#zero waste diy

[keruukat]

PLARN (Plastic Bag Yarn) TUTORIAL!

You Will Need:

Plastic grocery bags (though you can also use plastic packaging if it didn’t contain food, or really just any plastic if it’s long enough and clean.)

Scissors

Pen that can mark the plastic

Something to measure with

I’m not the best at describing things, so I’m going to do my best to supplement with images. I would put alt text but I don’t honestly know how to meaningfully describe the images that’s not what I write in the tutorial. Also don’t mind my dirty desk!

Instructions!

Grab your bag! I’m using this blue one because I thought it would show up better on camera and I have a bunch.

Flatten it out, like so! I like to hook one thumb in the bottom flap thing, where it’s sealed shut, and the other in the handle.

Fold it up! I fold it in half, twice, hot dog style. Should get you a nice long rectangle. Make sure the edges are nice and lined up, especially the bottom and the handles.

Chop off the sealed bottom as close as you can to the seam, and the handles as straight as possible. You want nice square corners. You’ve basically got a cylinder of plastic, now.

Unfold one side. It should have only one layer of plastic. If it has more, refold it up and flip it over, and unfold it again.

Measure and mark the width you want your plarn to be! I use an old staples box for the perfect width for my use, but you might want it thinner or thicker depending on. Too thin might cause issues with stretching while working, though.

Cut off any excess. This is where I’m discarding the damaged part!

Mark the top edge, staggered from the bottom marks. Exactly half way! This will be a guideline later.

Cut the marks on the folded side. DO NOT CUT ALL THE WAY ACROSS! Only cut the folded parts, into strips.

Unfold it! Everything should be attached on one side only. It’s time to Spiralize This Bitch.

Cut on a diagonal where one cut ends and the next begins. Hopefully that makes sense? You’re trying to take this tube and make it into a long spiral.

Ta da! You have 1 bag worth of plarn! Tie any subsequent strips together, and have fun working with your plarn!

PRO TIP: this is pretty labor-intensive but I’ve been reinforcing the plarn by single-crocheting the whole length of it, weaving tied ends in as you go. It’s worth it, because I’m making a granny square tote bag out of this, and I don’t want it to break when I’m done.

[thatcertaintouch]

Tips to Reduce Food Waste

According to the USDA, 31% of food is wasted on a retail and consumer level. This can be damaging to the environment and economy as it wastes land, water, labor, and energy required to produce this food. Most Americans are unaware of why this is so harmful to the environment. Intuitively, food breaks back down into soil, how can that be bad? Throwing away food in your garbage is bad for the…

[gendergraveyard]

Buying second hand is punk!

Upcycling is punk!

Selling/donating old shit is punk!

DIYing is punk!

[ninamation]

Patchwork makeup bags

Made patchwork makeup bags out of secondhand and recycled materials to ask my BFFs to be my bridesmaids using this tutorial

[gourmetdumpster]

Just your daily reminder that mending doesn’t always have to be pretty; it just has to work

[avid-miscellanea]

I heard underconsumption-core was trending so here’s my watering can. There’s one hole drilled into the top of the handle to allow air in so the water comes out of the cap smoothly. Is it aesthetic? No. Was it free (with purchase of oat milk and access to a drill with bits of varying sizes) and does it work? Yes!

[snailsthatdocrafts]

on todays episode of doing solarpunk /eco friendly stuff w materials i have on hand bc i am cheap asf. dryer balls!! ive seen some sources say they can cut down on drying time by up to 40%! which helps a lot w saving energy and money :3

I wasnt super happy w the prices I saw tho, for an item i was a little suspicious of the impact of

but u know what i have on hand? wool yarn. and even better, i had no plans to use it and its been sitting in my stash for a hot sec :'). so i crocheted a ball, stuffed it w more wool yarn, and its finished :3 its not as dense as the store ones, but i think it'll help some.

will update w if it lowers my dry time significantly! im drying a thick duvet later today so ill have a BIG test of this things abilities!

