Op shopping our way into summer

You might remember that I recently cleared out my oversized or under appreciated clothes to unclutter my drawers and make way for the "new" style of things that would reflect (the new and improved, lol) me.

The weather is warming up in Perth and I had just one pair of shorts to wear. They were a pretty plain beige pair I picked up at the op shops last year for casual use around the house. They just weren't going to take me far into summer alone.

I decided a trip to the op shops was on the cards to rectify the situation. I was struggling to get there until we miraculously had free time on Saturday morning, after a very quick stop at the air conditioner shop, hunting a split system to install in Turtle's room. We have conceded we need to install one after the stress of shifting her back and forth between our room and hers last summer.

There are three op shops within walking distance from each other near our house. We only had time for one and it came through with the goodies.

The summer 'goodies'

Apart from shorts, I also need casual (but not too casual) t shirts. Turtle has a mix of gifted summer clothes for her birthday and secondhand clothes from a friend. She was, coincidentally, also needing new shorts. Her size 1 clothes are just fitting her so we will need to upsize through summer.

I went straight to the women's clothes section (spurred on knowing Turtle would need a nap shortly) and found so many t shirts and shorts that I liked. After my recent shopping experience I have taken a liking to flowing tops. I found a yellow flowing t-shirt with a big studded love heart that I loved but hesitated to buy. The idea of wearing a love heart in public seemed kind of weird to me. But I loved the yellow colour and the faded gold metal of the studs was really simple and not flashy at all. I'm so glad I gave it a go. I really like it. I also found an orange button up sleeveless top that is great for casual wear, albeit a touch baggy on me.

There were a range of shorts that I actually wanted to try on. That was surprising since I struggle to find shorts I like. They are often too short or too baggy and shapeless. It is hard to find a flattering style that is in a good colour to mix and match. I bought two pairs of fitted long shorts (almost like cut of jeans) in black and denim. I also bought a pair of stripy purple and white shorts, inspired by Turtle's favourite colour.

said 'stripy purple shorts' which I am really enjoying wearing - it's nice to have some colour on

While I was busy sorting myself out Turtle was happily playing with the myriad of toys that the op shop had for sale. They had keyboards, the little plastic balls in a bag (think Maggie getting lost in the ball play area in the Simpsons), and activity tables just to name a few. We somehow refrained from buying any toys.

Mr Fix It was on task looking for size 2-3 summer clothes for Turtle. We ended up buying some Country Road stripy cargo shorts for her (I'm not sure if they are boys shorts but I'm sure no one will notice) as well as some casual green shorts. We also bought a gorgeous grey and white stripy top with a sequined pink star on it for her too.

It turns out Mr Fix It has found himself similarly depleted of shorts in the lead up to summer. He also, surprisingly, found a nice green pair of green shorts that fit him well.

I think you will agree that we were doing extremely well at that point. To buy one item of clothing on a shopping trip can be rated as a successful outing. To buy 6 pairs of shorts and 3 tops is pretty impressive. With a price tag of less than $50 for all of it we could not complain.

The final moment of joy from this experience was finding a Thomas the Tank Engine melamine plate for Turtle, which reminds me of visiting grandparents as a child, and a set of striped colourful summer drinking glasses, which we needed.

I paid around $50 for it all and then realised, when I got to the car where Mr Fix It was sorting out a pooey nappy that had presented itself in the changerooms when Turtle decided to "try on" her shorts, that the check out boy had forgotten to charge me for a few items.

I went back in to get him to ring through the difference (he had taken a call while serving me and I had put some things in our bag that he hadn't rung through yet) and another customer commented how honest I am. The sales boy (he was so incredibly young I can't call him a man!) agreed. I pointed out I was already getting bargains and the money was going to charity.. Why would I bother stealing?

I felt so lucky to have found such wonderful things and to be paying so little for them. If I had bought all of that new I would have paid over $200 easily.

Since this expedition we have had a few spells of warm weather and I have happily worn all of my new things. It feels great to have some new favourite clothes to wear.

Have you been shopping your way into summer? Have you been lucky enough to score some new favourites too?

Wrapping up Plastic Free July 2015

Although July seems like a distant memory already I wanted to look back and wrap up Plastic Free July properly. We got a lot out of it in our home this year. I'm sure we are going to keep doing a lot of the changes we started too, which is a bonus!

Plastic Waste Collected

As I committed to do at the start of our plastic free journey this year, I kept the plastic wrappers we used in July to help work out where we could make improvements. I didn't keep all of the multiples of products - for example pasta packets - since I figured once we had a couple the message was there to try and find an alternative option.

