I’m trying to teach responsibility and self reliance to my children without a lot of nagging. It’s been two weeks and I’m seeing an improvement.

Set your table with mixed and unmatched plates and cups. Most of the tableware in the above photo came from the thrift store.

You might also try this technique with bath towels. Even if your kids don’t have to wash their own towels, they won’t be allowed to keep grabbing a new one while leaving the old one on the floor somewhere.

On a side note, I threw a dinner party one time and used mixed matched plates because of the large amount of guests. It turned out to be fun; I let the guests pick where they wanted to sit.

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Saving scraps of colored paper saves resources and saves money. When doing a craft project involving colored paper, collect the paper scrapes and save them in a box or tray for future use. Whenever you need a piece of colored paper, first look in your scrap colored paper tray (or box) and see if there is one the right size. Only if you can’t find what you need there do you get a new piece of paper.

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Here is a simple idea. Have you ever thought about saving that perfectly re-useable paper bag you got at a fast food place? Not always but sometimes that fast food bag is clean. Should you just throw it away after using it for a total of five minutes (sometimes less)? It just seems wrong to waste.

Instead, save it to pack a lunch one day. I prefer reusable lunch boxes but sometimes you can’t pack in a lunch box because of bulk, like when hiking etc..

Always look for ways to reuse.

…and when appropriate, tell them to skip the bag.

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An Eco-Shower (in my opinion) is any outdoor shower that is made with mostly salvaged materials and uses solar power to heat the water.

I love my outdoor shower. You can see where horses chewed on the wood and I like the little worm holes in the wood. This eco-shower is perfect for us in Southern Maryland because this area is historically known for its barns/ farms (especially tobacco barns) and the Chesapeake Bay.

Outdoor showers are great for several reasons: they keep your inside shower cleaner- especially good when returning from the beach all sandy… or muddy from a kayak trip. Also using it instead of your inside shower will keep the extra humidity out of your bathroom –especially good for people who have bathrooms where mold is a problem. In addition, it will reduce your electricity usage because you don’t have to use your water heater to heat your shower water. Best of all, it’s nice to shower outdoors!

A driftwood wreath fits in nicely. Don’t you think?

How to:

Good friends of mine were renovating the inside of their antique Maryland barn. That is how I was lucky enough to get my hands on some barn stall walls. I recruited my husband to help me build a frame out of treated four by fours. I used the pieces of the stall walls for the walls of the shower. There was some reconstructing (rearranging) involved.

Paint on a coat of water sealer to help preserve the wood.

To add the lettering on the side, I printed out a font that I liked in a large font size. I cut out the letters, traced the letters on the wood, and then pained the letters with acrylic paint.

Set up a garden hose extending to your shower. The longer the hose is the better (within reason). I connected two long hoses and coiled them neatly in a sunny location. The sun will heat the water while you are getting hot and sweaty mowing your lawn or working in your garden.

I located the shower far enough away from the house to avoid water problems and the land slopes away from the shower into the woods. You might want to install a drywell, which is basically just a hole filled with rocks. We currently stand on a slab of granite while showering but someday I think I’ll add a gravel walkway to the shower and a gravel floor in the shower.

Admittedly, we only use the shower seasonally. I don’t like a cold shower. But in the summer it’s fantastic.

Don’t forget to add hooks to hang up cloths or towels. I used cleats (found at any hardware store) because they gave it a boat house feel. Even better would be to find some old cleats and reuse them in this project.

For privacy, I ripped a few barn boards into strips and filled some of the gaps between the boards.

Here is some home-made soap that I made. It is on a rock soap dish.

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I do a lot of projects with salvaged clothing. I like finding ways to reuse second-hand clothing (or my own cast-offs) especially if they are flawed in some way and therefore not even good enough to bring to thrift stores.
As a byproduct of another craft project, I had a strip of shirt and thought that it looked like ribbed ribbon. The next time I was wrapping up a gift, I gave it a try.
How to:
Find a suitable shirt.
Using a rotary cutter and a metal ruler cut across the grain in order to achieve a ribbed ribbon look.
Cut strips of fabric an inch or so wide, your preference, but try to keep it even.
I cut one inch strips from the bottom of an old shirt. Next time I’m going to cut a narrower ribbon of a complementary color and place it on top of my other ribbon for a different look.

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These shorts were made from a pair of pants that my daughter loved. They had developed holes in the knees so I cut them into shorts and rolled up a cuff and hemmed the new edge. In addition, I cut out the flower detail that was at the bottom of the pants and re-sewed it on the shorts. It looks like I bought them this way.

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This North American native is a wonderful source of nectar used by many butterflies. Butterfly weed is one of several species of flowers that we grow around our house to attract a myriad of butterflies.