[borninwinter81]

DIY budget cyber/industrial outfit - first time in public!

I made a couple of previous posts about this dress here and here, as well as the matching collar, and I thought it would be fun to show how I styled it when I wore it for the first time on Friday. Honestly I was a little concerned it would just look dumb, but when I tried it with the full makeup and shoes I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it.

Apologies for the abysmal photo quality, especially in the first image. I don't have a good camera and I wanted to try and show the full outfit. That blurred mirror selfie is the only head to toe picture I got.

I didn't mention in my other posts but in addition to making patches for the dress I also nipped in the seams so it fit me better (it was my size but kinda shapeless, and I wanted to give myself a waist). This is very easy to do with almost any dress, skirt or top, you just put the garment on inside out, pinch in the side seams so they fit the contours of your body (try and do this equally on both sides) and pin them together. Safety pins are best so you don't accidentally hurt yourself.

Take the garment off and draw a smooth line with tailors chalk connecting all the pins, then sew along that line, either with a machine or by hand. Turn right side out and try it on again. Provided you're happy with the fit, trim away the excess fabric. You may need to be careful if it's a fabric that could fray - I usually go over the seams again with a zig-zag machine stitch to try and minimise this. There are also products you can buy like fray-check. If in doubt, or there isn't much excess fabric you could just leave the seams untrimmed.

The length is a little out of my comfort zone so I wore gym shorts underneath to help myself feel less exposed and reduce the risk of flashing - I tend to do this with any dress or skirt that's above the knee anyway.

Continuing the budget theme, rather than buying any new accessories (again, cyber stuff is mega expensive) I looked through my wardrobe for items I already had that might work.

These goggles are not the usual kind of cyber goggles, but they matched everything else I was wearing. I was given them by a friend who was getting rid of them ages ago so they cost me nothing!

I really didn't feel like making and wearing cyberlox, so instead I just got some yellow hair elastics and did a ponytail.

I made these arm warmers about 12 years ago. You can probably tell that they began life as a pair of skinny jeans. To cut down on the amount of sewing I needed to do I used the existing hem and seams. After cutting them to a length I liked I did the pinch and pin thing to make them fit to my arm, and put in zips along the outer seam to make them easier to put on. As it turned out this wasn't necessary because the fabric is stretchy enough that I can pull them on and off. The zips add a nice bit of visual interest though.

I ripped a hole in each one for my thumb, and I had a pack of extra large hook-and-eyes, so I sewed the "eye" parts down them and added some old bootlaces. I've never been 100% happy with this decoration, but I haven't had any inspiration on how to change them in the last 12 years.

I wanted a necklace in addition to the collar, and couldn't think of anything more appropriate than this. I originally got it for a cosplay, Vasquez from Aliens, and with the big yellow industrial loader from the end of that movie which Ripley uses to fight the Queen alien... it seemed there was kind of a connection there.

I once met Jeanette Goldstein whilst dressed as Vasquez and told her she was my childhood hero and she signed these tags, but unfortunately most of the signature has come off when I was cleaning them.

Lastly, the boots. As with any goth outfit the footwear tend to be the most expensive, particularly if you want ridiculous platform heels like these.

When it comes to footwear, I really would not recommend any alternative brand names like Killstar, Koi or similar. They're often terrible quality, the heels will snap, the soles will peel off, zips will break. In my opinion the only decent specifically alternative shoe brand are New Rock (even they're lower quality than they used to be in the 90s) and although New Rock do make heels I wouldn't wear them often enough to justify spending £200 on a pair. I prefer flats the majority of the time!

The brand of these is Funtasma, and I believe they are intended for use by pole-dancers, meaning they're decent quality and will be up to a night of dancing in a club. I took a change of shoes along with me to put on at the end of the evening but they are surprisingly comfortable for the first few hours.