Here is what we collected:

Packaging	Number of items	Found a way to avoid?
Pasta packet	2 (more thrown out but not collected)	No – possibly at bulk store
Wholemeal flour	1	Yes – bulk store
Pepitas	1	Yes – bulk store
Green lentils	2	Yes - bulk store
Almond meal	1	Yes – bulk store or make own when buy a food processer
Ginger snap biscuits	1	Yes – could make our own, time permitting
Sultanas 1kg	1 (possibly more thrown out but not collected)	Yes – bulk store
Goji berries	1	Yes – bulk store
Rolled oats	2 (possibly more thrown out but not collected)	Yes – bulk store
Raw sugar	1	Yes – bulk store
Seaweed rice crackers	1 (more thrown out but not collected)	No
Desiccated coconut	1	Yes – bulk store
Bread bag	1	Yes – bring our own for the bakery to use
Arborio rice	1	No – possibly at bulk store
Frozen peas	1	No
Green split peas	1	No – possibly at bulk store
Puffed corn cereal	1	No – possibly at bulk store
Disposable nappy bag (the bag the actual nappies are packaged in)	1 (possibly more thrown out but not collected)	No
Dog poo bags	? None kept (thankfully!) but it would average 2 each day	Yes – use newspaper instead (have not done this yet)

Celebrating Success

The successes we have had as a result of Plastic Free July are:

• Starting to use cloth nappies at childcare;
• Buying reusable takeaway coffee cups to enjoy guilt free tea and coffee on the run;
• Reusing bread bags when we buy bread;
• Purchasing a moon or menstrual cup, which I've wanted to try for awhile;
• I finally watched the Bag It the movie; &
• Sharing this experience with my peers, and learning what they are doing, at Living Smarties and through Lizzing Lightly.

Lamenting Failures

I am so happy with our achievements during Plastic Free July this year but I thought it would be good to note down things we didn't get around to doing. We can make small steps to start doing some things now or leave them until next year:

• Shopping at the bulk store - we made it there on the 31 July at least but I need to keep looking for quite a few products (as you can see from the table) and get into a routine of shopping at these stores regularly;
• Dog poo bags - these are a real disgrace but it is difficult to manage without them. I'm keen to try using newspaper instead to see if that works. I expect it will need to happen close to a bin.
• Bin liners - I know we can go without and clean out the bin but we're not ready for that one as yet. I know the poor animals eating plastic are suffering from our inaction but we have to take small steps that we are comfortable with. This might be one to consider again next year.

Lessons Learnt

Plastic is used to line cans! I found this out through the Bag It movie and my Living Smart group. I'm still in a bit of shock about this one. I knew cans weren't healthy but we are pretty reliant on canned beans, particularly baked beans and chick peas, for quick meals. This information is a good motivator to try and reduce our canned food intake.

We use a lot of plastic! Even though we are conscious of the problem and try to reduce it as much as possible.

By making a reasonably small effort and doing a few different things when heading to the shops we can cut back on our plastic use quite a bit - it really is worth trying to do.

The environment is really suffering from the mass production and use of plastic products. I always knew this was a problem but I really thought about it and processed it through participating in Plastic Free July this year.

So there it is - all wrapped up for 2015. Thank you to those of you who have followed my journey and provided some thoughts or advice. I hope you have picked up an idea or two yourselves.

Linking up with EssentiallyJess for #IBOT

Decluttering is Such a First World Problem

I have just started decluttering my clothes using the KonMari method. The first items I went through were my underwear, socks, t-shirts, shorts and skirts. I found it easy to decide what clothes "spark joy". I realised they are the ones that I actually want to wear. Choosing my wardrobe isn't something I usually spend a lot of time thinking about so it was a great opportunity to decide what I really like.

My blissfully tidy t-shirt drawer

Nevertheless, it was scary throwing out some of my "safe" go to clothes that I have been wearing for years. Such as my well-worn denim shorts that are just a little too short for the more "mature" me. Or the shorts that I bought to accommodate my baby fat after Turtle arrived. They were comfortable (and fitted me!) during that time but they are too big for me now. Normally I would have just kept them anyway.

Thus it is a relief to know that when the warm weather rolls around I won't just put them on (because they are there!) and feel somewhat uncomfortable about my image.

An added bonus to having enough space for the things I really want to wear is that I found a missing earring. It's from my favourite pair. I thought it was lost forever. I hadn't seen it since we got back from a trip to Adelaide at Christmas. It was caught up in a pair of socks.

