Ultimate Plastic Bag Instructions

After receiving several hints about preparing some instructions about how I make my plastic handbags, I have done just that here. I hope these instructions might be helpful...

Highlights

Charming thatches of gray have featured just above my ears for decades. I have even joked with my hairdresser about my free highlights. However, since turning 50 these points of interest seem to be spreading their joy.

My family and I have agreed that I am taking after my grandmother in many ways. Considering that her hair turned gray during her 50's, it is no surprise that gray strands are now mingling with my brunette locks.

My grandmother finally accepted the gray tinge after many years of dyeing her hair. I have often noticed women with their natural hair colour emerging along their part. Since two-toned hair is not my idea of a fashion statement, for the past month I have been trying a more natural method. 

Google has once again helped me in this endeavour. Many web pages praise the combination of rosemary and sage tea as an effective and natural hair colour option, with the added bonus of it being
an easy process.

Natural colour recipe ingredients:
1 tsp rosemary heaped
1 tsp sage heaped
boiling water

Instructions:
Put rosemary and sage herbs into a cup.
Fill cup with boiling water.
After the mix has cooled strain the liquid into a spray bottle.

Each morning for three weeks I sprayed the mix onto my hair and then after 10 minutes washed my hair normally. Now I just use the spray once or twice a week for maintenance.

Web pages suggest that the spray will only last for a week and should be kept in the fridge. However I am finding that it can last longer out of the fridge in these cooler months.

I am pleased with the results. If I finger through my hair I still see strands of gray, but after preparing my hair for the day the gray is barely there.

A herbal tea mix doesn’t provide the immediate fix that a salon can but I like the idea of using herbs in this way.  My thatched highlights might not be so visible now but how I’m handling this is more sustainable and satisfying.

New plastic bag

Here's my latest creation with reversed colour schemes on front and back, and on the sides. It is fun playing with different colours. This bag brings lots of admiring looks, including my own!

 

Check out the gallery showing bags made over the past few years along with instructions to make the bags.  

Christmas Creations

Christmas Day was a lot of fun, particularly when my next two plastic bag creations were happily whisked away by my delighted mother and sister.

As is generally the way, these creations have surpassed the initial prototype. Handles bought at Spotlight with a spiffy way of attaching them has given each bag a classy look. 

Two big pink bags meant to be filled with clothes and placed outside for collection were instead made up into four squares to adorn the sides of an otherwise white bag. The black printing on the pink bags resulted in interesting squiggles throughout the sea of pink. At the request of my Mum some plastic ends were left partially exposed, just to prove authenticity of course!

Having dipped my fingers into colour, it became the imperative. Family members passed through coloured bags while buying small items over a few days from the local greengrocer resulted in some pretty purple and green bags which were quickly made up into sparkling squares. I even stooped to trolling through the plastic bag recycling bin in Woolworths which scored a handy stash. 

While I have a preference for used plastic bags, this went out the door while finishing off my sister’s bag. She prefers colourful objects, no doubt stemming from her artistic talent, and black edging was the best way to go. However, used black plastic bags are hard to come by so some purchased garbage bags were used. I felt a little easier about this when I noticed their “earth friendly bags” tag. 

When making up the bags, I joined the 14 squares together in pairs, and then joined two pairs together to make the front and back leaving the remaining pairs for the sides and bottoms. In each case the edges were placed side by side and then a tapestry needle used to loop some plarn (plastic yarn) along the edges.

Then I joined each of the front and back sections to the bottom pair by placing the edges together and securing them by running the tapestry needle up and down through the squares just inside the edge to give a nice finish. The side pairs were also attached to the base by placing the edges together, which ensures that the bag will stand up easily, and looping the thread through the edges. After the sides edges were looped against the front and back edges, the almost completed bag could stand up. 

Then I had the dilemma of how to attach the handles. I ended up extending small flaps of 8 rows of 8 treble groups centered on the front and back panels. Each of the resulting flaps were then wound around the handle’s base and secured by crocheting through the top and bottom edge of the flap from inside the bag, which produced a professional finish. 

