Pearly Whites

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Just walked to one of the nearby health food stores today to buy some hair dye. I was planning to get a new toothbrush from the pharmacy but actually saw some pretty nifty ones at the health food store, Lassens. I was flabbergasted(...well not exactly but isn't that just such a fabulous word?) when I saw a toothbrush made from old dollar bills! You can't get much more american than that- those green papery notes to represent a dollar coin are quite an oddity, especially since I'm used to $1 being in a gold coin form and plus aussie money is plastic. Americans here are amazed that you can't rip up Australian notes(we don't call them bills).

Dollar bills aside, the toothbrush is super eco-friendly as you can replace the head when it gets worn(one extra replacement head is included in the pack). Plus they're manufactured on low-energy machines in the US and the packaging uses vegetable inks and 100% recycled PET plastic.

The bristle heads looks really big too so I'm hoping it'll do a good job. Hopefully I'll also be getting a new tooth polish soon(from here). So I'll have to see whether they turn into a dynamic tooth-cleaning duo...


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The Oil Cleansing Method

I stumbled upon the 'Oil Cleansing Method' quite some time ago, which claims that using a combination of oils to cleanse your face will leave it free of blemishes and imperfections. The idea that I could clean my face with something so simple and inexpensive was very alluring. There are plenty of organic mass-produced, environmentally friendly beauty products out there but they're usually uber expensive and it's difficult to find ones that actually work and if they don't suit your skin you've wasted your money and the product just ends up going into landfill. So, my current fascination is with natural household pantry items, which usually consist of only one ingredient, that you can use on your face and body.

I would recommend using your oil concoction one a week or every fortnight; too often and your skin will feel dry and tight. The oil definitely doesn't make your skin oilier as most would assume. Conversely, it actually 'eats' the natural oil on your skin and washes most of it away when you wipe the rest of the oil concoction off your face.

Making the mixture is ridiculously easy; simply add 80% olive oil to a jar with 20% castor oil(which I bought from a pharmacy). All I did was put in four tablespoons of olive oil in a small jar, along with one tablespoon of the castor oil and then repeated this process until the jar was full.

To use:

1. Splash a little water on your face to moisten the skin.

2. Pour a roughly 50 cent sized splash of the mixture into your hand and rub your palms together to warm the oil.

3. Apply mixture to your face, gently rubbing in using a circular motion.

4. Lie a washcloth drenched in hot water over your face. The steam helps to lift the oil off your skin.

5. Wipe the oil off your face using the washcloth.

6. Rinse the washcloth and repeat steps 4 & 5 another 3 times to completely get all the oil mixture off your face.

The mixture really helps to get rid of impurities and with continued use your skin starts to become much smoother, clearer and fresher!

I love the oil cleansing method so much that I decided to make up a batch for my close friend, Chloe. A little preserve jar and a pretty ribbon made it a sweet present. I'd definitely recommend the oil mixture as a small birthday or Christmas present as it's cheap, practical and when presented in a cute jar can look very unique.

I'll be trialling a couple other natural beauty products in the coming weeks so it would be really great if you guys could test out these 'recipes' with me and let me know how they work for you!

2010

Hope you all had a lovely New Year and Christmas Day, I feel so giddy about it being the start of a new decade(I'm ignoring the fact that technically the new decade starts in 2011).

2010.
Wow.
It's finally here.

Shame it's not really how the 2000s were depicted in those old futuristic films/tv shows(Think "The Jetsons") But perhaps that was a little too far fetched, I doubt even the 3000's will be like that. I think the closest thing to how I expected the 2000's to be is IKEA. Seems silly how a furniture store could be so advanced but it truly is. I feel they have revolutionised the way people shop and it makes sense. They make the process of shopping simpler and as a 'reward' for shopping there you get cheaper products. And it's the tiniest of details that all add up.

The flat packaging- they save on the decreased cardboard, giving you cheaper prices plus the DIY element of putting the furniture together saves you even more. Not to the mention the adorable and simple picture instructions.

(credit: greenbang)

The provided shopping lists, pencils and measuring tapes. Why didn't people think of them before?

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The supplied shopping bags and no plastic bag policy; the store short cuts, making it ten times easier to manouvere round the shop; the beautiful children's creche; the "As-Is" section where you buy disouncted IKEA furniture that has been used or that has slight faults(I used to think it read "A5-15" when I was little and could never figure out what an earth it meant); the fact that they have everchanging showrooms where you can test everything out and see how it really looks plus the market hall where you can buy everything you see.