To attract butterflies to our southern Maryland yard, we have included food for both stages of a butterfly’s life: the butterfly as well as the caterpillar. When you plant a butterfly weed you have done both. Plus, the strong orange flowers will give a festive touch to the outside extension of your home.
How to:
My girls scattered some butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberose) seeds in their garden. The seeds were a gift from a thoughtful friend. You will want to plant your seeds in a location that receives full sun. They prefer dry, sandy soil. It turned out to be easy to grow; just keep the seedlings moist. The older plants are much more tolerant of dry conditions. You can plant your seeds in late spring, summer or early fall. Either way, plan to wait until next summer for flowers. Seeds need a cold treatment before germinating. This can be done by either planting outside in the fall, or placing the seeds in the freezer for a few weeks before planting. New plants are also fairly easy to start from cuttings. Our plants have come up each year with no effort on our part and provide butterfly alluring powers. They flower all summer long and in the fall they have cool seed pods with fluff inside.
If you are a southern Maryland local (i.e. you live close enough that you can stop by), I’d be happy to save you some seeds. If collecting your own seeds, wait until the pods are already starting to open.
FYI, avoid pesticides because they kill butterfly larvae.

Butterfly Weed, a species of milkweed, is a host plant for Monarch Butterflies as well as others.
This is the monarch butterfly in its larval stage completely devouring several of our butterfly weed plants.

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In an area that used to be part of our lawn, I made a garden for my two children. They have used it to grow edibles and things of beauty. This spring/ summer they decided to let the strawberry plants take over most of the growing space. Apparently you can be very tidy with your strawberries and snip off all the runners or you can let the runners do as they will. We like the second method; in which you end up with a beautiful mat of strawberry plants. My kids try to be the first each day to search for the sweet bounty. Growing a strawberry patch in place of some of your yard is twice as sweet: less lawn to mow and fresh local organic fruit besides.

Here is the kids’ garden.

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We’ve been raising chickens for about 4 years now. They are truly charming and we love them. However, roosters can cause problems. First of all, although often very pretty, you can’t keep very many. It is suggested that you have one rooster to 25 hens. We therefore, only need to keep around one and only if we want fertilized eggs for hatching baby chicks. You don’t need a rooster at all to get eggs by the way. Fertilized and unfertilized eggs are indistinguishable in taste. Second, if you hatch out chicks (on average half are male), when they become “teenagers” they start to fight. In addition, if there aren’t enough hens, the rooster(s) can hurt the hen’s back from too much mating. This can lead to complete feather loss on their backs and even large cuts from the rooster’s claws and spurs. Third, not always but sometimes you will have an over aggressive rooster and they will attack you or worse your kids. For these reasons, we on occasion have locally raised chicken for dinner.

If you want to know that the chicken that you eat is humanly raised; raise them yourself. Our chickens have a very large area in which to range, peck, and scratch around like chickens. This area is fenced however, to keep away stray dogs or a marauding fox.Furthermore, I can make sure they have a healthy diet. So, why not enjoy chicken soup on occasion and have your own supply of superior eggs.

I always make a soup out of the leftovers and my family loves it.

Soup:
I bake the chicken in my cast iron French oven (Dutch oven) made by Le Creuset. After the first dinner, I pick off any meat that is quick and easy to remove. Then I add enough water to cover the chicken bones. I also add a large onion (cut up in large chunks), a bay leaf or two, some fresh thyme from my garden, a few stocks of celery if I have any, and simmer it on the stove with the cover on but not completely closed for an hour or more. I then remove the carcass to anther container. If I’m making the soup right away, I scoop the droopy onion and celery out of the broth. Then I add some veggies- like chopped carrots, peas, corn… and a starch (brown rice, barley, or noodles). While that stuff is simmering on the stove in the same French oven, I pick all the meat off the bones. When the Veggies (and rice) are cooked, I add the chicken meat. I used to always shy away from dark meat but not anymore. Season with salt and pepper or leave out the salt and put in a bouillon cube instead.
I have an old fashion kind of cooking style. It’s the kind where you use up things that you have on hand, I don’t measure (well maybe when baking), and I make things to taste (shouldn’t we all?).

I make soup like my dad; thick with lots of stuff.

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Tissues made from old t-shirts work really well and they are soft on the nose. Kids will like the fun colorful fabrics and you will like the part about saving money and resources.

Make Your Own T-Shirt Tissues

I set aside some children’s t-shirts that were too worn or too stained to pass on.

How to:
Gather some old t-shirts. Thin, uber soft t-shirts are best. Use a salad plate (whatever size you like) and a rotary cutter with a cutting matt. Cut around the plate. The beauty of this project is that the edges do not need to be hemmed.

Alternatively, you can cut square pieces.

Keep these eco-friendly tissues on bedside tables for use on little noses.

Hankie Hamper: find something around the house or at the thrift store to be your hankie hamper.

Recycle Worn-Out Shirts Into Handkerchiefs
When choosing old shirts to be made into hankies; the softer the better. Pick an appealing fabric if that matters to you. You want it to also have a bit of absorbency. Obviously, stiff fabric is no good for this project.

How to:

Cut strips 7 inches wide (or your preference) with a pair of pinking shears. Next, cut the strips into squares and you’re done. Using pinking shears will help to prevent fraying.

To take with you, fold in half then fold in thirds: it fits nicely in your purse or pocket.

Hankies in a variety of fabrics: My husband’s favorite shirt (blue plaid cotton) was eventually turned into little hankies. It was a soft fabric to begin with but repeated washing only made it better. The kitty fabric was made out of worn-out flannel pj’s.

Be sure to provide a place to put the used tissues or your kids will leave them all around the house.

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