to wrap it in paper or trap it in the vegetable waste so that the water content does not touch the newspaper liner. 

Give it a try and it hardly takes 1 minute. Our little bit to the environment.

Decorating

Last week, it was our little Angel's second birthday. We decided to host a small get together at home. There were few infants on the guest list and we wanted all the toddlers, infants, and Moms to be comfortable. We had around 25 people and prepping the house for the event really kept me on my toes for quite few weeks. Finally, there was a chance to unpack any unopened boxes, organize entire wardrobe, give away or sell-off no more used items, and make our home tidier. Once everything was in place, we thought of few decorations to be done.

It was minimalistic but this is what we did:

- Settled on for shades of blue and lighter complementing tones.
- Created a big '2' from metallic blue-shaded balloons.
- Ribbon backdrop for the cake cutting.
- Tissue paper pom-poms hanging from the ceiling.
- Line of pom poms on a wall.
- Considerable amount of balloons all over the floor.

Now some snaps.

The pics are little blurred as I cropped them out from the whole to show just the decor. If possible I may upload a few more good pics.

Now look at this doily table spread. It is a lovely spread, handed over to me by my Mom. And this was the perfect occasion to use it.

More Paper Circles

After the Paper Mobile Project, I wanted more of it. So I gathered all the empty milk covers I had been collected over the past few weeks, traced out circles, and began cutting and cutting and cutting. Almost an hour later I had piles of cutout paper circles. I rushed to the sewing machine with the circles and started sewing them together. And then after half an hour I had a looooong string of paper circles.

So what do I do now. I measure, cut, paste, and hang!

Ta-daaah!

Yes, a paper circles curtain.

I was so thrilled throughout the project.

It is more than a week since I completed this project. But still my heart leaps with joy when the circle rotate in the wind.

Cute little Envelopes

Recently when I was in office, I had to make an envelope to put in some delicate stuff. I made the envelope in about 5 minutes from printer paper and stapler pins. Since it was too quick and easy, I felt I should just mention it out on the blog though there might be a lot better envelope ideas out there on the Internet.

Step 1. Gather any paper of your choice to make the envelope (I had some papers remaining from my Paper Mobile project. These were colorful and gave me pleasure at the thought of being able to recycle them.)


Any size would be fine - rectangle or square. As you can see in the picture, the papers are of varying sizes. Towards the end you can see the sizes of the envelopes also, so that you get an idea of the size to be used for your project.

Step 2. Make a fold from one side as shown. It should be a little more than 1/3rd and little less than half of the length of the paper. Let us call this as First Flap.

Step 3. Now fold in the other flap. The newly folded flap overlaps the older flap. Let us call this the Second Flap.


The other side looks like this now.


Step 4. Draw a thin line on the Second flap.


Make sure that the line is well before the edge of the First flap.


Step 5. Cut along the line and let the center portion remain as shown in the picture. The uncut portion will serve as an insert to keep the envelope flap in place. Let us call the uncut portion as the Insert.


Step 6. Now press the Second flap against the First flap and mark the corners of the Insert.


Step 7. Open the flaps and make a cut within the marks on the First flap as shown.


To make the cut you can use a retractable safety blade. You can alternatively use a pin also. Make holes very close to each other using the pin along line you want to cut and then move the pin horizontally to tear along the perforation. Or you can even use a ruler and draw on the line using the pin back and forth. A neat cut will appear after a few drawings.

Step 8. Now fold the First flap back in place and staple along the edges. Alternatively, you can also use gum/glue, tapes, or even sew along the edges.


Step 9. Fold the Second flap and slide the Insert into the cut made at Step 7.


Your envelope is now ready! Put in whatever you want - your bills, earrings, hair clips, pins, and any knick-knacks.

You can also sneak in love-notes for your beloved ones.


And make labels for the envelopes. Love the colorful splash of envelopes I have now.

Organizing!

Organizing is something I love to do. But what makes me sad is that it doesn't stay organized for long! :-( With people like hubby and me, who throw around things, how can I expect my home to be on order. Well, but every other day I would be organizing something or the other.

Since marriage, hubby's socks were a problem. After the laundering, socks are always subjected to get lost, especially when I am a person who keeps on pushing the task of folding the clothes. So I started keeping the socks in a separate box soon after drying out the clothes. Things looked okay for a while.

But we needed further simplification. When almost all your socks pairs are of the similar colors, you usually end up wearing the wrong pairs :-) So I had to come up with a better idea of organizing. After many days of thinking, I finally figured it out.

A cardboard box with compartments in it. I had seen the pretty versions of these in malls earlier. So why not come up with a simpler one on a trial basis. Yes, I was on my heels in no time.

Found an empty box, cut out some cardboard pieces to act as the separators, and glued them in place. When done, it looked like this.




>And when I folded and put in the rightly paired socks into the compartments, they looked like this. Neat!





Well, it was so easy and quick. I intend to do a bigger, better, and neater version of this soon. Will keep you posted.

Circles and circles

I have been doing some paper crafts lately. Reason - its easy and you get to see the end result quickly.

I wanted to replace my butterfly mobile with something new. I had some colorful brochures (from our home hunting last year) lying around. I picked those up and started cutting out circles in two sizes. For tracing the circle I chose a glass and a lid, in different sizes. I was so busy in the tracing and cutting that I forgot to take in-progress pictures.

Finally when all the circles were cut out, I laid the smaller ones on top of the bigger circles. Also tried to make them look as contrasting as possible. Once the pattern was set, I put my dear sewing machine to use - sewed all of them together.

And finally hung it on an empty wall near the kitchen.

What I love about this mobile is that when we switch on the fan in our living room, the circles start to twist and turn showing the colors.

I completed the project on Sunday evening and could not wait till the weekend to capture pictures of it at day time. So I clicked the pictures in the dim light itself.

I actually wanted to give the title to this post as 'New Paper Mobile' but then thought people might start thinking of it as a new mobile technology or gadget.