I had the opportunity recently to completely invade a new friend’s kitchen.

We were working together to cook for a party, and the conversation came so easily.

She is a long-time vegetarian and advocate of natural living. Her kitchen reflects a love of good, nutritious food and the environment too.

One of my favorite things I noticed in her kitchen was her simple compost pot.

She explained that she had seen expensive stainless steel compost pots in magazines and online, and quickly realized they they were, essentially just a pot. So she has allocated one kitchen stockpot  to be her compost pot. She keeps it by her sink and adds fruits and vegetable scraps (of which there are many in her busy, healthy kitchen).

She uses a clear lid, which controls any mild odors, and she can see when it is getting full anyway, so she takes it outside to add to the heap.

Simple and totally doable! And something I have since added to my own kitchen.

I do not have a serger.

I took a sewing class this summer and our teacher let us experiment with a serger, and oh man, I can see how a serger would come in very handy.

For a long time, I read cloth napkin tutorials online and wondered if it was worth it to invest in a special machine just to make them (MANY tutorials call for serged edges).

But a few years ago, I decided to try make a basket of cloth napkins without using a serger.

The results have lasted us until this point and have never frayed or come undone.

So although I might still, at times, dream of serging my little heart out, you don’t need a serger to make a whole stack of awesome cloth napkins.

You don’t even need much time or money. My first batch of napkins was made entirely out of bargain bin fabrics, and small pieces at that so there could be lots of variety. I made the whole stack, about 32 napkins, during a long weekend.

The key is to assembly-line it. Cut everything, iron everything and sew everything.

A note about the ironing: I know. I iron about 3 times a year outside of sewing. And when it comes to sewing projects, I don’t iron unless the project really calls for it. But ironing the edges on these napkins will make your life so much easier. I promise.

Another quick, time-saving tip … Pick your fabric along one color scheme and you can use the same thread all the way through!

No-serge Cloth Napkins 101

1/4 yard fabric (ours are almost all cotton)

iron

scissors

thread

a very cute basket for organizing your new napkins (optional, I guess)

A 1/4 yard of fabric will make 4 napkins. These will be smaller “tea-size” napkins, but they are great for little faces and little folders. If you want bigger napkins, you can just cut larger pieces of fabric. You can even use this same concept to make a teeny tablecloth!

Fold your fabric in half length-wise and cut. Fold each piece once more and cut again to make four equal pieces.

Fold over the edges 1/4 inch and iron. Fold another 1/4 inch and iron again to create a nice, even edge.

Now, just sew up the edges.

Totally quick and easy — and think of all the trees you are saving each time you use them.

I completely justify keeping a single roll of paper towels on hand for explosive cats and dogs this way!

This is such a small thing — but the smallest things can make a big difference sometimes, right?

I read somewhere recently a tip about remembering your reusable grocery bags for every shopping trip. The tip was to take your bags out to the car as soon as you finish unpacking your groceries.

So the past few weeks, I’ve been doing that (Owen helps me remember), and I always have a bag ready when I stop at a store. I’ve even started using reusable bags at places I never thought to bring a bag into before.

Do you have a trick you use so you don’t forget your bags when you go shopping?

We love our library.

Every week, we pack up the books to return in our bags, and bring our (long) list of new things to look for.

We have friends at the library –  people we see each week who know all of my kids’ interests and favorite authors and topics.

It is one of the happiest and easiest places to go for us; I don’t have to say no much, and there is just so much to discover.

But what we discovered last really put a smile on my face. Our library has opened a coffee shop, and that coffee shop is doing some really great things (please forgive the blurry-ish phone photos!).

They are buying local!

They are cutting down on waste!

They are providing treats for people with food allergies and intolerances (and are the only place I can think of in town to do so!!).

Man, I love a day at the library! And I love how places that buy local, bake gluten-free and recycle are slowly becoming not so hard to find!!

Do you have a shop or restaurant that you frequent that is making green changes and updates?

Something that it really great about writing this blog is that all sorts of little things come to my attention now that I might not have noticed as much before.

We were at the post office last week when I saw a flyer for Go Green stamps.

I hadn’t realized that the U.S. postal Service has been making a lot of green changes during the past several years, including producing greener packaging materials, publicly reporting greehouse gas emissions and reducing its energy output.

The stamps feature green tips like reusing bags, sharing rides, and planting trees — this is stuff that most of us already know, of course, but I still like the comittment the postal service is showing by producing them, and making changes that honor the environment.

For more information about the postal service’s Go Green Commitment or to buy the new stamps, visit http://www.usps.com/green/.

And speaking of small green steps, stay tuned for a give-away I’m announcing on Tuesday that is all about how small steps are making a difference every day!

Happy Earth Day!!

I am so excited to be featuring a really great give-away today from I’m Organic!

As a lot of you know, we’ve spent Earth Month talking about natural and safe cleaning and this give-away will help you to create your own green cleaning kit! Plus, you’ll get one of I’m Organic’s limited edition Earth Day bags!

Inside your I’m Organic bag you’ll get:

• two kinds of Dr. Bronner’s castile soap
• tea tree oil
• baking soda
• vinegar
• borax
• washing soda

With these ingredients will be able to make the recipes featured here during the past month including laundry soap, all-purpose spray, bathroom cleaners and more!

All you have to do to enter is tell us how you are celebrating Earth Day this year!

