Make a Rainbow...

Beachcombing in Mayo

One of the things that I love to do most is to beach comb.  In a way it's an excuse to spend ages on a beach instead of just walking up and down it and getting some bracing exercise.  To me, beach combing means to wander aimlessly along a beach just taking in all the details, scanning the ground as well as staring at the sea and the mountains, wondering what little item of interest we will come across. 

Here is some lichen that we spotted while staring at the rocks, fascinated by all the different textures and colours.  This bit of lichen is only about 1cm across in reality.

On the beach of Ross just outside Killala in Co. Mayo it didn't look very promising for our beach combing attempts.  The weather was just beginning to break after the wonderful spell of weather we had over April.  This picture was taken as we huddled in a little scooped out bit in the cliff.  If you look closely you can see the rain pelting down!

But it cleared quickly and we were back out rambling along enjoying the wind and spectacular view.

The first thing we found was this box.  It's a styrofoam fish box that was obviously washed off a boat some time ago.  It's amazing the amount of stuff that gets washed in from fishing boats.  I decided that I could use this as buoyancy for our boat.  We've been collecting this stuff up and putting it into a net and tying it to the inside of the boat in case we happened to capsize one day.  If we put enough buoyancy into it it will not sink no matter what way it goes over. 

It came in useful on the beach as well, because as it was a really windy day I discovered I could huddle behind the box for shelter! 

And as the sand was wet it came in very handy as an insulated seat......

.....for two, from which we could relax and day dream.

While sitting on our seat we spotted this little skeleton left behind by the tide. 

We came across three lobster pots that had been washed up on the rocks.  We thought we could make this into a little cold frame for next season if we took off the net and replaced it with some plastic.  Chris is taking out the remains of the fish head that was used as bait for the lobster.  It was extremely heavy so we only managed to get one back.

This also made a comfy, dry seat.

There is always loads of rope washed up on beaches but we have already taken back plenty of all different sizes so we left this huge ball of rope and net behind.  It is tempting to keep bringing everything home but our garage is already at bursting point.  We gradually use up all the stuff we find but we have to be careful to collect things that we can think of a concrete use for.

The great thing about beach combing is that it helps to clean up the beach a little as well as giving us a chance to give new life to all different types of things.  We've brought back wood, fish boxes, rope, nets, floats, mesh, a frisbee, water containers, pipes, seaweed and more, most of which has found a use in our garden or on the boat.

We spent about 4 hours on the beach getting buffeted by the wind, warmed by the sun, cooled again when paddling in the Atlantic water, staring at the life in the rock pools, on the rocks, in the sand and in the air.  We picked up a couple of things that will be really useful and we got our bracing exercise in the end.  Wonderful.

Skip Treasure

Yesterday a skip was spotted, just around the corner from where we live, being filled up with household furniture and windows.  Chris immediately went over to ask if he could take some wood as he had spotted some lovely big pieces going in.  He is always building stuff so a supply of wood is obviously important but we never have to buy it, it always seems to just appear. 

The fillers of the skip were very happy for him to take stuff away and it turned out that there were some other people there taking stuff too.  Happily we were both interested in different things so there were no duals at dawn threatened by any one!  It seemed that the other "skippers" were intending to sell the furniture on.  This kind of occupation has been alive and well for years and it was great to see that other people still see a potential in other people's rubbish.   

Here's all the wood that was brought back.  The lighted coloured stuff is from one of those canvas wardrobes that Argos sell and has some lovely neat wood.

This is Kaboodle surveying the old wardrobe shelves.

All the bolts and screws from the wardrobe are extremely welcome to us as we try not to  buy nails and screws either.  These a little harder to find but they do turn up in just the right quantities. 

These are small windows that we plan on using for making cold frames, unless some other idea strikes us.  There were larger windows too but we have no where to put them as we only have a small garden.  If we had a garden twice the size we could build a huge greenhouse from old windows as there are so many thrown out every day.

Some of the wood from the old wardrobe was very quickly reused as a shelf for the fig in the greenhouse.  As we didn't want a big pot sitting on the bed taking up valuable room we thought a little shelf would be ideal.  As the fig gets bigger it will just have to stay outside. 

Again, I just wish there was a big warehouse where things could be stored until we moved to a larger place where we could accommodate many more projects. 

 

Charity Shops

Every so often I take a stroll up William Street in Limerick.  This seems to be the "charity shop quarter" and there are at least 7 charity shops on or just off this street which means it's really easy to have a quick scout around.  I never really have the patience to look for clothes, so I always go straight to the bric a brac, old soft furnishings and book sections.  I don't always find something I like but I come across interesting things often enough. 