My favourite part of IKEA though would have to be the restaurant, I love how you serve yourself and the array of foods they have available for you to choose from(Did you notice how they even have jars of baby food available?) for just a couple of dollars. They also sell vegetarian and organic food, which gets a big thumbs up from me. Plus they encourage everyone to put away their own trays, which I whole-heartedly support. I really hate when people leave all their leftovers on the tables when it would take them less than 60 seconds to put it away. The cleaners already have plenty to do with cleaning away spills/dropped food and clearing away all the china/glass, plates and cups.

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And just to top it all off, you can buy the food they sell at the restaurant and cook it at home yourself. Next time I'm wanting to buy their organic pasta sauce, which for the quantity is far cheaper than the organic versions in the supermarkets.

(credit: ikea)

What I'm trying to get at is that I expected the noughties and the tens(anyone got a better name for the new decade?) to be a bit more innovative, simple and more eco-conscious. I guess I'll be visiting IKEA more often. Perhaps even on an ikea bike?

Several days ago my mum and I visited IKEA just to eat lunch there. That's just how awesome we think it is.

Un-Christmas Christmas cards

School broke up really early this year due to the exams but I didn't want to abandon my yearly tradition of giving out Christmas cards and a little extra gift to go with it. As per usual of me I left it to the last minute but I did have some idea of what I wanted to do. I wanted the cards to be eco friendly and made out of recycled newspaper. I realised though I couldn't just make them out of newspaper otherwise they'd be much too flimsy. So instead I mounted pictures from a festival guide on the back of cardboard shoeboxes and cut out a bauble shape in the corners of the card, to detract slightly from the text/images on the newspaper.

The cards were still a bit plain and not hugely Christmas-y so a bit of gold and white paint sparingly swiped along the edges made them more to my liking.





Then to finish them off I wrote the greeting and inner message in some calligraphy-style felt pens that I nabbed off my mother(which was NOT easy can I tell you).





My cards weren't largely Christmas themed but since I handed them out so early, not even in December I think that suited well plus my friends enjoyed the quirkiness of them(I hope!). I'm attempting to make this an eco Christmas and I'd say it's going well so far; handmade cards out of newspaper and cardboard and may I add that I even picked out all of the tiny little paper scraps from the mess I produced and put them in the recycling bin.

The little gift I added were these handmade friendship bracelets/anklets that I found in this new little boutique in my local shopping centre, Tree Of Life. I'd previously seen their products advertised in magazines so it's great to be able to finally buy them. They sell all these beautiful home wares made in India. They also sell all these beautiful handmade dresses in to-die-for fabrics. I'll show you a picture later of the one I bought. I'm really glad they're adding great little shops like it to shopping centres, I am so sick of all these rubbishy chain stores that essentially sell the same things year and year out.

I shall hopefully have a tutorial for the cards posted up closer to Christmas on the Cut Out & Keep crafting site.

Swap Meet

The past weekend was definitely a long one but the most enjoyable weekend that I've had in a long time. For some time the mum and I had been wanting to sell our old 'junk' at a swap meet. A pile had been gradually growing over the past year in the games room, compiled of old items we no longer wanted/used. It was mostly pre-loved(but well-kept, might I add) toys from when my brother and I were wee bubs, there were also a couple of housewares such as a blender and sandwich press but a large component of the pile was 'ugly' gifts. I don't mean to sound ungrateful but honestly I have no use for a hideous metal dog shaped bookend(that item didn't sell) or a wire tree decoration with dyed sapphire leaves. The great thing about a swap meet is that you get rid of your 'junk', someone else gets a 'treasure' plus at the same time the customer is getting a bargain and you're getting a bit of extra cash on the side.

Saturday evening was spent sorting through the swap meet pile, deciding what prices to sell things for, what boxes should they go in and what was just so bad that it had to simply be thrown away. There was a lot of the latter. By the time it was all packed into the car, it was about 11:30pm. We'd been told by a family friend that we'd have to wake up at 4am in order to get to the swap meet which was held in an underground car park by 5am to get a good spot in the queue. Well, I reluctantly awoke a 4am and got myself ready. We headed on down to the shopping centre and had to wait in our cars in a line until 5:30am when they'd start letting the sellers in to set up. It was 5:45am when they finally started to let people go through and some nasty young lady decided to cut the queue instead of waiting her turn like the rest of us and everyone started honking their horns at her. It wasn't exactly a relaxed environment. We waited for another half an hour in our cars, not sure if we were allowed in or what. Mum decided to get out of the car and ask one of the officials what was going on. Apparently they were all full up and he was sending people home! All that effort and lack of sleep for nothing! And there weren't even that many people who'd gotten in!

