Tag Archives: reusing

All A-Board Game: Arts & Scraps Pirate Bounty

27 Oct

I know that I’ve missed Talk Like A Pirate Day so stop your lily-livered yappin. Me thinks any day is sufficient for celebratin’ pirates.

I was inspired to make a pirate-themed gift for me land-lubbin’ mateys (the scally wags…) when I docked at the landlocked little gem of Detroit, Arts & Scraps.

Arts & Scraps is a hearty organization that takes donated recycled materials and uses them to help kids and grown-ups alike “think, create, and learn”. They make kits out of their scraps that kids can use to make wonderful art. They also throw birthday parties, hang student art up in their gallery, host field trips, AND have an entire fabric room stuffed to the gills with fabric. Well, shiver me timbers!!!!

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S is for Hobo

29 Jul

S is for summer. For Sno-Cones and sandy beaches, sunny afternoons, Sting, and a sh#% ton of weddings, birthday parties, and reunions to attend. This time of year can fill up fast. It’s a particularly packed schedule for those of us in the Midwest who are trying to cram all of our outdoor social events into the Non-Snow months.

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I Still Know What You Made This Summer: Dandelion Wine Part 2

6 Jul

Ann-ie. Back again. Check  it to wreck it. Let’s begin.

When we last left our tub of hissing raisins and yeast it was just one more smelly bucket sittin’ on a table. But this was The Little Bucket That Could. Ferment, that is. And ferment it did. Leaving me and my beau with some engorged raisins, some muck, and, hopefully, some booze.

Here’s what we did in the second stage of Wine’n, not to be confused with regular Whinin’, which is what we did after we read that we couldn’t drink it for six months.

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Get your Dander Up! Dandelion Wine: Part One

18 May

“If you had your way you’d pass a law to abolish all the little jobs, the little things. But then you’d leave yourself nothing to do between the big jobs and you’d have a devil of a time thinking up things to do so you wouldn’t go crazy. Instead of that, why not let nature show you a few things? Cutting grass and pulling weeds can be a way of life, son.” -from Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

Spring! And haven’t we had a lovely one so far? Whenever the weather starts getting warmer like this, I always think of school days, those last afternoons of the year when it seemed like everyone, students and teachers alike, were all just waiting it out until summer vacation. The hallways smelled different, thicker, and it was harder to concentrate with the sounds and smells of someone mowing the lawn coming in from the open windows. And most of all, I think of the day that came every year, the day I got off of the bus and my whole yard had turned yellow with dandelions.

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Armchair Spring Break: Putting the S back in Scrap-Crafts

23 Mar

This year, what happens on spring break stays on my couch. Because that’s where I’ll be. Without so much as the cable television to watch others enjoying themselves on vacay. I’m resourceful, but not resourceful enough to come up with Cabo cash. Or Vegas cash. Or even Delaware cash. What I can do is camp out in my Bermuda shorts with a microwaved hot dog and a pile of junk and daydream about the next time I get out of Dodge.

Which is how I came up with the little gifty I made for my summer road-trip buddy: a little pre-road trip preparation. While organizing my collage materials (Thrifty New Year’s Resolution. Check.) into categories such as Buildings and Objects, Animals and People, Retro, and Nature-y, I decided to create a clipboard for my Road-Trip Skipper so that we would have a place to keep all our important road trip documents…should we scare up the money to go on another road trip.

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The Cheap Sweets: Last Minute Valentines

13 Feb

Oscar Wilde said, “Who, being loved, is poor?“, which, looked at one way, is the whole point of this blog. However, reading this quote on the 12th of any given month, student loan check-writing day, a day of tear-smudged ink and boxed wine-smudged everything else, can give you a different perspective on love’s ability to pay the bills.

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2010 Cheap Things: January

11 Jan

Martha has Good Things. I’ve got Cheap Things. Here’s a list of the stuff (and activities) we can love whilst wallowing in post-holiday, post-car repair, post-ridiculously expensive education debt:

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Thriftful New Year’s Resolutions

8 Jan

You did it. You made it through 2009, swine flu, unemployment rates and the staggering blow of the Susan Sarandon/Tim Robbins split be damned. You survived. Welcome to 2010.

Maybe you made some resolutions for the new year, maybe you didn’t. Maybe, like me, you already broke some. I hate to pile more on your proverbial plate, but there are some things I think you may have missed. On that whole page of promises, packed between the sleep betters, eat betters, do mores, and make mores, did you maybe skip over a little ol’ resolution to be thriftier and more thoughtful? Hmmmm? As Data from Goonies would say, “Shame, shame, you know your name!”

Don’t panic, though. 2010 isn’t a total wash yet. You can borrow some of my resolutions to be thriftful and start this decade off right (thank me later): (more…)

Man Gift Series: Sam Malone’s Bar Tray

29 Dec

Holiday parties are wrapping up and your bank account and creativity brain cells have all been emptied coming up with awesome family gift ideas and a new spin on chip dip for the Office Holiday Potluck (don’t worry, their standards are low since you’ve been bringing cups and napkins the past two years). Then, just as you’re sitting down to relax and reflect on your year, it creeps up on you: you forgot to get someone a present. Maybe you accidentally skipped your brother-in-law, forgot about your hairdresser, or received an unexpected gift from the guy that lives across the hall and feel obligated to reciprocate. But your joyful giving spirit has departed and now you’re scrambling through your closet trying to find a board game without missing pieces that you can wrap up. This is where I come in.

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Gift Wrap for the Broke and Uninspired

21 Dec

My Grandpa made these.

You may have thought the ride was over because you finished buying or making your gifts for the season. Oh no (haughty laugh). Think of your gifts as you would an old cat pee stain or that muffin top hanging over your pants: You gotta cover that s*** up.

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