Level up your spring cleaning/What to do with all your unneeded items.

You've KonMaried the heck out of your house. You've got boxes and piles of items to discard.

So what do you do with all your junk?

After a couple years of constant decluttering, I've broken down my used items into several categories: Sell, donate to charity, donate for rewards, and recycle. Here's how it works.

Sell

I have two bins that I keep in my closet for saleable items. These are divided into two categories: Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer. When one bin is full of high-quality items, I resell my items online or through consignment stores according to whatever season is in demand. Selling in season is essential, particularly with consignment stores. Smaller businesses don't have the space to stock out-of-season items and will reject snowsuits in summer. 

Altruistic Donations

All the high-quality items that I can't or don't want to sell are donated to thrift stores run by charities I'm interested in supporting. These stores are staffed by volunteers, and proceeds support community programs.

Rewards Donations

My mid-level surplus goes to for-profit thrift stores like Talize. Talize gives me a $5 coupon per box of items to be used in their store. I enjoy the selection and variety of clothing I can find in thrift stores, so this is a coupon I'm happy to use!

Recycle

Value Village(Savers)

I put Value Village in my recycling category because the company is great at recycling, but their prices are lousy. Value Village is one of the last thrift stores I will shop at because they usually charge double for comparable items at other thrift stores. Even with the 20% off coupon, they give to thank you for donating, I generally don't bother.

However, Value Village is one of the few places that actually recycles textiles which means they are okay with taking in your old socks. :) Value Village also works with third-party recyclers to recycle your used electronics and scrap metal. 

Another cool aspect of donating to Value Village is that while they are a for-profit business, they will accept your goods on behalf of a local charity, usually Canadian Diabetes or Big Brothers. Based on the weight of your donated goods, they pay money to that local Charity. This means that with my holy socks and scratched metal pans, I like to make sure Value Village gets a lot of books from me.

How do I know all of this? I used to work for the company. :)

Local Recyclers

After all this, whatever is left goes to a local recycler. I'm talking about items that don't get picked up curbside on garbage day: old paint, beverage containers, batteries, lightbulbs, Styrofoam, soft plastic packaging and plastic bags... you get it. Now, this part gets tricky. If your city doesn't have a centralized recycling location (I'm calling you out, Township of Langley), you will have to work with your area's small and scattered local recycling depots. The trick to doing this well is two-fold. 

#1 Call ahead. What and how items are recycled is constantly changing at every location. This is based on demand for the items, the locations' capacity limits, and BC's changing licensing requirements. 

#2 Talk with the staff working on the floor. The people sorting your junk are recycling geniuses. They can give you more helpful and relevant insider knowledge than any helpline. Staff members can pass on valuable tips like 'bring in your styrofoam by 10am on Tuesday. After that, we will be at full capacity and can't accept anymore. Or 'officially, we can't take electronics, but unofficially, we do process a small amount if you only have a few items and want to save an extra stop.'

The Salvation Army is actually a huge recycler of many cumbersome items, notably electronics. However, they don't advertise this on their website. Probably because of capacity limits. 

What I'm saying is that, with a bit of detective work, almost everything can be recycled. But there is one last barrier to hitting zero waste. Without centralized recycling, driving a gas-powered SUV around the lower mainland to find a home for all my various bits and bobs is probably worse for the environment than allowing my non-toxic waste to be buried responsibly in a landfill. 

And that, friends, is my recycling process. I hope these tips help you save a bit of cash and, even better, help the environment. Happy decluttering!

Useful Recycling Projects Anyone Can Do!

 January 2022 has been a little like a fire cracker that fizzled out. I was so excited for that bang of fresh new goals, dreams and momentum to energize my life… but instead, 2022 brought with it more lockdowns and homeschooling. Like so many of us around the world right now, my family has caught the omicron virus. Thankfully, our symptoms are mild, but that doesn’t mean they’re not challenging! Seems like we’ve all had a head cold for weeks now.

Having the kids home and working with low energy resources has also meant being less productive when it comes to writing. However, my creative brain is always busy and always making something! Take this coffee shelf for instance:

I had time on my hands and I wanted some more organization, so I made this little shelf from papier-mâché and cardboard. Yes, I know it’s a bit warped. No, I don’t think it will last forever. Still… it was a bright spot during a dreary January and the process gave me joy.

So in celebration of the small things I create, for no other reason than I like to create, recycle and save money, I thought I’d post this collage of some of the random and useful things around the house that I’ve made.

