Flipping Furniture

This is a different type of post from my typical entries, but still in the line of being a Conscientious Consumer.  Flipping furniture; it's not a euphemism for me cursing at a dresser, it refers to taking an older piece of furniture and turning it into exactly what you want.  I recently did this with a dresser for my daughter.  We thought it wouldn't be difficult to find her a new dresser at any furniture store.  I was wrong, at least if we didn't want to spend a lot of money. Well made dressers were super expensive and less expensive dressers were cheaply made and still around $500.  But we kept on looking. 

Then I started looking on craigslist.  Nothing older was exactly what we were looking for.  I toyed with the idea of refinishing something.  My criteria though would be that the dresser had to be a super deal for me to put that much work into it and then if I failed it wouldn't be a huge loss.  I found a local listing for a few dressers that might fit the bill and my daughter got on board with the idea, super excited that she could pick a color for the dresser.  The dresser we ended up with was listed for $75 and we paid $50 for it.  It wasn't super high quality but it wasn't junk either.

The dresser in it's original state.

Don't get me wrong, there was A LOT of labor involved, all pretty easy and simple steps, but a lot of steps.   But I love a deal so much and creating something special for my daughter felt good. 

• First I removed all the old handles and cleaned the dresser.  It was very dirty. 
• I filled in the old drawer handle holes with wood filler because we were switching to knobs. Then I sanded it lightly to rough up the surface to accept paint.  Tip - if you are doing this a power palm sander comes in handy and saves a lot of time.  There was an area on top that had to really be sanded because of a think layer of grime.  But I knew good preparation would pay off in the end. 
• Then I wiped it down again to make sure all the fine dust was off.  It was finally ready for paint.  I used Behr premium plus ultra paint plus primer in one in a semi-gloss.  My daughter decided on coral for the color.  I wasn't too sure about such a bright color, but I thought if we put some paint on it and totally hated it we could always go with a different color for the second coat. 
• Another light sanding in between coats of paint and then a final second coat. 
• Once it was all dry, I finished it off with a coat of wax and then my husband installed the new knobs. 

This is the final product what do you think?


The finished (or refinished) dresser.

My daughter LOVES it, even though she wasn't sure about the paint color after the first coat.  But it looked a lot different with the second coat and then the drawers put back in. 

How much did I spend?  About $150 in all.  $50 for the dresser then another $100 for the new knobs (about $3 each), paint, wood filler, wax, paint brushes and sand paper.  The cheapest dresser was about $500 so we can safely say I saved about $350, plus sales tax.  That feels really good.  I was exhausted when I finished, but warning it is highly addictive.  I can't wait to start another project like this!

Any questions I can answer about this?  Please comment below and I would be happy to answer!

Reusable Lunch Bags - Revisited

Well, it’s been one whole school year using the reusable sandwich bags I blogged about here.  It was actually the first item I blogged about!  Will I be using them again next year?  Well….probably not, but I definitely won’t be switching back to disposable plastic bags either.  Going a whole school year without using disposable bags, buying them and throwing them out was SUPER.  But the reusable bags aren’t super durable or easy to clean up and they are kind of icky after a year of hard use. 

This lunch bag says it's been a rough year!

Even with that said, they are a great alternative to the plastic bag.  There are just some limitations they share with the plastic bag.

I am going to try a BPA free plastic, dishwasher/micro safe bento box style for next year.  There are many styles but I chose the ones from Easy Lunchboxes because they are reasonably priced (you can order them on Amazon and they are free super saver shipping eligible) and their website also offers great nutritious lunch packing ideas which I also can’t wait to try! 

Well, that’s my thoughts for now, I’ll keep you updated on my experiences. 

Sole Hope

This year for my daughter’s birthday, she wanted to have an African theme.   I LOVE planning my kids’ birthday parties around a theme so early on we ordered a slew of animal print favors from Oriental Trading, picked up some National Geographic giraffe note cards in the dollar bin at Michael’s to use as invitations and the planning began.

The goody bags

We weren’t sure what kind of activity we would do or what charity she wanted to raise money for at the party. I googled different ideas and there were several that were possibilities but we just weren’t sure how to tie it all in together.  I read several adoption blogs and one evening was reading a blog of someone that was at an adoption conference and it included pictures of the booth for their organization and next to them was a booth for Sole Hope.  I went to their website and read all about them.  Children in eastern Africa suffer from jiggers, awful insects that burrow into childrens feet and make them sick.  Sole Hope helps in two ways.   First, they provide employment to widows through teaching them the trade of shoemaking.  Second, the shoes are then given to children in western Africa that have no shoes.  The children are also educated through a story book about why wearing shoes are important.   If that isn't wonderful enough, the soles are made from recycled tires, the heels are made from recycled plastic (such as milk jugs), recycled jeans and fabric.

I thought their shoe-party kits would be perfect for my daughter’s birthday party.  I ordered the kit for 10 people and it arrived within a few days. We watched the video and made a list of supplies we would need. I saved milk jugs and jeans and bought ½ yards of fabrics we liked that were on clearance. 