My reunited earrings

I also found a brand new pair of stockings that had slipped behind my drawer because it was so full. Clearly decluttering was overdue!

I filled a plastic shopping bag with worn socks, bras and undies. This highlighted that I was down to about 7 functioning pairs of underwear. I used to dig through my drawer to find these few items before. Now they are neatly folded and I can see exactly how many I have. Half of what I've kept will also need to be thrown out soon.

Realising exactly how many pairs of underwear I had left, and their condition, helped to motivate me to go shopping and buy what I need. I am easily overwhelmed by the shops and I am likely to either leave with nothing or buy something I don't like that much to get out of there. So I generally avoid doing it.

In the month since I started going through my clothes I have already stocked up on new socks, underwear, long-sleeved tops and a jumper. I feel very clear about what I need and what will go with the things that I have kept. This is helping me to make careful decisions to ensure the things I buy will be much loved items in my wardrobe.

Whilst buying my new clothes I have realised that decluttering is a luxury for those of us lucky enough to have "too many" things. I'm pretty sure struggling single mums aren't able to create a new style by clearing out the things they are tired of. They need to wear everything they have to death.

I can relate to wearing things to death but not for the same reasons. I am a creature of habit and I am generally caught up with other things, rather than worrying about my clothes. While this is not such a bad thing I feel ready to rejuvenate my wardrobe and organise it at the same time. I deserve it. It will be so nice to have things that I really like and will get a lot of use out of... probably until they actually fall apart.

I'm also sure the millions of people across the world living in poverty would find the concept of decluttering to be an abstract dream. They most likely struggle to get their basic essentials for survival. A roof for shelter, food for hungry stomachs, and clean water to drink.

It is a sobering thought. As I clear out my unwanted things I will try to treat them with respect and pass on what I can to the less fortunate. It's the least I can do.

Do you find yourself in the cycle of buying and decluttering? Are you beginning to learn more about what items you want to have around you?

I'm joining With Some Grace and other beautiful bloggers today for Flog your Blog Friday

Decluttering: The Magic of Tidying

After visiting the baby market I started to put my newly acquired tidying skills to use. I admit it was out of necessity since I needed to make space for the secondhand winter clothes that I had bought for Turtle.

A tidy drawer is a thing of beauty

My "tidying" phase of decluttering is inspired by Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying. I am not the kind of person who can usually sit through a non-fiction book (about tidying no less!) but this one had me hooked. This may reflect my dedication to decluttering. I found the book was easy to read and quite humorous with a down to earth approach to tidying and managing belongings.

KonMari (her nickname and the name of her tidying method) is a self professed tidying fanatic who started her tidying hobby as a child. She became obsessed with storage options as a teenager, trying fads of containers, shelves, and hanging space to try and resolve mess (or clutter) in her families home. Eventually she decided that storage was not the solution. It was the amount of "stuff" that was the problem.

By focusing on her families things KonMari realised that she was avoiding the responsibility of addressing her own clutter problems. She ruthlessly began to throw out her own belongings. The way that she did this was quite different to the processes that she had previously used, as per recommendations in home magazines from decluttering or storage experts. KonMari held every item individually, focused her attention on it and asked herself, "does this spark joy?". If the answer was yes then it was kept. If the answer was no it was discarded after being thanked for its service to her.

The concept behind this method is that you should surround yourself with things that you love. As you change your belongings also need to change. This ensures they reflect who you are and where you see your life going. I love the idea of only being surrounded by things that bring me joy.

The other appeal of KonMari's method is being free to let go of the things that you no longer use or need, no matter why you don't want them. It allows you to distance yourself from the guilt that often stops you from letting things go. The spontaneous expensive purchase that you have never gotten around to using. The lovely gift that didn't really suit your style. Things that are in perfect condition but never get used in your home. It's time to say goodbye!

This is, of course, easier said than done. KonMari has a strict method that she recommends for "tidying" and discarding things. Clothing is the first group to go through, then books, papers, miscellaneous items, and lastly sentimental items. This style of decluttering (or tidying) is by category of item. Every single item in that category needs to be touched to determine if it sparks joy. The idea is that you learn to discard with items that are less likely to make you feel bad about throwing them away. Then you work your way up to the more difficult stuff.

