Upcycling Sunday!

Upcycling, def. the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or for better environmental value.

Wikipedia.org

I have really been on a roll this past couple of weeks; sorting, selling, Freecycling, gifting and trashing. After my initial sweep through the house, about a month ago, I am now going back and having a more thorough sort. This means going through closets, boxes and making harder choices.

And one of the things I'm finding about this second sweep, is that I am making huge messes in the house. There are just piles of things all over the place; stuff to sort, things to donate, or sell, or organize. I keep telling myself that once this is all done, our home will be better for it, but it's not exactly an easy, or quick, process.

One of the things that I consistently hear (from My Good Man!) when I suggest getting things out of the house, is the age old argument that "we might need it someday", to which I generally retort "well when we do, the one that we're keeping will be so out of style/too old/cheaper to buy again". I've generally disregarded that whole argument.

Until last week, when I had real first hand experience of this very issue. We received a VitaMIx as a holiday/birthday gift from family (a kithcen item that we have been hankering for, for quite some time). So out went our dependable, but now obsolete blender.

Two days later, our lovely new VitaMix started to make horrible sounds while blending, accompanied by a strong burning smell. Not good.

So back to the VitaMix company it went, and we suddenly found ourselves without a blender! At least My Good Man had the decency not to tease me for my cut throat "get it out of here" attitude!

And a quick update on my 2013 in 2013 project ... I'm currently at 533 items out of the house, via sale, gift, donate or trash, leaving just 1480 items more before the year is out. Not too shabby!


And how is your Upcycling/donating/organizing going? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

Upcycling Sunday!

*Sorry this is getting out to you a little later than usual; I had technical issues, aka I forgot to press the 'publish' button. Oops!

Upcycling, def. the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or for better environmental value.

Wikipedia.org

Maybe it's the colder weather keeping us indoors more, or maybe the fact that we are getting the house ready for guests in a couple of weeks, but I have suddenly been hit by a bit of a de-cluttering bug.

I've been toying with the idea of becoming more minimalist for a while. Our small home feels so much smaller with lots of 'stuff' in it.

I always like to find other people who are doing the smae thing as me, so I was excited to find a group on Diaper Swappers who have given themselves a challenge; 2012 in 2012 - that is re-gifting, donating, selling or throwing away 2012 items in the year 2012. Joining a little late, I signed up for the mini-challenge of 168 items in the month of December. (2012 items equals 168 items each month!)

I love a challenge!

One day in, and I am already 63 items down, leaving only 105 more items to pass on to reach the challenge. (I was lucky enough to be able to Freecycle most of these items, but some just had to go in the trash ... old tea bags from 2002 and dried out markers are two examples).

I won't bore you with pictures of all 63 items, but here a couple of highlights!

 

So, yes! - this is all kid's stuff. But, going through it and getting stuff out of the house feels so good :-)

How about you? What did you Upcycle this week? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

Upcycling Sunday!

Upcycling, def. the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or for better environmental value.

Wikipedia.org

I keep a box next to my desk in my home office, and each time I find something that can be Freecycled I just pop it into the box. Then when I have a spare couple of minutes, I'll sit down to post a couple of items ... very efficient!!

This week I worked through the box a little more and found new homes for these ...

and these ...

and this ... (with thanks to Baby Girl for the help ;-)

and these ... 

and this ...

I had a major Upcycling project underway this week involving Freecycle and gifted clothing, a broken umbrella, a re-purposed hat, and some old felt! But the project is behind schedule, so you will have to wait until next week to hear more about it I'm afraid. But at least I've now piqued your curiosity!

And what about you? What are you Upcycling this week? Feel free to share in comments below; I'd love to hear from you!

Upcycling Sunday!

Upcycling def. the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or for better environmental value.

Wikipedia.org

A good week for Upcycling!

We gave a bag of fireworks to a neighbor who was going to a big family celebration. (They *really* enjoyed them, which made me oh-so-happy! We've been saving them for an occasion for ages, so giving them away to help celebrate someone else's special occasion felt really good!)

Two kennels went to a friend of ours who has a new kitten (we had three kitty crates, and three kitties; now we just have our one cat, Puffin Muffin, with us, so we only need the one crate).

Before ...

 ... and after!

Some gift bags went to a new home through Freecycle. (No photo ... they went so quickly!)