    Denim rag rug. Everything about this was done by hand… it took about 8 months!

So many crocheted and knitted blankets! I don’t have any advanced skills in this area, I just like using up scrap thrift-store yarn. I find both crochet and knitting soothing for my busy brain.

I was looking for a way to recycle wine corks. I made this pot trivet from a cookie tin lid, twine, cut corks and glue.

This isn’t a recycling project, but I like to design and print off my own calendar stickers for planning events.

I cut a torn bed sheet into strips and crocheted a rag rug.

A glass jar and some hemp twine makes a toothbrush holder.

Quick! I need something to hang necklaces on!

This jewelry holder was pieced together from a handmade picture frame, painted canvas board and drawer pulls.

An old picture frame and a drawer pull makes a phone stand/charging port for the kitchen.

Cardboard, burlap, and a frame, is an easy way to create earring storage.

The kids smashed the shade of this lamp. I made a new shade with papier-mâché and acrylic paint, building off the frame of the old shade.

:) So, this is what I do when I’m not doing anything in particular at all. I mend, recycle and make!

What crafty projects do you do?

 

Dreamscapes

In my dreams, my family owns a house. The house stands upon the top of a grassy hill like a great wooden ship cresting a wave. The sea is the dreary and complex city pressing up against the hill on all sides, held at bay by a great tall white wall.

This is the home that no one else wanted. When we found it, it had been the ancient squat of a mad hoarder, with piles of garbage up to our necks in every room.

But we loved it. We bought it and began to clean it. As we cleaned, we discovered that beneath the garbage was a vast and dazzling collection of fantastic items from across the entire world. Each room on the second and third floors of this house is dedicated to a different collection.

The home in my dreams is full of wonders. Everything is made of polished gleaming wood. The bay windows in the dining room take the space of an entire wall and somehow always look out onto an endless misty moor. There is always something to repair in this home, and there is always another nook to discover. Usually, these nooks are small sunny spots filled with pillows and books.

The basement of the house is frightening and fascinating. It is the only place in the home that defies order, no matter how hard my lucid dreaming self tries to repair and clear it. The basement is always dimly lit with a maze of ancient clothes from across time hanging on racks. The clothes are beautiful and delicate, and yet they fit poorly and always smell bad. The clothes are the happiest staying where they are.

The basement floor is wet. Beyond the clothes, there is a mountain of rusted and tangled sports equipment, like a hedge of thorns.

If you can make it past the broken sports equipment, you come to a place where you see that the home's foundation is cracked. Above the cracked foundation, there is a large hole rotten through the wooden wall. This hole refuses to be repaired, no matter how I try, and it fills me with unease. I must face the fact that one day my dreams will crumble, and the house will collapse. And maybe we were fools to have bought this home at all.

The hole weeps like an open wound, and it reminds me of the heel of Achilles. Wild dogs, spiders, and raccoons come into the basement through the hole and make nests in the ancient clothes. 

I flee back up to the dining room and try not to think of the hole.

There is a secret elevator in the house. It took some time to find it, and it doesn't always work. But if you can get over the fear of cramped spaces and the possibility that the elevator might get stuck and trap you forever between the house's walls, you can take the elevator to the very secret top floor. 

When you step out of the elevator, you see that half of the top floor opens to a wild alpine rooftop garden. The other half of the secret top floor is cool, white, and metallic. There is a futuristic command interface inside of an egg-shaped room. This room looks like the bridge of a battleship with a large screen and a wide control panel. This is where the greatest secret lies. My wonderful house on the hill doesn't just look like a ship; it IS a ship, controlled by science and magic and a benevolent AI personality.

All you have to do is say the word, and the city around you grows liquid. The house turns into a mighty ship and sails through the world's landscapes as if they were water. You can go anywhere, have any adventure and sometimes even lift up off the earth and sail through the sunrise.

I return to this magical home many nights while I sleep, and the dream builds and shifts. There is a trapdoor leading to a secret underground world. There is a train that circles the base and never lets you leave. There is a room where you can learn magic as long as you never tell anyone else where it is. And gargles. There are gargoyles on the chimney tops...

But I have spent too long in bed. There are chores to be done and people to greet.

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep..."

Sweet dreams.

:)

The Art of Recycling

 This past spring the local British Columbia artisan community came together to create an art exhibit from recycled materials. I had so much fun participating! The exhibit was hosted at the Langley Centennial Museum and I was honoured to be able to capture these pieces during my visit. I hope you find this work as lovely and inspiring as I did.