One thing that I didn't support throughout the book was the idea of throwing things away without regard for waste. I totally support the idea of sending things on their way if you don't need or want them. I do believe, however, that they should be discarded responsibly with the best opportunity for reuse. This may mean dropping them off at an opportunity shop. Or selling them on Gumtree. Or distributing them through Freecycle. You might think of a way to repurpose or upcycle some of the things too. Whatever the method, it is important to do your best to make sure those items are able to find a new home where they will be loved and needed.

Having said this I agree with KonMari when she advises not to pass on your problem. This could be by giving your unwanted items to family members. As KonMari aptly observes, your unwanted items are quite likely to be a similar problem for the recipient of your "gift". Passing on your problem is not respectful or helpful. Why burden loved ones with your unwanted things?

KonMari found that her clients who are younger sisters often have the largest amount of unwanted things in their wardrobe. She knows the average amount of clothes people discard and younger sisters always have a much higher amount. This is because they have been so accustomed to receiving hand me down clothing that they don't find out what their individual style is. What kind of image they want to have.

As a middle child I am familiar with this problem. It was quite enlightening to find an explanation about why I struggle to decide on clothing and why I don't enjoy shopping. I am now determined to go out and find clothes to create a style that reflects me.

This has taken a weight off my shoulders since I always felt guilty spending money on myself. Now I am confident that if I really like something and will get a lot of wear out of it, because it "sparks joy", then I should buy it and feel good about myself. If I don't really love it then I won't buy it. Hence it is a shopping experience that won't get out of control.

"The amount of storage space you have in your room is actually just right. I can't count how many times people have complained to me that they don't have enough room but I have yet to see a house that lacked sufficient storage. The real problem is that we have far more than we need or want. Once you learn to choose your belongings properly, you will be left only with the amount that fits perfectly in the space you currently own. That is the true magic of tidying. It may seem incredible but my method of keeping only what sparks joy in the heart is really that precise."  

p155 The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying, Marie Kondo

The last thing I want to share about the KonMari method (clearly there is a lot more in her book - I recommend reading it if you are inspired by what I have shared here) is instructions about how to fold. You will have noticed the photograph I took of Turtle's drawer after it was tidied (above). All of the items are standing up in the drawer. KonMari is totally right - you can fit so much more in by stacking clothes this way. You can also see each item and don't need to dig through layers of stacks (see the mess this creates when dressing Turtle below). I am a complete convert. It truly works!

The usual mess we were dealing with each day

Starting with Turtle's things, unfortunately, means that decluttering my own wardrobe has been postponed yet again. Typical decluttering procrastination. Despite my previous post encouraging everyone to declutter I acknowledge you need both time and motivation to get it all done.

I am slowly starting on my things though. I will keep you posted on my progress. In the meantime I encourage you to start your own tidying.

Are you a KonMari convert too? Is it time to start tidying?

Linking up with With Some Grace today for FYBF

Why Plastic Free July is Important

Our Living Smarties group watched Bag It last week. It was a great way to kick off Plastic Free July. It reminded me that there are very important environmental, health and social reasons to reduce our family's use of single-use plastic.

The environmental reason that struck a cord for me is that plastic is made from fossil fuels (oil and natural gas), which take hundreds of thousands of years to form in the earth. They are non-renewable and, after a fossil fuel is burned, can never be used again.

Many single-use plastic products are used for less than a couple of hours before they are discarded. It doesn't make any sense to buy a single-use plastic bottle of water, for example, when we live in a country where we can get clean drinking water straight from the tap! It is such a waste of precious fossil fuels. My re-usable bottle is so much nicer to drink out of too.

The health reason that struck a cord for me is that since the late 70's we have been surrounded by plastic. It touches our food, our drinks, our medicines and everything else. Let's be honest. We are offered plastic shopping bags to carry food that is often packed in at least one layer of packaging or plastic. Although the use of some plastic elements (think BPAs) are being phased out of products that touch food we don't really understand the potential impacts of the other components yet.

Since plastic doesn't break down in the environment for millions of years it fragments and is eaten by wildlife, particularly in the ocean. Apart from being terrible pollution the plastic is then passed up the food chain to humans. How can we begin to understand the flow on health effects of that for not just humans, but all of the animals impacted within the food chain? Hormone mimicking effects (again, such as BPAs) are also realised through the food chain, particularly in the ocean.

Image Source

The social impacts motivating me arose directly from Bag It. The movie talked about plastic recycling and how numbers 1 & 2 (in the recycling triangle) are the most readily recycled products (as opposed to numbers 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7). I know this is true because when I was working to increase plastic recycling at my work the only plastics that were collected (because they have a market) were numbers 1 & 2. Bag It explained that numbers 1 & 2 (which include PET plastic drink bottles) can easily be recycled into the lower grade of plastics (3-7). The lower grade of plastics, however, can't be recycled into a plastic of high enough quality to be economical. This means that plastic is generally only recycled once and then it becomes unusable waste.