I’ m afraid that my initial prototype is about to be superseded, as much as I’ve enjoyed showing it off.  Having seen what I can achieve, I have ideas of what I would like to make for myself  and am currently mulling about which colours I’d like in my next creation (or two) with pastels leading the pack.  Of course, what I can actually make depends on the colour of the bags that come my way. 

I have a yen for a white and pastel coloured bag, and a black bag with colours different to the one I made for my sister. As much as I like the professional look that the Spotlight handles give, I’d still like to perfect a good-looking crocheted handle. And of course, each of my creations has to be different, perhaps not in the basic design but definitely in the colours. I think I’ll be busy for some time to come…

Postscript: A subsequent bag is here and instructions are here.

The Ultimate Plastic Bag

This swish looking number will complement any day-time wear with its shiny white veneer and practical trim size. Made from strips cut from plastic bags, this bag is not just functional. It helps the environment as well!

I have always had a crafty project on the go. Two unfinished tapestries have spanned decades but I will get back to them. I really will!

My latest craze involves the plastic bags that make their way into my home. I read an article in Grass Roots (Issue 185 Feb/Mar 2008) that described making garden hats by knitting strips from plastic bags. When I noticed a small stash of plastic bags accumulating in my cupboard I decided to test out the theory. 


For my first plastic project I made crocheted squares reminiscent of the granny rugs that I have made in the past along with cushions in the same design. Some plastic bags with an elongated shallow shape turned out to be a perfect fit. From each bag I ended up with a long strip of plarn (plastic yarn) that was enough to make up a 7 row square with some left over to help finish off the bag. 

It turns out there is an art to cutting a plastic bag into strips. I cut diagonally into the top edge of the bag and proceeded to cut one long strip circling around the bag until I reached the base of the bag. Then I used that long strip to make the 12cm crocheted square that was perfect for the bag I wanted to create. 

In addition to this technique there are web pages suggesting folding the bag lengthwise and cutting into strips. These strips can be looped together and then crocheted as normal. This didn't suit me as it felt too bulky for the small metal crochet hook that I use.

Another technique is to fold the bag lengthwise after trimming off the handles and base and then cut strips almost all the way across while leaving a narrow margin at the top. Cutting diagonally across the narrow margins results in a long strip like the one that I achieved. This is the technique that I will use for plastic bags such as those available from the supermarket.

I look at these plastic bags now with new eyes and am really happy when I receive new ones. Each piece that I receive leaves me wondering how I can make use of it. My family is so impressed that I have already received two requests for Christmas or birthday presents. 

I have read on the internet that this past-time can become addictive. If this is true then I suspect plastic bags are about to undergo a revival. However I won't be rushing to buy more plastic bags as the benefit with this little project is using up those second-hand plastic bags that we all have in our cupboards. So for me if it is not used plastic, then it is not for me!

Postscript: I have now completed two more plastic creations that I have blogged about here with a subsequent bag here, and instructions are here.

Focus on food

I've become very focused on food in the last few years - fortunately on the quality rather than the quantity.

In the past, I have consumed predominantly processed foods including KFC, processed sausage and canned vegetables to name a few, although another popular addition was the health bar. This was despite being brought up on “meat and 3 veg” dinners as a child and having an excellent role model in both my mother and my grandmother who carried on the tradition of good cooking from their era including stews, soups, salads and mostly home-made cakes.

When I started cooking meals, my first attempts were based on Maggi Cook-in-the-pot meal bases - then I moved on to following recipes so I knew what was going into my food.

And that's where the real focus has been over the last few years. I have significantly changed the food that I eat by changing how I prepare my meals which has included growing some vegetables and reducing the use of processed foods.

So instead of buying baked beans in tins, now I cook navy beans and then puree tomatoes in my Thermomix before adding in and cooking the other ingredients along with the beans. An intermediate step in getting to this stage was to use tomato sauce but the Thermomix does such a great job of pureeing the tomatoes that the end product looks just like what I used to get in the supermarket, minus the can of course!

