Make Your Own Thanksgiving Decoration From Yes, Toilet Paper Tubes

I promised to give you the details about the green craft project I did during my Staycation, so here you go. I first saw the idea of using toilet paper tubes to make art on the Growing Up Creative Blog. You’re not going to believe what a pretty decoration you can make from such humble materials!

This heart is made from about 8 empty rolls, each flattened and cut in 6 pieces: 

To make your creation, just lay out the little leaf-shaped pieces until you come up with a design you like and glue them together. Paper clips can help hold the pieces together if they don’t want to stick.

To finish the heart, I picked a few sprigs of dead grass and dried flowers from the garden, taped them together and glued the little bundles to the top of the piece. I hung it on clear push pins that are lightly tacked into the wall.

If you get inspired to make a creation from something recycled or discarded, you know we’d all LOVE to hear from you and see what you come up with.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

Simplify Your Holidays in Minutes with One Easy Step

If you do just one thing this holiday season to make your holidays simpler and merrier, try this. With Christmas just 7 weeks away, now is the perfect time to help your family create an online holiday gift wish list. Our extended family has used Christmas Wish List since 2002, and we love it. 

Here’s how it works: you create an online group for your family, and then each family member logs on and creates a wish list of things they could really use and enjoy for holiday gifts. Group members can note when an item is purchased, but you can’t see the status of your own list. It feels a little funny at first, being so transparent about  The Stuff You Want. However, I predict that if you try it for one year you’ll be hooked.

The advantages are many.  You’ll save hours of shopping time because you’ll know exactly what your hard-to-buy-for father wants. You’ll save time after the holidays, too, because you won’t be returning the light-up Rudolph sweater (size XS Petite), that Grandma bought you. You’ll save storage space, because you won’t be tucking away the fishing lure toilet seat your brother-in-law bought so that you can bring it out the next time he visits. And you’ll probably save money, because you can comparison shop online for the best prices.

Meanwhile, you can ask for something you could really use and enjoy — perhaps a gift certificate to a nursery to buy vegetable seeds next spring. Or something to support your green lifestyle, like a solar-powered battery charger or a rain barrel. Perhaps you have all the stuff you need, and you’d love to direct givers to support your favorite charitable organization in lieu of a gift.

What steps are you taking this year to simplify and ‘green’ your holidays? I’d love to hear your ideas and share them with our readers.

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You might also enjoy:

One Family’s Real Simple Christmas

Can You Compost a Poinsettia?

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Make Your Own Peach Preserves

The peaches this year have been more delicious than any I can ever remember — heavy, fragrant, juicy and sweet from the sunshine of late summer.

A display of Colorado peaches at Whole Foods

Before they’re gone, you can easily preserve fresh peaches’ fleeting, nectared essance by making a batch of homemade jam.  Perfect for holiday gift giving, I also love opening a jar of homemade jam on a snowy winter morning, slathering it on a hot, buttery biscuit and being transported back to sweet memories of the previous summer.

I used to make jam the old-fashioned way, standing at the stove for hours boiling and stirring the mixture and trying to keep it from scorching.  Recently I made a batch

Be Green, Recycle Less ? Here’s How …

There’s a little convenience store not far from our house called “Farm Crest Milk Store” that I’ve driven by many times. A few weeks ago I happened to remember that we needed milk right as I was approaching the store, so I pulled in the parking lot.  I was curious about a whole store devoted to milk but discovered that it’s a lot like a 7-11, with a few gas pumps outside and the usual impulse buy items inside. What was different, however, was

You’ll Dig This – Build Your Own Eco-Friendly Raised Garden for Less

In our efforts to convert more of our yard to gardening space, I wanted to add a raised garden for planting vegetables. I briefly lusted after one of these kits from Plow & Hearth, made from recycled plastic:

…but the $149.95 price tag (+ $17.99 for shipping) seemed to defeat the idea of growing food to save money. Fortunately, my Pop came to the rescue with the offer of four free reclaimed angle irons that had originally supported some decorative beams at a friend’s condo. His garage is full of treasures like this, and it’s amazing how he can go in there and rummage around and emerge with just the right tool or hardware for just about any job. He proposed that we use the angle irons to secure four pieces of lumber to make a frame for the garden, and he even created

Spend 20 Minutes Adapting Your Toilet, Save 3000 Gallons of Water a Year

   You might have once read that you could save water by putting a brick in your toilet tank. That is no longer recommended, as bricks break down over time and the residue can lead to plumbing damage. Instead, you can recycle a used soda pop bottle and use it to displace water, saving you 2 liters of water with every flush. The average person flushes 4 times a day at home (you really do learn something new every day), so a family of four can easily save 3000 gallons of water a year just by following these easy steps.

First, remove the label and wash an empty plastic 2-liter soda pop bottle.

Fill the bottle almost to the top with water and add a handful of marbles or pebbles. Don’t skip this step or the bottle will  float in the toilet tank and could interfere with the flushing mechanism.

Make Your Own Tender, Perfectly Puffed Pita Breads – for Pennies!

After reading about homemade pita bread on the King Arthur Flour blog, I was obsessed with making a batch from scratch. I love pita bread, but I was spoiled years ago by warm, fresh-from-the-oven pitas in Athens and have never found anything close here in Colorado. Even at one of Denver’s largest Middle Eastern grocery stores, the pitas are chewy and a bit cardboardy.