As I said in my post on sewing from old cloth I have found a good few old duvet covers and sheets that have been given a new life as quilts, cushion covers, seat covers and more.  I normally buy these for about €4 and there is a massive amount of lovely material in them.  I'm fairly fussy so I only get the ones I really really like. 

I have bought a lovely wooden tray for €2 that now makes breakfast in bed a lot easier and I bought this colourful paper lamp for €2 which adds to the atmosphere in the sitting room.

 

Less frequently I have a look in the book sections, because I still have loads of books that I need to read, but I've found a few bargains there.  I bought myself a university maths book for 1 euro, a great book on physics in the form of a childrens book on how things work.  Heidi (Miss Self Sufficiency herself) was uncovered on a quest for childrens books, of which I found a few nice ones.  And I've bought a few magazines on wild life. 

As I said I don't really have the patience to look through the clothes, although there seems to be plenty of good stuff, but every so often I look through the hats and scarves bin.  The hat and scarf that you see above are actually childrens ones, but I liked them so much I got them anyway and they fit fine!  They cost me 80c and 50c.

I've also gotton cake tins, baby's clothes, balls of wool and more in these charity shops and they are all in excellent condition.  The great thing about buying from a charity shop is that you are reusing items, supporting a worthy charity AND finding things that you probably won't find in the normal high street shops as they are gone past their "up to the minute fashion best".  So I have to say I feel quite smug when I come out the door with a few interesting finds!

Paper, Paper, Everywhere...

I seem to be obsessed with reusing paper before it gets sent off for recycling.  It has to be better to give it one more run before pulping it.  So here are a few things that have come about as a result of hoarding paper....

Our diaries for 2006 were made from barely used paper that we have collected from other people's offices.  There was the odd line of text or dots here and there but overall the paper was pristine so I gathered it all together and bound it.  My one, above, was bound using Japanese binding.  It's a really easy and very secure way of binding things. 

The other one was bound in the normal fashion of binding books.  This one is a bit easy to open and use!  In both cases I made the holes for threading the binding through with a big nail and a hammer.  It didn't take long and I covered my one with pieces from old birthday and Christmas cards.  I've finally found a use for those!  And I was able to look at them for the whole year and remember who gave them to me.  Chris's one was covered with our very own hand made paper, a bit more low key....more on that in another post.

Another, more straightforward, way of giving paper another life is to keep all the A4 stuff that has only been printed on one side and bind it roughly.  Then you can write on the other side.  I did this for all my university notes, of which there were LOTS, and I also do this for my journals.  I write a lot of stuff down so I get through a lot of paper.  Here are my journals for the last year.

All you need to do is use a punch hole thing to make holes in clumps of the paper.  Then gather a reasonable amount and tie it all with a ribbon.  Does the job really well.

And all the paper I use for printing comes from an unbelievable stash of paper that I got from a printing shop.  I went in to ask if they had any scraps of coloured paper and I came away with 7 boxes of white and coloured paper that had never been used, yet was just about to be sent to the recyclers!!  The building they used was quite damp and therefore they had to replace any paper that had been sitting in the photocopiers etc after three days.  Otherwise it would jam apparently. 

I gave plenty away and am still left with nearly a life time's supply of the stuff as we don't do a lot of printing. 

So it may be worth asking in your local printer place if they throw away unused paper.  You never know.  In general I've found it incredible what kind of stuff gets jettisoned from businesses.  While they may want to do their best for the environment it tends to clash with the idea of making profits.  In general however, businesses are very keen to facilitate people who wish to remove the unwanted items and give them a new home.  I keep wishing I had a massive warehouse where I could store all the things that I know are being brought to the dump or recyclers every day.  I know that I could fill it with stuff that would be useful to some one else, then I could fill it again the next day and the next and the next....... 

Free, Used, Plant Pots

Here is a SMALL selection of some of our plant pots.  I don't think we've ever bought one and we have alot of plants in pots! There are salads, flowers, bulbs, fruit trees and herbs in pots.  The reason we have so many is that we are renting the house we live in now and next time we move we'll be bringing all our hard work and effort with us.  We won't be starting from scratch again.

We got all of these pots and the ones below and MANY more at our local garden centre.  There was an actual mountain of pots waiting to be thrown out as they had no use for them. We loaded up the car as much as possible but I still think about the hundreds that were sadly left behind, sniffle, never to hold a plant again....boohooo. 

