If you follow my simple living blog The Really Good Life, you’ll know that I’ve been crocheting recently. I can’t stand to touch yarn in the warmer months but now it’s cold outside, the hook is pretty much glued to my hand.

I’m currently crocheting a tank top thing to wear as a woolly layer over long-sleeved t-shirts and it’s going to need blocking. For non-crafters, blocking is a finishing technique used for handmade items using natural fibres, which involves gently stretching the dampened garment into its correct shape and pinning it in place to let it dry. It’s not essential but it can improve the hang/drape of the finished item and needs to be done, to a slightly lesser extent, whenever the item is washed (which is why some items have “reshape while wet” on the label).

Purpose-bought blocking mats can be bought – usually rubber or foam mats that allow the item to dry without developing damp mould, are flexible to use (often interlinking so you can use a small piece or a large sheet, depending on your need) and easy to store. Crafters tend to plough all their hard-earned money into precious yarn though so are good at making their own or finding cheaper alternatives: I’ve heard of people using swim floats, garden-kneelers or the like from the £/$ store, of others using clean carpet tiles and others still using cardboard in a pillowcase or under a light towel.

They’re all good ideas but I wondered if the Recycle This community, which I know contains a lot of crafty people, had any other ideas.

What do you use for blocking? Have you made or repurposed anything for the task? Any ideas or advice will be gratefully received!

We’ve had an email from Bala:

Can an aftershave which is nearly 3 years old be used as a car freshner??

This sent me down two research routes: 1) do aftershaves/colognes/perfumes expire? and 2) how to make a car air freshener. In answer to the first question, general not: they might lose their top notes or the scent distort in other ways after around five years but otherwise the alcohol will preserve it pretty well, especially if the bottle is pretty full (so there has been less exposure to the air). Some might separate slightly but at three years old, it should be fine.

As for making the freshner, Planet Green suggests a dangly scrap fabric/scrap cardboard/fabric sandwich, but I worry about the suggestion to soak the fabric with the scent – I would have though a few spritzes, refreshed regularly, would probably suffice in a closed car (a little scent goes a long way!).

Anyone got any ideas for making other types of freshner?

Or any other ideas for reusing or recycling old aftershave/cologne?

Kathleen has emailed to ask about an ironing board cover/pad:

There just has to be something I can do with this……it’s way too big to toss!

Ironing..? board..? what is this thing of which you speak? You mean some people don’t have perpetually creased clothes? Amazing! :D

We do have an ironing board but it gets used more for stuff like fusing plastic than it does for actual clothes — if I had a spare or old ironing board cover, I’d keep one for potentially leaky crafts like melting plastic and one for clothes.

As for repurposing it, if it’s a fabric one with a quilted/heavily padded section, could it be made into an oven mitt? I’d imagine they’d have similar heat absorbing qualities. At one time my mum had a thinner silvery one – could that be used for lining/insulating a lunch cool bag? Would that work?

Any other ideas or suggestions?

We’ve had an email from Charley:

I’ve read your pages about reducing toilet paper and sanitary towels. I’m not sure I want to go that far yet but I do want to find an alternative for makeup sponges like for applying liquid foundation. Do you know if there are any recycled sponges on the market or what else can I use?

I’m hoping we’ve got some make-up experts in the Recycle This community — I’ve only worn foundation twice in my entire life so I don’t know much about that sort of thing. It’s an evasive answer but that is one way to reduce using synthetic sponges/foam pads – and other make-up consumables such as packaging: wear less make-up and less regularly. I realise it’s not an answer for everyone but it is something to consider. I think I used to wear make-up out of habit but once I got over the shock of going cosmetically nude, I quickly normalised to not wearing make-up.

Now to Charley’s actual question: with Google, I can find sponge scourers make from recycled but not finer make-up sponges. Anyone got better Google skills or with more cosmetics knowledge, know where/what to look for? You can get natural sponges for applying make-up (which could be composted at the end of the life) but they usually have their own environmental impact. Anyone got any advice on those?

Alternatives: again, possibly not for everyone but switch to a powder foundation that can be applied with a brush – a good quality brush washed regularly will last a long, long time. (On a similar point, I can’t believe I stuck with sponge eye shadow applicators for so long — trained into them by the “free” ones with some shadows I guess — when a shaped brush does a far better job and lasts a lot longer too.)

I know a lot of people make their own make-up removal pads to use instead of cotton wool but has anyone made their own reusable application pads?

Any other suggestions or ideas for Charley to try?

Several bloggers I follow take part in the “Food Waste Friday” meme, in which they post pictures of their food waste from the week and a few have featured the same thing over the last few weeks: floppy celery.

We don’t eat celery here very often (because my boyfriend John has … issues with it) but if it looks like I’m not going to eat it all before the floppy stage kicks in, I slice it into small rounds and freeze it to include in the mix next time I’m making stock. If John didn’t have his issues with it, I’d probably be happy to include no longer crisp celery in a stew/casserole – since it’ll soften up during cooking anyway. (I don’t tell him about putting it in stock, ssssh, don’t tell him!)

There is some debate on whether/how it should be fed to chickens – some people advocate chopping it up first so the “strings” don’t get caught in the chicken’s crop, others say they enjoy the challenge of breaking it up themselves. The similar yes/no debate seems to exist for rabbits and other small furry pets – just because like with people, some animals like it more than others – but all advocate that it should just be used as a treat in addition to other food, not in large quantities.

A good few people around the ol’ interweb also say you can revive soggy celery by leave it to stand in some ice water for a while – or more effectively, slice into smaller sticks and float them in a bowl of the same.

(If it’s too far gone for reviving or even cooking, it can, of course, be composted.)

What do you do with floppy celery sticks?