For breakfast I eat some diced fruit, a cooked grain such as rice, barley or quinoa along with some ground nuts and seeds.

Snacks might be home-made mini-muffins or some nuts and dried fruit.

Lunch is predominantly from my patio - lettuce, loose-leaf cabbage, celery stalks or beetroot leaves, snow peas or beans depending on the time of year, tomatoes if it's winter and not too cold (a story for another time) and a capsicum when available. I grow my own sprouts and pour over some fruit syrup that I make by pureeing the fruit and then cooking it with an equal quantity of sugar. And then I add either some cooked chick peas, baked beans or else other beans that I've cooked. Sometimes I might not have enough for lunch so I supplement with some chopped broccoli or zucchini that I've purchased.

Dinner could be a stir-fry or steamed veges with rice, or else I might make up a soup or an indian curry with indian fried rice so I can have some now and freeze the rest for another time.

It might sound like I'm vegetarian and I am sympathetic to it, partly because of the treatment that the animals get but mostly because animals consume far more grain and significant amounts of water to provide a far smaller quantity of meat for consumption. In my home, I am close to being vegetarian. I might have an occasional tin of tuna or frozen fillet of fish, both sustainably fished. I rarely buy milk now for use at home, instead making cashew milk if I really feel like a cappuccino when I'm at home or if a recipe calls for cream or milk. However, I do buy a cappuccino when I'm out but sometimes visit a couple of whole food stores that use rice milk and other non-dairy variations. Plus I'm extremely fortunate that a friend of the family has chooks and is able to pass on free-range organic eggs.

It's an interesting journey because I'm constantly looking for steps in the process that I can take over and do myself rather than purchase the end product off a shelf.

Mini Green Bags

 In late 2007, Tim Robson, a Gardener of the Year finalist on the Gardening Australia show, discussed using organza bags to protect plants from pests rather than spraying with chemicals or using calico bags which look ugly and also exclude the sunlight. 

Capsicums growing on my patio were being attacked pretty badly so I decided to try his suggestion. I bought some dark green organza, selecting a green shade mostly because I believed I could see the fruit more easily than with the other colours available but also because “green” has become synonymous with the environment.

I remembered an Earth Garden article (Issue 137, Sep-Nov 2006) that I had read about making your own bags to hold fruit and vegetables, and followed the steps given. The little bags did a great job of keeping insects away and reduced the damage done to the capsicums.

Then I decided to make a bigger bag for fruit and veges. I tried using tulle as suggested in the article, but found it difficult to work with, so I’ve used organza for these bigger bags.

I get a lot of positive comments about my fruit bags when I'm out shopping, in the same way the author of the article did. People have even suggested that I could sell them. I’m not interested in making enough bags to sell, but might consider making them as presents in the future.

As with everything, there is a downside to this. Since I acquired a worm farm a few years ago, I have been using plastic bags to hold the fruit and veg scraps that I can’t feed to the worms. Now I’m running low on suitable plastic bags. So as much as it goes against my grain, I will need to conveniently forget to use my home-made bags for a little while in order to boost my stash of plastic bags.

A quick catch-up

It is amazing how easily life has caught up with me over the last few years. So now I will do a quick catch-up.

Throughout the second half of 2006, I made some significant changes around my home.

I now have solar panels on my roof, which at the time and possibly still now was a first for Energex to be connecting solar panels on the roof of a townhouse into the grid. The installation was a breeze and sometimes I am pretty chuffed that my electricity bill is as low as $6. That only really happens over summer because there is more sunlight and I also no longer use my airconditioners on a regular basis.

I took on LPG for my commodore which apart from a couple of minor glitches has worked out very well. The loss of a little space in my boot has been more than compensated by a decrease in my petrol/lpg bills.

There is now a water tank in my garage. Some would think that was very brave of me as tanks can often overflow. However this now only happens about once a year in very severe downpours since I worked out the logistics of cleaning out the first flush and the tray at the top of the tank on a regular basis. Admittedly it took me the better part of a year to work that out (or was I just being lazy?)...