There are other advantages to growing things in pots.  It's very easy to tailor the soil in each pot according to the requirements of each plant.  Some like loads of manure, some prefer a dressing of seaweed meal, some prefer well drained, some prefer heavy soil.....  Another advantage is that the plants can be moved about.  For example our baby fig and physalis (above,you can hardly see them) have been wintering over in the greenhouse as they are frost tender.  They are now being hardened off and will be staying out at night soon to make way for salads and then tomatoes.  Also, fruit trees that are trying to ripen their produce can be moved to warmer conditions to help them along. 

Obviously there are things to be careful about, like making sure the pots don't dry out.  Also the plants may need to be repotted every couple of years.  But for us in our temporary garden it is an ideal solution.

 

As I said, all of our containers have been given to us, been found by us or made by us.  There seems to be no shortage of containers rolling around this country.  The fish box, above, was found washed up on a beach.  There's always one lying around every time we are at a beach.  It makes a great salad bed.  At the moment there is winter purslane, lettuces, spinach and beetroot in there.

We have about four tyre pots.  We laid a piece of wire mesh on the bottom and suddenly we had a huge pot.  Our little alpine strawberries seem very happy in there.

This little box was made by Chris from pieces of wood that he found dumped by the side of the road on his way to the farm.  It's my favourite plant pot for my favourite flowers....awe.

And one last one....

Sewing From Old Cloth

Every so often I pop into the charity shops to see if there are any old quilt covers or curtains that can be remade into something else.  And every so often I find just the right thing.  For a few Euro I come away with a huge piece of beautiful material that I keep until I have an idea about what to use it for.  My latest project was to re-cover two chairs that were passed onto to me by my Mum.  I think they look

fairly snazzy now and I can take off the covers easily enough in order to wash them.  Sitting on the chair is a quilt that I made a couple of months ago.  The inside is made from loads of old fleece jackets, jumpers and trousers.  I cut them all up and sewed them together like a big jigsaw and eventually managed to get the huge piece of fleece into the old quilt cover that I had bought.  It now makes a cosy addition to our bed in the winter time.

Before that I had done a similar thing with a very tattered quilt that needed to be hidden within a nice outer layer.  I now have a lovely blue quilt that I can wrap around me on a cold day in the house. 

Out of the same quilt cover that I adapted to fit the old quilt, above, I made several cushion covers for old cushions that had been passed onto me, again by my Mum.

Sitting beside the blue cushion is one of y favourite bags that was made from an old ball of wool, bought from a charity shop for 50c.  It is lined with a piece from an old shirt and the button is from an old pair of trousers. 

I also made a sock organiser for my wardrobe out of old curtains(thanks Mum!), which is one of the most useful things I've made so far.  I'll add in a picture soon.

The one thing that I have realised since I started these projects is that I will probably never throw away the things that I have made because they are even more special to me.  They will become heirlooms in their own right and this in itself has benefits for the environment.  I have realised that making your own quilt covers etc is not just about saving money.  It is about making something much more special than can be bought in a shop.  It is about feeling proud of what you've made every time you look at it.  It is about having something unique. 

Of course I wouldn't have been able to do these projects without the use of the sewing machine that has been lent to me by.....you guessed it....my Mum.

Reconstituted Rubbish!

Not everyone realises that the reason the reduce and reuse come before recycle in the catch phrase "reduce, reuse, recycle" is that it is better to reduce what we buy and use, then we should reuse what we buy and then as a last resort we should recycle.  So here is a little article on some of the things that we have made from other people's rubbish.  I'd love more ideas on what can be reused and made into something useful, so pass on your tips here please.  I'll make a list of all the things people have done.

Our biggest success story is out greenhouse.  This is made from the windows from a friend of a friend's house.  Apparently there are loads of old windows being taken out of houses every day and just getting dumped, so if you need a greenhouse go talk to a window installer!

The cutest story is about Kaboodle's house.  She's our cat and Chris decided she needed somewhere to sit when it was raining.  So he gathered all the wood that we had collected from beaches and from old pallets and made the little house you see below.....awe.

Close up on the house name below

The newest story is about our cold frame which Chris made, again.  It is insulated as well so it keeps it's heat very well.  At the moment our tomato and coriander seeds are trying to germinate in there.  It gets up to 22 degrees in the sun so it's really effective.  Again, it was all made from rubbish that we had collected up over the last couple of years.  I'm trying to fit a solar heater to it but I can get the water to stop leaking out.  Any ideas?

It takes alot less energy to reuse stuff than to ship things off to other countries, process them and ship them back.  It also leaves alot more room for creativity.  We've loads of other stories about reusing rubbish which I'll put up soon.