To celebrate Earth Day, I bought a new cloth bag to carry groceries home in. I love these bags for many reasons. First of all, I never have to grab a basket or a cart if I’m just getting a few things. Usually I will just fill the bag and go instead of buying more than what I need. Plus, all of the bags I use have long straps, so it is super easy to carry a tote of groceries on each shoulder instead of 10 plastic bags in hand. I try to keep several cloth bags in my car all the time so that I can just take one into any store. Here is some great information about getting rid of plastic bags!

Today I am going to share with you all how to make “yarn” from plastic bags.

Step 1: Lay your plastic bag out flat.
Step 2: Cut off the top (handles) and the bottom. You should have an open cylinder left.
Step 3: Fold this piece of plastic into a flat strip.
Step 4: Cut this strip leaving about 2 inches of space between each cut. You are left with some plastic circles!
Step 5: Lay one plastic circle strip on top of another.
Steps 6 & 7: Connect each piece together using the knots shown above.
Step 8: Pull the knot tight, but be careful not to tear the plastic or you will have to pull the broken plastic pieces out!

Step 9: Roll your “yarn” into a ball and it is ready to use!

Here are a few purses that I made to auction to benefit the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources in 2008:

I figured that it was time to finally post an entry about this!

This is a blanket that I made for a friend to give her at her baby shower. It didn’t take very long because I used a huge hook, so after watching several episodes of Jon and Kate Plus Eight and everything else on TLC, it was finished. You can’t tell in this picture, but I started to add a stitch or two on the turn around, so the bottom of one side sort of sticks out. Either way, this is the first blanket that I have ever made!

I could lie to you all and talk about how insanely busy I have been, but that really isn’t true. I’ve just been doing all of the usual things.. work, game, clean, cook, clean, game, sleep, repeat. That’s about the extent of it. Although, when I don’t have anything to do at work (and when I grow tired of refereshing PerezHilton.com every 3 minutes) I have been reading and sketching.

Whenever I met Sam and realized how into art (and how talented) he was, I sort of forgot that I like it too At the time I just wrote it off and something that I liked to do but wasn’t as talented at, so I put it on the backburner and dubbed him the artist. I became busy with other things and other interests, but it didn’t really occur to me until very recently that there is no reason only one of us can be artsy. I’m very crafty, and I love to crochet. I create computer graphics or will try out some photo manipulation once in a while, but somewhere along the line I stopped sketching and gave up the idea of painting because I figure next to him I am such a newb. And he would never encourage such craziness. If anything he would only encourage me to experiment and practice and just to do anything I have an interest in.

ANYway, I found THIS post on Craftster and became so inspired. The only sketching I have done has been more on the cartoony side, so I figured that I should just take time and practice and try something new. I don’t have the CD’s to install my scanner to my computer, but I’m going to try and find the drivers and post some experiments.

I have gotten back into reading some lately too. Mostly it’s just during my lunch hour, but if it’s a book that I’m really into I’ll read it at home too. I’ve checked out most of the thirft stores around here, and I’m looking forward to raiding my mom’s collection of classics to see if I can borrow anything neat next time I travel home.

There are a few sites here and there that I have been keeping up with, but for the majority I’ve been a terrible webmistress and visitor this last month (or more..). SO, I’m going to go and catch up some and get some other things accomplished. I’ll try my best to have pictures next time. Happy hump day!