Recycled Costco Cereal Box and Magazine Paper

Before

After

I love re-using packaging and turning them into free, usable containers. I also started collecting magazines for their vibrant color spreads. So when I was trying to figure out what to do with this cereal box from Costco, I took out my pile of blue magazine paper to match the theme in this room.

A DIY public safety announcement

Just the other day, as I was getting in my car in the parking lot, I wiped out on ice that was hidden in a very shallow puddle. Needless to say, not only did I end up bruising myself but I was also left with wet marks on the bottoms of my pants.

Not fun.

It did get me wondering the rest of the day though: How did this happen? I was otherwise fine when I was standing in that puddle next to my car door and opening it. It wasn’t until the very moment that I went to get into the car that I suddenly went sliding and landed practically under the car door. After madly trying to regain ground, I looked down closely and realized there was a huge layer of black ice sitting right below the glistening surface of the puddle.

After thinking back and carefully reflecting on the sequence of events that led to my fall — how nothing indicated to me that the black ice was even there until it was too late — I saw that a number of influences factored into this accident, so I set out to make this PSA to post in the elevator to warn other residents in my building.

How I keep my kitchen towel from falling onto the floor

Binder clips! Great for keeping opened snacks closed,  making clip boards out of notepads, and keeping the kitchen towel from falling off its rack when you dry your hands

Two Easy Steps:

1. Drape kitchen towel over the holder on the oven door.
2. Clip one side of the towel to make it impossible for the towel to slip off.

10 Daily Habits with Post-Its

After a recent call about achieving goals with my coach, she shared a couple exercises around “10 Daily Habits” and I really like the intent behind them:

“Daily Habits are small constructive actions done on a routine basis. These actions can quickly give you a sense of accomplishment and forward momentum. These daily habits form a foundation upon which major change takes place. What action, if taken on a regular basis, would make a difference for you in one of the areas [important to you in] life?”

Using this premise, I wrote up some post-its to stick to my door to help me keep track — and put in a very visible place I can’t ignore — of what I have or haven’t accomplished for the day. The left “To Do” side is a list of post-its with things to tackle and once I’ve completed one, I can check it off by moving it to the right “Done” side. Then at the end of the day, all I do is swap the “To Do” and “Done” post-its to start over for the next day.

How to make recycled paper placemats

For some reason, I still get issues of W magazine from redeeming airline miles a couple years ago. While I should tell them to not send me anymore, I do enjoy their art and thought I would take advantage of the vivid colors of their 10″ x 13″ spreads.

Along the lines of basic, uniform weaving patterns (as illustrated by this WikiHow article), the fun challenge of this is finding the right mix of colors and deciding where to show or hide certain segments of the strip of paper. You might be able to tell where I tried to hide any distinguishing features of the models to create a more uniform texture.

After arranging the strips of paper in the pattern I wanted, I used glue sticks to hold the pieces together and then took book cover laminating paper to seal it. I tried to get the air bubbles out, but it doesn’t work well with so many pieces that weren’t totally flattened. In hindsight, I would recommend trying a hard laminate instead. The pictures above illustrate the pieces before laminating.