I got them about 15 years ago on sale, and at that time they were around £40. Not cheap but not super expensive either, and I've definitely got my money's worth out of them. I had them re-soled once with special toughened soles that have extra grip so they're safer to walk in, but that's it. One time I even did the 3 mile walk home at 2am in 6 inches of snow wearing these because I didn't want to wait hours for a taxi (an occasion where I did not take a change of shoes!)

So, not your standard cyber outfit, but one that gives my own spin on this look (which should be the goal with any fashion style - a guideline to create something unique, not a rulebook that you have to follow 100%) and was put together super cheaply. The only new things I bought were the dress, fabric to make the patches, and a pack of multicoloured hair elastics.

[ecopunkbeginner]

I really want to learn how to sew, but I'm very overwhelmed. I'm afraid of practicing on most things for fear of messing them up and wasting them. I'm really the kind of person who needs someone teaching me and available to answer my questions, but I don't have anyone for that and there's several reasons I'm apprehensive about finding a class (the most rational of which are my lack of income and COVID, but social anxiety is also a factor).

I know there's guides and videos online, but I always get so overwhelmed and usually don't know where to start because all my ideas are abstract, abstract to me specifically (because I don't know how fabric construction works), or difficult and/or risky enough to scare and/or confuse me out of wanting to do it.

Does anyone have tips for teaching yourself to sew? How do I practice without being wasteful?

[bats-and-anarchism]

A little low waste diy:

Since crocheting is already a hobby of mine and i had this cord made of jute around i crocheted some "sponges". I strongly believe they will last me longer than those throwaway plastic sponges and will work just as fine

Another alternative could be crocheting them as little bags like those soap bags every zero waste influencer got so obsessed with, but that would've used much more cord for one piece.

I think other materials would work too, like cotton yarn maybe. It would be softer tho, obviously, and might not work for tougher stains (like a crusty pan) or just any other rougher yarn without plastic

[petula-xx]

I'm a renter so investing in garden infrastructure is a balance and a compromise.

Mine is a garden of poverty. Found objects, repurposed items, cheap tip finds, composting, creativity and elbow grease is what my various vegie gardens run on.

Everything you see here I got for free. Wood lengths and a wire trellis from a curbside rubbish pile and bricks that were onsite when I moved in. This is all packed together between the legs of a garden arch which I bought cheap several years ago.

Today I refreshed the soil with 50% home sourced ingredients. Pea seeds saved from last season will go in soon. This DIY box will be feeding me again shortly.

This is how I spent my Earth Day. I hope your Earth Day was equally rewarding.

[cyberthot666]

if you wanna learn how to reduce your waste and save money go on ig reels, tiktok, or youtube right now and look up “up cycling tutorials” I’ve already learned how to repurpose old candle jars, food jars, plastic grocery bags, bread bag ties, paper towel rolls, cardboard boxes from amazon, and more just go look it up rn you can’t convince me you can’t repurpose literally ANYTHING. don’t buy new, figure out how to use things you already have!!!! if we all adopted these practices it would cause a major reduction in landfill waste!

[ninamation]

Sweater collar mend

Thrifted this sweater for $3 and immediately ripped the back of the collar when I washed it. There are probably better and prettier ways to mend this, but I just ironed on some interfacing and secured it with a few stitches.

Current works in progress:

Tons of origami roses for the wedding

Make up bags for my bridesmaids

Painting a thrifted coat hook with folk art inspired designs

Knitting a hat for my fiancé

Lots of mends for other people that I put off

[theinfamousdoctorf]

I saw a discussion happening the other day and wanted to throw my two cents in. If you have livestock then you probably have feedbags aplenty. And some of our bags are made of pretty tough material that I was looking for a way to reuse. We never seem to have enough baskets for eggs around my house, so I started cutting feed bags into strips and weaving my own. These are zero waste projects made from bags with a woven core rope made out of even more bags. If they get dirty you can fully submerge them in hot soapy water and then just set them someplace to drip dry.

[These are very time intensive to make. Please realize that the cost reflects the number of actual hours spent cleaning and cutting materials and weaving them.]