Dept. of Home Economics: Trash to "Treasure"

I've been working this week on some things I like to call "swamp yankee crafts," and it has occurred to me that my grandma would be proud since I am taking trash and reusing it. She liked anything that was gussied up for little to no money and was famous at the church Christmas bazaar for her crocheted toilet paper covers.



My first craft is a hillbilly basket. It was designed to go with a John Deere themed room at the Army Dude's house, so that's what dictated the materials and color scheme. I measured the length and width of the areas I wanted to weave fabric through, and cut the denim strips (from an old pair of jeans) about an inch longer. Then I trimmed the ends as necessary once I had them stitched in place.



I glued a piece of cardboard (cut out of a Triscuits box) to the fabric for the bottom to give it some support. I left the cardboard visible because, well, it's a hillbilly basket. If I ever do this again, I think I'll try using strips of thick paper (like magazine covers) and glue. Stitching inside a box was a pain.



My next swamp yankee craft was cat food can tea light holders. I got the idea of recycling cans by wrapping them with something new from Alyssa Watters, who was selling cans covered in prints of her original art at a caft fair earlier this summer (the Army Dude bought several). I don't know how I made the mental leap from that to tealight holders made from cat food cans, but as I'm sure you've realized by now, gentle readers, my mind is a strange and mysterious place.


I stripped the labels off the cans and cleaned them really well. I saved one of the labels as a template because I'm not smart with math and calculating circumferences due to the fact that the math area of my brain has been crowded out by show tune lyrics.

Next, I cut strips from magazine pages with pretty images and glued them onto the cans using a glue stick. Then I applied a thin layer of Mod Podge with a brush to create a lightly textured effect and let it dry.

I worked on these while watching a marathon of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. It seemed like the right thing to do.

Little Old Portuguese Lady: Cleaning Edition

It occurred to me, one Saturday morning a while back, that I am slowly turning into a little old Portuguese lady. I had gotten up, stripped my bed, cleared the towels out of the bathroom, and put it all in to wash before I'd even had a cup of tea. It's what I do every Saturday. As my grandmother would have said, "because I always do." I have my little routines, just like Gram had. I mentioned this to my brother, who said "Turning? Babe, you turned that corner years ago."

There may be something to that. I have caught myself saying things like "I can't stand it when my house is upside down," and yelling at people who track mud on my clean floors. Especially the floors. After the last big snowstorm, I found myself mopping my living room floor at ten o'clock at night because I don't have an entry hall and salt had been tracked in. On rainy days, I stop The Army Dude at the door and I do not allow him in until he takes off his boots (yes, he wears boots on his days off; also, his favorite color is green).

Yelling is an important aspect: first you yell at whoever is making a mess, then you clean. You can't skip over a step. Or maybe I don't want to skip over a step. It's very cathartic. There are few things in life I have any control over, but by God, if I've just cleaned my hardwoods with Murphy's Oil Soap, they are going to stay clean for a while. It's possible that control issues might be a factor in the little old Portuguese lady transformation.

I have an indoor cat, however - something no little old Portuguese lady I've ever met would have allowed. I also consider any garment with fewer than seven cat hairs on it to be "clean." The transformation is obviously not yet complete, although I know that at some point it will be, and I accept that.

You'll have to excuse me. It's Sunday morning, which is downstairs cleaning day, and I need to get to it. "Because I always do."