So leave a comment below about how you plan to celebrate Earth Day. Comments will close Monday at noon. A winner will be announced in Tuesday’s post! Good luck, and Happy Earth Day from I’m Organic!!

(PIP )Project in Pictures … Eggshell Garden

I feel like this post should come with a disclaimer: I am no washer woman.

I am not particularly good with laundry. There are a lot of times that I put a load in, and forget about it for three days.

But I get kind of crazy excited about green laundry.

This really started for us when we began cloth diapering after Owen was born.

The kid went through a lot of diapers, which meant that we were doing a lot of laundry. But we had chosen cloth diapers in part to avoid chemicals, so it didn’t make a lot of sense to clean them with chemical detergents.

Instead, we started making big batches of our own detergent, and drying them in the sun to remove spots.

Of course, this was harder in the winter, so on really tough stains we made a paste of washing soda and club soda. All those sodas got out most stains, including, ahem, “diaper-related” stains.

Now comes the time to confess that although I don’t use Downy, I do have a Downy ball. I mentioned above that I sometimes forget about wet laundry for three days, so there’s pretty much no way I am going to remember to dash downstairs during the rinse cycle to throw in vinegar. But vinegar is a great natural fabric softener, and helps remove odors, so I put some in the ball sometimes.

That brings me to my overall feelings on actual fabric softeners, which can be summed up as: “Who needs ‘em?”

Really — I am guessing you are a lovely smelling person all on your own. But just in case, I will share my homemade dryer sheet recipe.

Ready?

Put some essential oil on an old, dry washcloth or unused cloth baby wipe and throw it in the dryer.

That’s it. It will not make your laundry smell like a “field of fresh daisies on a spring day,” but it will smell kind of nice in the background.

Even better, I LOVE line-drying just about anything. It smells so fresh and clean, like actual sunshine, not the purple “sunshine” that comes in a bottle.

Finally, I’d like to share the recipe we use for homemade laundry detergent. My husband mixes this up in big batches during the weekend (a batch usually lasts our family of 4 about a month). We put it all in an old five gallon water jug, but any bucket or really big tub will do.

I like this recipe because unlike the powdered versions I have also tried, it can be used with cold water.

We try to wash all of our laundry using cold water. We did do a hot water “sanitizing” rinse with diapers, and sometimes sheets and towels need a little sanitizing too. But as a rule, we wash on cold, using this soap, and line dry when we can.

A note about the ingredients: Washing soda and borax can be found in the laundry aisle of big grocery stores. The 20 Mule Team Borax folks recently did a super update on their packing because suddenly the stuff is hip again. But there’s lots of good tips on there about how to use it and it is definitely worth the investment.

By the way — did I mention that this soap is super cheap? Like cents per load! Single-digit cents if I remember correctly.

About the “bar of soap” … I love using a bar of Dr. Bronner’s. Peppermint and lavender are both really nice. But in a pinch, you can use Ivory.

Homemade Super Cheap Laundry Detergent

water

1 bar grated soap

1 cup borax

1/2 cup washing soda

essential oils
(if you are using a scented castile soap, you can skip the essential oils. But I like to add a little tea tree for its disinfecting properties anyway. Just about any oil is nice as long as it blends with your bar soap scent.)

Big container (enough to hold five gallons)

Stick or long-handled spoon

funnel (not necessary with a bucket, but helps a lot with a water jug)

Bring 4 to 5 cups of water to a boil on the stove.

While water is boiling, fill a large jug or bucket (enough to hold 5 gallons of soap) with about 3 gallons of warm water.

Grate soap bar. When the water boils, add the grated soap and stir into it is mostly dissolved.

Add soap mixture in jug/bucket, and stir in washing soda and borax. Stir well to combine. Add essential oils.

Put in a place to cool (we usually set ours outside)

You may want to put some in a smaller container for easier use. And old liquid laundry detergent bottle actually works well for this. So does an old milk jug. Just mark it clearly!

This mixture may separate and look a little funny. Just give it a stir or shake. It will be OK.

This works well in all kinds of washers and is low-sudsing. It’s totally safe for diapers, and helps to prevent build-up, but if you are going to use it on an antique tablecloth or your grandmother’s wedding dress or anything, maybe test it on a small area first.

Happy Washing!!

Owen got a typewriter from my mom’s husband.

It is old, a tan electric thing with a broken quote mark key, but he is in love.

He wrote a thank-you note using the type-writer, which he has named “Old Typey”:

“Dear Steve, Thank you so much for the nice gift. It is special because it is sooo old and it has a story with it because it belonged to you and Geeg.”

It is kind of special because of its age. This is not something you could walk into Wal-Mart and buy right now. It’s really hard to find old-fashioned typewriters anymore at all.

My kid thinks that is kind of cool, and I’m inclined to agree.

And so, every day, he is spending a little time writing books on something he calls, “basically a computer without a screen.” This makes typing harder, he says, because you make a few more mistakes.

Owen asked me the other day what would have happened if he hadn’t “wanted a typewriter his whole life,” and become the happy recipient of Old Typey.

I’m not sure what would have happened. But it has a home now with a boy who loves it a lot.

It’s a reminder to me that sometimes the best gifts are the ones that escape the recycling bin to get a brand new life.

What is your favorite hand-me-down at your house? Share the story in the comments below!