Here are a handful of links to inspire you this weekend.

• Five easy ways to go green, from Daily Danny. These aren’t your usual no-brainers. Take this one, for example: “Take a minute to pull your refrigerator a few inches away from the kitchen wall. By allowing extra air in the back, the condenser coils will work more efficiently because of the increased air circulation.” He has four more where that came from.
• Make a candle holder out of a used water bottle, from Crafting a Green World. And while you’re at it, if you insist on buying bottled water, here are ten more.
• Do you want a garden but have no yard? Check out this drawbridge window garden from TreeHugger, or this pallet-to-garden tutorial from Life on the Balcony.
• While you’re stuck on your little fire escape / balcony / non-yard, maybe you’d be interested in this portable deck.
• I can’t match that segue, but speaking of Segways and two-wheeled transportation, here is a brief tutorial on how to restore an old bike.
• Remember our Month of Erin Wearin’ Goodwill? If you liked that, you’ll love Coriander’s One Dress for One Month project. She’s wearing one dress throughout the entire month of May.

Have a great weekend!

I get so excited when it’s gardening time. Ever since I decided a few years ago that I wanted to take a stab at gardening, I’ve started getting excited about it earlier each year and subsequently allowed my garden to take over more of my back yard. First I built an elevated garden in the back of the yard a few years ago. Then I added a separate squash and zucchini satellite garden last year. This spring, Garden II has expanded to include all elliptical produce (meaning I added cucumbers over there too) and I’m thinking of claiming a flower garden for my broccoli (Garden III).

This love of gardening and my ever-expanding arsenal of crops means that I need a good way to identify my plants and a good way to start them.

sustainablog.org

One of Sustainablog’s 5 DIY indoor gardening projects is to use a phonebook as a seedbed. They’re biodegradable, they’ll help your seedlings grow straight, and — best of all — no matter how much you wish otherwise, someone is going to bring you a new one every year!

So how do you remember what you planted? Sure, if I wait long enough, I’ll be able to figure out which ones are the tomatoes and which ones are the spinach, but TreeHugger has put together a tutorial on using old drink cups to make plant tags. And while it doesn’t have the legitimacy of an accompanying online tutorial, I also use old plastic drink cups — bottoms cut off — to protect my seedlings from birds. The rabbits in my yard are either too polite or too dumb to go eat the things in my garden, but I’ve found that my neighborhood birds see seedlings and think “I should pluck that.” So by placing a drink cup upside down with the bottom cut out, the little guys can get their sun and water while also being shielded from the birds.

It’s not too late to plant your garden, so grab your empty fast food cups and phonebook and get started!

When thinking green, we often hear about riding a bike instead of driving, starting a backyard garden, and turning off electronics that we aren’t using. Often overlooked is clothing. Like it or not, we’re expected to get dressed every morning, but there is a way to do it while being kind to the Earth!

Slow Fashioned has put together six tips for making your wardrobe a little more eco-friendly:

ACCESSORIZE

Mixing up your basic wardrobe with a funky vintage hat, brightly colored scarf, or sparkling jewelry can afford you thousands of different combinations and unique looks! Accessories offer an endless array of combinations when added to a basic wardrobe.
1 Scarf x (worn 5 different ways) = 5 Different Looks

QUALITY OVER QUANTITY

Make your shopping decisions based on quality rather than quantity. Classic garments that won’t ‘go out of style’ quickly are a great money-saving, eco-friendly, and slow fashioned choice. When you choose higher quality you may spend more up front but your clothing will last much longer, this means you’re likely to save money over the long run.
1 Classic High-Quality Blazer > 10 Cheaply Made Blazers

There are four more where that came from, so head over to Slow Fashioned for more tips!

After my month of wearing Goodwill, I know that I can (and should!) get by with less clothing. Time to clean out my closet, share the items I no longer need with friends or donate to Goodwill, and start following the tips from Slow Fashioned.

Repurposing and refinishing old furniture doesn’t have to be a huge commitment of time or money.

Omaha resident Ashlee Young was able to restore this old dresser on a budget of less than $40 using just spare time on evenings and weekends.

Ashlee and her husband just bought a new house last month, and she was looking for inexpensive ways to furnish it.

“I went to grad school for two years, so I’m a very thrifty person,” she said.

The home has a long walls in the entry area, so she thought about getting an old dresser. A friend suggested checking out Goodwill’s WearHouse store at 72nd & F, and so Ashlee decided to stop by on her way home.

And as luck would have it, there happened to be a large, nine-drawer dresser on the sales floor for only $20. Having repurposed and restored other furniture before, Ashlee saw the potential in the dresser and brought it home.

During her spare time over the next week, Ashlee sanded down the dresser, applied two coats of primer, painted the dresser white, added the blue accents and then added a few finishing touches.
(more…)

photo by Sarah Baker Hansen

I’m going to be up front with you folks — I’ve never owned a silk blouse. Though in the interest of full disclosure, I did have a silk shirt that I wore to a middle school dance in the early 90s (top button buttoned, of course). The point is, I don’t know much about caring for silk clothing. However, somebody else does!

Omaha World-Herald food reporter (and occasional Goodwill Omaha chili contest judge) Sarah Baker Hansen recently found herself struggling with the issue of how best to clean silk blouses she’d purchased at thrift stores. One one hand, they’re delicate and need extra care. On the other hand, it can be hard to justify paying for dry-cleaning for something that initially cost a dollar or two.

Thus an experiment was born. Read all about Sarah’s venture into DIY Dry Cleaning on her blog at omavore.omaha.com.