Confession time: I’ve got an awful cognitive dissonance thing with buying cheap clothes – I know about the horrific conditions in sweatshops, I know how cotton production is incredibly damaging to the environment, I know how the clothes produced in sweatshops are (understandably) far from good quality and liable to fall apart quickly, I know how much energy is wasted transporting them around the world and I know that shop employees, especially in the cheapest pile ’em high, sell ’em cheap shops, are treated poorly and paid badly – and yet…

I think I got into “buy them cheap when you see them” habits as a teenager when I didn’t have a lot of money and there wasn’t quite as many cheap clothes around as there is now (those quaint days before Primark and £4 supermarket jeans) – I’d always wear black vest tops, for example, so I might as well snap them up when they’re in the sale whether I need them at that exact moment or not. That habit stuck even when I started working and had a bit more money because, well, it’s a bargain, isn’t it? who can refuse a bargain? plus, I’d still wear that black vest top at some point. Once I’d got through the other 30 in my bedroom drawer of course.
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We’ve had an email from Marisa:

A bit of a weird one for you! My MIL is redecorating her living room and that means replacing her huge collection of fake flower bouquets to match the new colour scheme. I hate fake flowers but would like to save them from landfill if possible. Any suggestions?

If the flowers aren’t too discoloured or dusty, offer them to your local charity/thrift/op shop for resale. If they are a bit too dusty for that, you could try cleaning them first – there are a variety of different ways to do it apparently, just be careful not to use hot water in case it dissolves the glue which holds them together.

As for reuses, a lot of people use smaller flowers/buds for decorating hair accessories/fascinators, or purses/bags. Larger flowers can be pulled apart for their petals and used to make a scaly (in a good, mermaid way, not a ill/reptilian way) effect for costumes or, again, as decoration for purses/bags.

Any other suggestions or specific tutorials?

(Photo by assiewin)

• More and more people seem to be using the patterns from security envelopes for crafts these days – check out these kitchen roll tube & security envelope napkin holders by maya*made.
• Lindsey from SwirlyArts also uses them for gift tags and Design*sponge have turned them inside out for use as better-than-boring-white envelopes.
• Moving onto more fabricky pursuits, CraftyNest have a follow-up tutorial making headbags from the band of fabric leftover from making tank top totes.
• Speaking of using things efficiently, I like how Sadge at Firesign Farm‘s pillowcase-into-an-apron tutorial uses up every bit of the pillowcase, and little else.

We’ve had an email from Alana:

The kibble I get my dog has switched from being in paper bags to plastic ones. What can I do with them now?

You may still be able to recycle them – the plastic cat food bags we’ve got are labelled as recyclable (although not actually saying what type of plastic they are, just that “most councils accept them for recycling” – a great example of the unhelpful lack of information that Simon was complaining about the other day – I suspect they’ll be LDPE, ie number 4 plastic). Check the packaging for similar (although hopefully more helpful) recycling marks.

As for reuses, they’re pretty strong plastic and sometimes with a zip lock seal at the top so can be used for a range of airtight/waterproof storage purposes. An idea for smaller bags might be to decant washing powder from cardboard boxes into the bags to stop it absorbing moisture from the atmosphere. Bigger, dog food size bags, could be used in the garden – a seasonal idea might be to use them for leaf mulch. Staying in the garden, the bags could also be sliced open to use as plastic sheeting to protect crops over winter/discourage weed growth (although with the usual caveat that plastic that isn’t specifically designed for outdoor use tends to break down in the sunshine).

Other ideas?

Finishing up our week of water themed posts, here’s a culinary question – what can I do with leftover brine?

I had some awesome olives the other day – sharp and tasty – and the leftover brine smelled herby and was a lovely purple colour – a really developed flavour. It seemed a waste to throw it away but I thought it might be a little too salty to use in other cooking.

You guys impressed me with your multiple uses for post-pickle vinegar – is there anything similar for brine?