When the higher quality plastics are collected and recycled they can be shipped to third world countries and processed in abominable working conditions. Workers sift through plastic waste and melt it down with no safety equipment. That is a pretty considerable social price for my plastic use.

On a more positive note I should mention what an amazing product plastic is. It can do so many things and it is so cheap to manufacture! In countries where there is no clean drinking water I'm sure many would suffer incredibly without it. It's like everything - let's try to use a great product responsibly so that we can continue to use it in a much nicer world for a much longer time.

Do you share my concerns about plastic? 

Plastic Free July in Our House

I'm a bit late with this post... We are already a week into July. I can barely believe it! Since Plastic Free July is such a great initiative, however, I want to share what our family is up to this month.

I have previously posted about how to use less cling wrap. That is a very simple and easy thing to stop using around the home. Our family already takes our own re-usable shopping bags into the shops (well, most of the time!), doesn't use straws, and uses re-usable water bottles. These items are good ones to start out with when you are beginning to cut back the plastic in your life.

My glass re-usable water bottle. Sure it cost more upfront but I love drinking out of it.

This month I am challenging our family to reduce single-use plastic even further by:

• Buying more bulk products, such as oats, beans, lentils, sultanas, & cleaning products, by bringing my own containers to be refilled.

• I have bought myself a reusable takeaway coffee cup (at last!). I rarely buy take away coffee since I feel too guilty about the waste. This is a very exciting purchase since I am now able to indulge on the run.

• I am saving all of the single-use plastic packets that we finish throughout the month in a (re-usable!) shopping bag.  I will review these products each week to see if I can find ways to reduce or eliminate more plastic from our lives.

• I have spoken to my child care centre about trialling using cloth nappies for Turtle on the day that she goes there each week. They have agreed to trial them this week. If it goes well then we will continue to use cloth at child care in future.

Have you already heard of Plastic Free July? Are you inspired to try and reduce your single-use plastic this month? Please share any tips and ideas below.

When is the right time to start using modern cloth nappies (MCN)?

A couple of my sustainability minded friends gave me some good advice when I was pregnant with Turtle.  They recommended that I wait until she was 3 months old before I started to use cloth nappies. For us, because she was our first, I think that it was sound advice.  However, it is a very interesting thought.

Photo source

When is the right time to start using modern cloth nappies or MCN?

Straight away?
If you use MCN straight away then you should definitely consider buying the specialised newborn style of cloth nappies. One of my friends had the one size multifit nappies all ready to go and then her darling boy was born and they didn't fit him for a couple of months.

You will also need to be organised enough to keep up with the laundry. Most newborns poo frequently. At least every time that they feed. Turtle did not do this. In fact she didn't poo for a week after she was born. We were so worried because it's not what is "supposed" to happen. Clearly every baby is different but consider yourself warned that it is likely your baby will poo a lot for the first few weeks or even first few months.

3 months in?
If you are keen to use cloth but want to wait for the madness of the first 2-3 months to be over then 3 months is probably a good goal to work towards. The benefit of waiting a little while is that you can try different styles on your little one and see what works best for your family.

Waiting until Turtle was 10 weeks old definitely helped me to be more confident about styles and what we liked before we bought lots of nappies that we didn't like.  But it was a lot to take on after she was born.  Trekking around with a newborn baby to research and buy secondhand nappies is not easy. It was from this experience that I learned to limit my driving radius to within 10-20km of our home unless it was a really amazing buy.

Whenever you're ready?
This seems like the most logical answer... Yes, whenever you are ready! Some people choose cloth for their baby later since they have the time and space to try it out.  There are also some really nice designs of MCN that draw people in too.

If you are trying to minimise your waste then the sooner the better but don't stress if you're not ready because there is always something else that you can be doing in the meantime.

What do you think? Is there a perfect time to start using MCN?

Why I like to use cloth nappies

Before I had Turtle I was determined to put her into reusable or cloth nappies.  Mainly because I wanted to make less waste that would end up landfill.

Newborns can use up to 12 nappies each day and when babies are a bit older they might go through 6-8.  Most babies wear nappies until they are two or three years of age.  Each child is therefore likely to go through at least 4,000 - 5,000 nappies.  That is a lot of waste.  I would love to see a pile of 4,000 - 5,000 nappies on display somewhere to fully comprehend how much waste is going into landfill for each baby.