I made a new (longer) door snake to replace a store bought (much shorter!) So the shorter one went out to a Freecycler.

Two stacks of magazines went out on Freecycle as well.

I also sold a homeschooling book through an online group.

The Little Ones have suddenly decided that they're done with baby food, so the pouches of purees went to our local homeless shelter.

But really, the big Upcycle this week were the three huge bags of baby clothes that I took to a consignment sale yesterday. I marked all of my items to be donated if they don't sell, so it's really a triple whammy; I move some things out of the house, I may make some money from the venture and other people get the benefit of the donated items - it's all good!

And what about you? What are you Upcycling this week?

1. Please enter the direct link to your Upcycling Sunday blog post in the Linky tool below. If you don’t have a blog but still have something to share, feel free to add it to the comments.
2. Be sure to come back and read others links.
3. Check back next week to link up again!

Upcycling Sunday

Upcycling def. the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or for better environmental value.

Wikipedia.org

One of my major goals with living a simpler life, is to clear some of the 'stuff' out of our home. I don't think I have it in me to become a strict minimalist, but less clutter and more space in our snug little home would be a good thing.

I'd love to start a weekly feature tracking the items that I am able to 'upcycle' to a new home each week, whether it be through Freecyle, selling, gifting or donating.

If you are unfamiliar with Freecycle, check out my link ... I just love this organization, and they seem to be growing rapidly. I really find Craig's List to be another good place to either sell or give away items, as well as Diaper Swappers, for diapers, children and baby items and clothes, and some mama items (such as maternity wear and nursing items).

I gave away a stack of pre-fold diapers, through Diaper Swappers ...

 ... and a stack of covers,

 ... and this changing mat,

  ... and this cover! All of the above were gifted to me by someone through Freecycle, and I just wasn't using them. This was a great way to find them a new home where they'll get used!

Speaking of Freecycle, I found new homes for two lamps that weren't being used.

A good week!

And what about you? What were you able to Upcycle this week?


What are you Upcycling this week?

1. Please enter the direct link to your Upcycling Sunday blog post in the Linky tool below. If you don’t have a blog but still have something to share, feel free to add it to the comments.
2. Be sure to come back and read others’ links.
3. Check back next week to link up again!

Living Simply

This blog used to be called Crunchy in the 'Burbs. When I first started writing this a couple of years ago, that was my main focus. It was really important for my family to live a 'crunchy' lifestyle (organic foods, to live with a light environmental step, as consciously as possible).

Which is wonderful ... but over the course of the past two years, life here in the CrunchyBurbs home has seen some significant changes, namely two new little ones, our twins Baby Girl and My Little Boy.

Life went from busy to just flat out crazed with occasional dips into merely hectic.

Our focus slowly, slowly went from living as organically as possible to just living.  And then, I found that for our little family, the key to our success was to live as Simply as possible.

For us that means letting go of stuff, both physical and emotional, slowing down, more love, less drama.

So, we turned off the television, gave away a lot of stuff (toys and clutter), we take more walks, and do more craft projects. We bake and cook more, and heat and eat less. We go to fewer kid's classes, but spend more time poking around in the garden.  We spend less time in the car, and more time just hanging out.

My days are still busy, but I'm more likely to be worn out from building playsilk forts than chasing little ones around the mall.

So here we are, Simply ... in the 'Burbs!

So much ...

If I had to list my roles I would have to start out with

1. mama, and
2. wife

Then there would be

3. work-at-home-mama
4. homemaker (cook, cleaner, bottle-washer!)

But, somewhere in my list of roles, I would have to add

8. Ridder-of-stuff

We live pretty frugally and I don't buy a lot of 'stuff'. Gone are the days when we would go to our local Target store just to see what was there, and invariably come home with bags of stuff that we never knew we needed!

These days we are a cozy family of five living in a pretty small house, and there are times that I feel we are just drowning in 'stuff'. Despite my best intentions, and the nearly constant flow of things leaving the house (whether it be through selling items, giving them away or freecycling), we just have so much 'stuff' left to live with.

I'm rather envious of friend's homes that are less cluttered than mine. Did they collect less? Give more away?

Or do they just have better storage than me?!

For now though, I'll just continue with my role, as the family's Ridder-of-stuff.

What are your favorite ways to find new homes for your no-longer-needed stuff?