We couldn't just go home after all that so we decided to take a chance and see if another outdoor swap meet was on, but it was usually only held once a month so we really were taking a chance. As we travelled down the highway I noticed some other cars that were full to the brim with 'junk'. It seems we weren't the only ones who'd been driven away from the underground swap meet and were hoping that the outdoor one would be on. We arrived with a warm welcome at the outdoor oval/park and the swap meet WAS on. Apparently it's open every weekend until Christmas!

Well anyway, we had a lovely day. Lots of lovely people, warm sunny weather(although it was quite windy so we were constantly on the lookout to make sure none of our stuff was blown away)and good food. We sold more than half of our stuff(which was a lot more compared to some of the other sellers) and all the big items went. We made $124 altogether which wasn't so bad. I loved how all the children were using their pocket money to buy items and were being very scrupulous with it. One little girl was deliberating whether or not to buy the Kelly Club treehouse we were selling for $5 or buy 2 smaller items, as she only had $5 altogether. We decided to give it to her for $4 so she could buy something else,she seemed very pleased. :) I collected all the money from customers in my lovely bright Teletubbies waist bag(I'm surprised it still fits!), while my mum sported a Wallace & Gromit one! Unfortunately I didn't really look around at the other sellers 'treasures' as I was too tired but I'm sure we'll go take a look around another Sunday morning.

While we were selling I spotted this old book amongst our sellables, There's A Mouse About The House. It was one of my favourite books from when I was little. It comes with a little cardboard mouse that slips through the slits in each page of the book, as if the mouse is travelling through the house. I couldn't bear to sell it(and it was heavily taped up from wear and tear so I doubt it would have appealed to buyers) so I whipped it out of the box and put it back in the car. Some things you just can't let go of. Am I right?

A Pretty Little Package

I'm a sucker for pretty packaging and this parcel I received in the mail last week was no exception. Such an eco-friendly/nature vibe to it. And indeed it was, a birthday gift from Aunt & Uncle all the way over in England from this aussie online shop Biome where they sell nothing but stuff that's good for Mother Earth, pretty much an eco department store online.

Inside the beautiful parcel, that I could hardly bare to open was a stunning little teardrop necklace that will go with pretty much anything and....wait for it... is made from 100% recycled materials! Amazing! (I wonder if they'd recycle it if I put it in the recycling bin....not that I ever would part with it!) Even the little pouch it came in is made from certified organic cotton with a bamboo and soysilk yarn drawstring. Fancy!

Just been having a nosy round the site and these are some of my favourite items:

A solar powered mobile phone charger

Recycled paper pens

A stainless steel food thermos (keeps food hot for 5 hours!)

Stainless steel water bottle (won't leach hardmful chemicals into your water like plastic bottles do)

Last but not least, a bangle made from old knitting needles melted together!

A glass and a half-full

You know how my reward for drinking water was that I got to drink it out of my pretty glasses? Well here's a little photograph of them.



I'm honestly in love with them. I bought them when I went on vacation with a friend and her family to a little holiday town named Busselton. They had lots of neat little shops there, selling lots of little quirky bits and pieces and some really good thrift stores. A lot of the places sold organic and eco-friendly products so I stocked up on organic skincare products. I also bought this organic vanilla cupcake mix. Now personally I'm not a huge cupcake fan(I'm more of a savoury girl) but I had to buy these as they were organic and I am so so glad I did. They tasted 'divine'! They just had this delicious natural vanilla bean flavour, instead of the artificial flavour you usually get with those packet mixes. I was a bit sad once I'd eaten all the cupcakes as I didn't think I'd be able to get the mix again but luckily for me I found them in this store called Liquorice that sells dried pantry foods and such. I was ecstatic once I found them and to my delight the store also sold other varieties in the range, as well as pancake mixes! They are quite expensive though, at $15 a packet but for the occassional treat I definitely think they are worth it. Next time I buy a mix I'll take a photograph for you all.