The pouch style of nappy that we used for Turtle from 3 - 6 months

Interestingly, however, if you read up on the benefits of using cloth nappies you will see that this is a hot topic in the sustainability/environmental area.  The jury seems to be out on whether disposable or cloth nappies are better (or worse!) for the environment. Here is a Choice Magazine review on the topic.  When disposable and cloth nappies have been compared for their environmental performance - the resources used to make them, care and maintenance, and requirements for disposal and eventual degradation - there has been no clear winner.  The environmental costs of the different nappies are summarised well in this link. 

Despite this debate I cannot believe that using disposables could ever be more environmentally friendly than using cloth.  Not that I'm judging anyone who chooses (or needs!) to use disposables.  Having a baby is hard work and you have to do what works for you.  There are some biodegradable disposable options available as an alternative too.   We use these when we go out for long periods, and also for night time sleeps since Turtle was 6 months old and was wetting through the cloth.  I choose to use mainly cloth because it is a much better fit with my values and, with the support of Mr Fix It, we have managed to make it work for us.

We used the sized style of nappy for a few months (6-10 months) before moving to a one size style that grows with Turtle

Cloth nappies are washed every day or two while in use.  For the sake of comparing their performance to disposables it is presumed that cloth nappies are washed in hot water and then dried in a clothes dryer.   Since we live in Perth it is warm for most of they year so nappies dry quickly on the line and there is no need to use a clothes dryer.  This reduces the energy needed to wash our nappies, which improves their environmental performance.

Another way to improve the environmental performance of cloth is to use them on more than one baby.  Each time that you use the nappies for a new baby it doubles the environmental performance.  I have bought almost all of my nappies secondhand so even if we don't end up having a second baby I know that this has reduced the environmental impact from Turtle's nappies.  It has also saved us money since the nappies are cheaper secondhand.  I resell the nappies that we don't need (when Turtle has grown out of them or when we find another style that we prefer) so they can be used again by other families. 

I am really glad that we have made the effort to use cloth nappies (we use modern cloth nappies or MCN) on Turtle.  Don't get me wrong, it's added to our daily tasks since we tend to wash a load of nappies most days but I feel good that we have been able to do it.

Do you feel strongly about the kind of nappies you use on your little one(s)? Are you also concerned about the waste nappies cause?

From Trash to Treasure... Are Santa's Elves Upcycling Toys?

It is a foraging time of year in our area at the moment.  People in the neighbourhood are clearing out unwanted items for Council collection.  About two weeks ago things started to appear on the streets.  It really hit a peak last weekend with people driving around in vans looking to snap up some treasure.  You might notice I am hesitant to call the unwanted items rubbish or waste.  This is because most of the time it is not.  Mostly it is unwanted or underused things that are taking up valuable space in our homes.  With Christmas on the way toys are also being cleared out in anticipation for Santa's arrival in a couple of weeks.

As initially raised in Striving for a Minimalist Birthday we are trying to make sure Turtle's baby toys are secondhand wherever possible.   We had a lot of luck from the verge collection.  Mr Fix It went out Saturday night (we have such an exciting nightlife!) and came back with a car full of things.  A roller lawnmower that is compact and doesn't need fuel or electricity to run, an old wheel barrow that we are going to plant out with something (possibly mint) as a feature in the yard, two kids bikes (that went back on the curb since they were broken) and a really great activity table for Turtle.

Turtle playing with her new salvaged activity table

We gave the salvaged activity table from Mr Fix It's big night out a good clean and it is practically like new. Only one of the features is broken and it still plays music.  Since we are going away for Christmas and won't be taking the activity table with us Turtle has been allowed to play with the it immediately.  Seeing as she is still only 14 months I don't think she will remember having toys before Christmas Day.

We have decided it will replace the slightly less flash activity table that we had picked up a couple of months ago from the roadside collection in the suburb over.  That one is a bit unpredictable with its music but Turtle still loved playing with it.

Slightly less flash activity table back on the curb - hopefully to be reclaimed again

I think salvaging treasures from other peoples trash is something to be respected and encouraged.  It is not something that everyone seems to do (or at least talk about much if they do) but hopefully it is going to be become more and more popular as people realise that they can find great gifts that are cheap and that divert things from being wasted in landfill.

I would love to hear about any creative gifts that you have salvaged or made from salvaged materials for loved ones.  Please share your ideas in the comments below.