I also have a worm farm in my garage. Fortunately it is a reasonably sized garage... After 20 years of using an insinkerator, my second insinkerator failed me. I bought a worm farm and 1000 worms and then played anxious parent for the next few days worried that I would either kill them off or they would do a runner. When all was well after a few weeks, my plumber removed the insinkerator rather than replacing it. More than half of my food scraps go into the worm farm and the rest into my freezer until I put out the regular garbage bin which is now generally after a couple of months.

Plus I have some zero mile food - yes I grow some vegies hydroponically on my patios over winter. Since my patios face north, they provide an ideal environment for growing. Over the past few years I have increased capacity on my lower patio to 9 trays each 2 foot by 1 foot - I know I should be using the metric equivalent of 60cm by 30 cm but 2x1 foot is so much easier to say... I grow beans or snow peas, salad greens such as loose-leaf cabbage, beetroots and celery, shallots, spring onions and herbs in these trays.

And tomatoes and the occasional capsicum plant are grown in 6 tubs on the second patio. In 2008 I grew 22 kg of food which I thought was pretty impressive.

Unfortunately I do not get enough sun on the patios over summer to grow very much. I have found I can grow something on the eastern side of the patios which means one tomato or capsicum plant upstairs and one salad green such as lettuce. So over summer I grow buckwheat lettuce hydroponically on my kitchen ledge which helps to supplement my salads.

And all throughout the year I grow my own sprouts - mainly mung beans, alfalfa and green lentils, but I continue to experiment to see if there are any others I would like to add. A while back, I did try sprouting chick peas and I found they went mouldy. However, I've been told the best way around this is to rinse the chick peas more than twice a day to ensure this does not happen- which is something I will try in the near future.

In the past few months, I have realised that I have another source of zero mile food. I have two camelia plants growing in pots in my back yard, and over the course of each year I pull weeds as they appear in the pots. I recently started to do this but brought a few sprigs inside and googled "edible weeds" to see if what was growing prolifically in my pots was edible. And it turns out that this particular "weed" is - it is chickweed which was eaten as a salad green in earlier times and is now recognised as a beneficial plant. I have read that chickweed only grows from May to July so I am supplementing salads with this delightful addition for as long as it wants to stick around.

Why Simplify?

Hi, and thanks for dropping by. I've had a keen interest for years in simplifying my life - clearing out the clutter - finding quicker and easier ways to do things around my home - and now I am noticing the dire situation our environment is in. The more I can do to simplify my life, the more I can reduce the impact my way of life has on the environment.
My first attempt at simplifying occurred years ago during a minor health scare. Preparing for the worst as we do, I read Hulda Regehr Clark's book called "The Cure for All Cancers" and proceeded to clear out all chemicals in my home and replace them as suggested with chemical-free alternatives which turned out to be a really interesting experiment. When the health scare blew over, I resumed using the same products I had recently culled - again as we do...
Now with what could (or should?) be called a major environmental scare in our world, I am considering revisiting those days...
I noticed an article in a recent newspaper about Torres Strait island communities being threatened by rising sea levels due to global warming. The article states that more than 2000 people from at least six separate communities could lose their land and livelihoods as global warming pushes the shoreline ever closer. It is hard to read articles like this because many of us feel that there is very little that we can do to help the situation.
But there are little steps that we can each take that might cumulatively start to make a difference, such as simple things like taking shorter showers and turning off lights in rooms not being used.
As well as these, I'm also collecting the cold water from the first few minutes of my morning shower before the hot water kicks in and pouring it over plants in my back yard or else using it for hand-washing some clothes.
I receive newspapers electronically, and catch up on the main news items from other newspapers' web sites, thus saving a part or more of a tree...
There are other areas that I'm dabbling in, including growing sprouts, and I see this blog as a great way to potentially share ideas with others on what we can do to improve our own lives and/or that of our neighbours...
I'd be fascinated to know what suggestions you may have for reducing the load we place on our environment...
Ann