Fabulous Fail

Sometimes, your best thrifted DIY intentions fail you. After two months of frugal, patient shopping, crafting, painting, sewing, and jewelry-making, my Halloween costume was a huge flop.

Literally. After a couple wrong cuts, the top of my dress lost all structure and became floppy.

So, all of a sudden, I'm a day away away from Halloween, and no costume, and I still want to keep my two priorities:

1) Save $$.
2) Reused, recycled, or borrowed.

Thank goodness, Goodwill came to the rescue. I'll follow with a picture of the final product after Halloween, but I've decided to go as punk Eleven from Stranger Things. That's her in the middle:

(Image borrowed, copyright Netflix)

The good news is these are pretty normal clothes, so I only needed two items: white sneakers (how do I not have these?) and an over-sized black coat.

Here's what I scored. Like-new Nikes, a deal at $15. That logo's from the '70s, so someone had them stashed in a closet for a very long time. They fit great, so I'll incorporate them into my weekend wardrobe.

This wool blazer. New with tags, that shows it would have been $175! Now I got it over-sized, but it turns out it's exactly the right size for T. Not only did I get a screaming deal for $20, but T will get to incorporate it into his regular wardrobe.

$35 for a Halloween costume, where we can reuse everything? That's a Halloween Treat.

November 6th - Vote for the Planet

I got my ballot for the midterms in the mail today.

According to The Environmental Voter Project, 15.78 million environmentalists did not vote in the 2014 midterm election*, and only 4% of voters listed Climate Change & The Environment as the most or 2nd most important issue in choosing a presidential candidate**. Their hypothesis? "If environmental issues are a low priority for voters, they will be a low priority for policy makers."

Voting is the most formal way to get your voice heard, whether it's choosing candidates that share your beliefs or voting on specific policies.

First, confirm that you are registered to vote with your current address, etc. You can still register to vote in Washington State in person until October 29th. Click here for information.

Next, keep yourself honest: you can check on your own voter history here for Washington or by Googling "my voter history" and your state.

Finally, VOTE! If you live in Washington, you are lucky that you can vote by mail, which gives you a couple weeks to complete your form and mail or drop it off at an official drop-box.

If you are in a state that doesn't have mail-in ballots, and transportation is a hardship to get to your polling location:

• Lyft is offering 50% off rides on November 6th or even free rides to under-served populations. Check out their partners for promo codes.
• Uber is also offering free rides through partner organizations. 

First time voting from your current address? Find your polling location here.

What you can do:
Easy: vote!
Advanced: get involved with The Environmental Voter Project to support others in voting


*From the Environmental Voter Project's 2017 impact report.
**Per an AR Research poll leading up to the 2016 presidential election.

Style and Savings

It's been at least 5 minutes since I've talked about Buy Nothing, so I wanted to brag about my latest "gift". For those who aren't familiar with Buy Nothing, think about the free section of Craigslist but limited to your neighborhood. Since they are closed Facebook groups, you can also put a face to a name and have some community guidelines.

Normally, I use Buy Nothing to give away items, but this week, I was a lucky recipient of a leather Style & Co purse! This would have cost $65 new at Macy's, and the great news is it's in like new condition.

Petite, so it won't weigh me down, but with plenty of pockets, this is perfect for my upcoming vacation. With the classic back and gold, it will function well for day to night. There are spots for cards, sunglasses, and more, with zippers aplenty to keep me from spilling out!

Now to put my $65 in savings into the purse for souvenirs! 

Have you given or recieved from a local gifting group?

Wilted... but not Wasted!

I was gifted a carton of cherry tomatoes, and also received a carton in my produce box, and just couldn't get to all those delicious tomatoes in time. I came back from a business trip to them all wrinkled.

Google to the rescue. Multiple sites said it wasn't too late, and they were recoverable if I roasted them.

Step 1: pierce each tomato. I used a fondue fork.

Step 2: drizzle with olive oil and a little salt and paper or desired seasonings.