Using the King Arthur recipe as a guideline (and based on research that recommended a mix of no more than 33% whole wheat flour for reliable rising), I substituted 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup of spelt flour for one cup of the all-purpose flour. I didn’t have any King Arthur’s Dough Improver so I added a pinch of baking powder. Once the dough was ready to bake, I divided it into 8 portions and flattened the first ball slightly with my fingers like this:

Make Your Own Granola – Delicious, Healthy and Inexpensive!

Here’s a simple recipe that you can use to make your own healthy breakfast cereal. You can use organic and/or vegetarian ingredients if you wish, and substitute other goodies to suit your taste. Plus — with the cost of organic rolled oats at about $1 a pound — you can save tons of money by making your own!

 

Here’s the basic recipe for my favorite granola blend. I call it Oatmeal Cookie Granola and your kitchen will smell just like homemade oatmeal raisin cookies while you’re baking it!

Culinary Glory During a Recession

I was perusing our cookbooks this morning hoping for some culinary inspiration, when I came across this volume gathering dust at the back of the very top shelf:

Gourmet Cooking on a Shoestring, circa 1970

Although it was published almost 40 years ago, the theme of this book is certainly relevant today. “It is true that the price of absolutely everything is on the rise…” it begins, and the author goes on to offer a host of recipes “to take the sting out of the high cost of eating while covering you with culinary glory.”

Culinary glory — now that’s what I’m talking about! Of course, we had a somewhat different definition

Battening Down the Hatches for Winter

Last winter, we had an energy audit performed by About Saving Heat of Denver. The technician had a neat gizmo that automatically measures the air temperature, similar to the instant read thermometer you use to make sure your chicken is cooked properly. Anyway, when he held the machine to the ceiling and passed it over the air conditioning vents - closed for the winter, of course - the temperature was two to three degrees cooler, meaning that cold air was still leaking through the vents. He recommended a simple and inexpensive fix, magnetic vent covers:

Homemade Hooch at the Urban Homestead

We’ve been harvesting currants here, and even the ripest berries are intensely, mouth-puckeringly tart. After scratching my head about how to best utilize the little red berries, I found a recipe for homemade cassis and knew we were in business. I love kir (a drink made with cassis and white wine) and its cousin kir royale (cassis and champagne). While crème de cassis is traditionally made with black currants, I learned that red currants can also be used.

This is a two-part recipe, and you can easily double this if you have a bounty of fresh currants.

Homemade Cassis

• 3 to 4 cups ripe currants
• 2 ½ to 3 cups vodka (or enough to cover the currants in the jar)
• 1 pound sugar (more or less may be needed) 
• 1 cup vodka (more or less may be needed)

Wash the currants, remove any stems and gently pour them in a one-quart Mason jar. Pour the vodka in the jar, almost to the top. Here’s how it looks at this stage:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can You Compost a Poinsettia?

Dear Ms. Homesteader,

Now that the holidays are over, my poinsettia is dropping its red petals and becoming less attractive by the hour. My wife suggested throwing it in the compost pile, but I thought I remembered reading that poinsettias are poisonous. To compost or not to compost?

Sincerely yours,

Poindexter Settya

Dear Mr. Settya,

You will be happy to hear that poinsettias are not poisonous, so yours can be safely added to the compost heap. Some people are sensitive to the milky sap that comes from the poinsettia’s branches; it can occasionally cause an itchy rash. Wear your gardening gloves when you add the plant to the compost, and be careful not to rub your eyes after touching the plants. Here at the urban homestead, we composted our very own poinsettia plant just yesterday, and it immediately transformed the compost heap into a festive and colorful montage:

 

Sincerely,

Ms. Homesteader

Just Call Me the Bag Lady

Do you know that we Americans use around 84 billion plastic bags annually? (I know I’ve probably got a cool million or so stuffed in the kitchen drawers and pantry.) What’s worse is what happens when the bags end up in the landfill:  they don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade—breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits and contaminating soil and waterways.

One Real Family’s Real Simple Christmas

Our good friends Jerry and Beth McDonald announced in early November that they were going to simplify Christmas this year, and spend the money they saved to take the family on a ski trip to Colorado. Just like Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis in the movie ”Christmas with the Kranks,” Jerry and Beth explained that they were skipping the Christmas tree, skipping Christmas cards — and even skipping presents.  “It will be an experiment worth noting,” Jerry wrote, and we wondered if they would be able to resist the pull of the mall. On December 26, I couldn’t stand the suspense any more. “How was the minimalist Christmas?” I asked in an e-mail.  “Did you resist the temptation to buy gifts? How did your kids respond? Do tell!” Here’s an excerpt from Jerry’s response:

“The minimalist Christmas was

A New Bamboo Floor

2008 begins with a terrific improvement here at the Urban Homestead - a new bamboo floor in the office!

Our journey started when I read Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan’s compelling book, “Apartment Therapy: The Eight Step Home Cure.” Along with some great ideas for simplifying one’s home environment and paring down one’s possessions, the author suggests indentifying the room in our house that bugs us the most; he then gently guides readers on how to “cure” the space. In my case, the room with the most problems happened to be the space where I spend at least 50% of my time — my home office. For starters, the floor was covered with the grungiest, worn, dog-hair and lint-laden, impossible-to-clean shag carpeting. Think I’m exaggerating? Take a gander at THIS:

When our professional carpet cleaner said