Prepping for the party, cutting out shoe pieces from old jeans.

Pieces ready to go!

A friend who had been to Africa donated Shetenges (wrap skirts) for the girls to wear. Everyone had a blast! Even though this is a serious and sad problem, the kids got the message of hope that SoleHope is all about. They even got the meaning of the name. It was great to see all the moms come pick their kids up and the first thing they asked were, “Can I see what you guys made?” and I got to explain to them all about this great organization.

Decorating the denim and tracing their chosen fabric.

Shoe Making Checklist

The completed product ready to send to Sole Hope to make 1 pair of shoes.

The cake- simple to make with printed sugar paper, available where cake supplies are sold.

The kids watched the SoleHope promo video before making the shoes so they understood the what and why of the organization.  I think that was the best part of the whole party. It really opened their eyes to why we were doing this.  Instead of gifts, the girls made donations to sponsor the shoes. In all we were able to make and sponsor 12 pairs of shoes!

We made hair ties out of the fabric to remind everyone of the shoes we cut out.

Would you like to have a SoleHope birthday party or a shoe cutting party for you church or organization?  I would be happy to answer any questions and help out in anyway.

Purple Prairie

I plan to blog in the near future about a very useful site for finding products that are not harmful to our bodies called Environmental Working Group (EWG).  Hopefully you’ve already heard about them!  Today though, I am sharing a company that I found through EWG.

Both my neighbor and I made the decision last summer to switch to a sunscreen with let’s just say, milder ingredients.   Think about it, we slather this stuff all over our skin and our kids’ skin all summer long.  EWG provides a list of products and rates them.  Many of the recommended sunscreens are more expensive and difficult to find.  Purple Prairie offered a well rated and reasonably priced sunscreen, so I decided to give it a try, while my neighbor ordered another product and we decided to compare notes.  The sunscreen my neighbor ordered, while it worked well, had a peanutty smell to it that her kids objected to.  We both gave Purple Prairie’s sunscreen high marks.  

With each order for sunscreen I placed with Purple Prairie, I would try some of their other products.  Mosquitos seem to love me (must be all the sugar I consume), so I tried their Bug Spray.  This really kept them away.  I shared it with my family.  I shared it with my daughter’s cheer squad.  Nobody thought it would work.  They were so surprised by how well it does work, and bonus, it smells good too.  I had to order more because people kept taking my bugspray!

I love their soaps and candles too, but another of my favorite products is the Gardener’s Carrot Salve.  It comes in a cute tin and is the only product I have ever found that heals my son’s dry, cracked, bright red winter hands.  He just ran out and even he was saying he didn’t want anything else for his hands but more Carrot Salve.  Ever the bargain shopper though, I was waiting for a sale, so I was very happy to get an e-mail from them today with a sale!  Purple Prairie is currently offering 20% off your entire purchase through February 28^th with the code NewMoon at checkout.  You can also score Free shipping on orders over $50. 

http://www.purpleprairie.com/

Happy Shopping!

Reusable Sandwich Bags

My kids prefer a bag lunch. Waiting in line at the school cafeteria just eats up too much of their short lunch break. So everyday, I pack them a lunch. And everyday I use at least SIX plastic bags total for my two kids’ lunches. It really adds up. This summer I made the decision to switch to a reusable sandwich bag, prompted by a GROUPON offer that made it enticing to give it a try.

I’ve been using these bags for about 5 months now and I have noticed a BIG difference. On the occasional day that I haven’t had a clean reusable bag to use, I cringe at the thought of going back to the plastic bags.

There are a few companies that offer the bags. You can check Amazon.com or etsy. Plus you are likely to be supporting a small business when you purchase these bags. If you decide you like them, I recommend ordering enough to get you through the week, however many that may be for you and then you can wash them all at once at the end of the week. I seem to use the smaller snack bag size more often, finding that they hold plenty.

I use the REUSIES brand (www.reusies.com). The kids loved being able to pick out a style they liked. They are lined, but not waterproof. They are dishwasher and washing machine safe, or for a quick clean up, I just wipe them with a soapy towel, rinse and let them air dry. I like that there is Velcro in two places on the bag, depending on how much is in the bag, you can get a tighter closure.

Just a warning though, as I mentioned above, the bags are not waterproof and there is not a tight seal like you get on a disposable zipper bag. For something a little more airtight, check out Laptop Lunches (www.laptoplunches.com). They offer adorable bento box style lunch boxes.

Still not sure? Here’s something to think about (info is from the Reusies website):
Plastic bags make up over 10% of debris found on US Coastlines. Each plastic bag takes over 1,000 years to break down. Plastic bags do not biodegrade, they photodegrade whereby over time they breakdown into smaller, more toxic petropolymers. Less than 1% of plastic bags are recycled. It costs more to recycle a plastic bag than to produce a new one.

So what do you think? Do you have a particular reusable bag you really like? Please share!