Step 3: roast until browned. I did 375 degrees for 30 minutes.

Step 4: Enjoy! These came out perfect. You couldn't tell that just 30 minutes earlier they were were all dried out and shriveled. Throw a handful in a pasta dish, or smash into a sandwich.

Travels, and Gearing Up for Halloween

Hi Friends ~

It's been a whirlwind of a last few weeks, so today, this will be a bit of a digest:

First, I've been getting really prepared for Halloween. Halloween? That's a couple of months away! Yes, but when you want to thrift all your components, sometimes you've got to plan ahead. :)

I'm going to be this Klimpt painting, "Adele Bloch-Bauer I". Of course, no one will know who I am, except for art history nerds, but #worthit to get to wear a gold dress.

My base will be a white maxi dress found at Crossroads ($20), and a gold tablecloth ($5) and gold shower curtain ($4) found at Value Village. I'm most excited about the shower curtain, which will give me the eyeball shapes needed for the middle of Adele's dress.

I'll be sure to post the finished product after Halloween, with a step-by-step on how to create the look.

Last week, I went on a business trip to Luxembourg. If you don't know it, it's a small country sandwiched between Germany, France, and Belgium. One cool thing was seeing closed-loop upcycling of our office paper to toilet paper by a Luxembourg company TechnoGreen. Yes, there were jokes about using our last quarter's reports for our personal functions. :) Does your office do anything cool to manage office waste?

Next month, T and I are taking a much needed vacation. After sweating my way through Luxembourg, I decided to bite the bullet and stock up on some capri pants. Value Village delivered again, and I scored three pairs of pants for $13. The biggest win were the Calvin Klein pair, which run $60 new, and I got for $3. 

Here's to the start of great fall!

Shhh... Victoria's Secret is out

I stopped into Vickie's this weekend (bras are one item I won't be thrifting), and was pleasantly surprised to see this sign. You bring in old bras to recycle and get a $10 credit towards a new bra. With the cost of VS bras, this is a decent discount of 15-20%.

VS isn't the only mainstream store trying to reduce the impact of your new purchases. Just a couple other examples:

• H&M will give you a discount voucher for recycling textiles of any brand.
• Madewell will give you $20 off jeans when you bring back old jeans, which they then recycle into housing insulation. 
• The North Face will give you $10 when you donate clothes or shoes of any brand, which the then use for disaster relief or micro-businesses. 

There are more and more programs like this popping up. While we still have too many new clothes and fast fashion items entering the system, this is a great way to participate in recycling, especially for those items that you want to purchase new.

Ham, and Brussel Sprouts, and Butterball, and Limes!

What do these things all have in common? They've all entered my home in nylon mesh bags.

These are not recyclable in some municipalities, but there are many ideas online for how to reuse these. The most direct reuse with no crafting skills needed at all is: Bring them back to the store and use them again as bags for your loose produce! 

But, if you want to get into crafting or upcycling, the most common idea I've seen is to form them into kitchen scrubbies. The patterns go from extremely easy to advanced: some are no-sew, some involve sewing, some involve crocheting. Depending on your skill and desire for pretty kitchen accessories will help you choose your method. My priority was EASY. :) 

I worked off of this tutorial. Laurie's scrubbie came out a bit more attractive than mine due to having bags of the same size and color.

First step: prep your bags by trimming off any tags and hardware.

Next, tie one end shut, and then flip the bag inside out so the knot is on the inside. 

Roll up and stuff a few other bags inside the first one. Once you have the desired size, tie a knot at the top of your first bag. Laurie left her top knot visible - I finished mine by sewing the "tail" flat, leaving me with just a ball. I also switched mid project from purple, to green and yellow, just because I didn't have enough purple and green yellow was the most attractive color combo I had available. Totally your choice if you are thinking of aesthetics, or pure functionality!

Last step: test out your new scrubbie at your next meal!

Postponed: 4 nylon bags into the landfill.
Saved: about $1