Sew Reusable

Want to make your own version of my reusable sandwich wraps?  Well, now you can!  My pattern is part of a collective book for Stash Books called Lunch Bags! I cannot wait to get my hands on this book in July!

Please look for me this summer at the 6th Ave Tacoma Farmer’s Market (Tuesdays, 3:30-7:30).  Right now, I’m planning on being there the first Tuesday of every month.   Stop by and say hi!

The school I work at has been working very hard to “go green” this year.  As someone who has always been conscientious about recycling and reusing, I find this to be a very cool program to participate in, and the kids are having fun to boot!  The other day I overheard some of my students reminding each other to visit the reuse bin for scratch paper before getting a clean sheet of notebook paper.  Yay!

One thing my colleagues and I are finding is that there are many ways we can make simple changes in our school to create a greener environment:

1.  Food waste bin in the staff room. An aide has volunteered to be in charge of this until our school-wide composting starts in a few months.  She takes the food waste bin home each night and puts it in her pile.  There is talk of doing something similar in classrooms for snack times.

2. Energy saving checklists and reminders. Our student council members will be going around after school to check to see if classroom computers, lamps,  and other electronic equipment has been turned off, as well as to see if classrooms have been utilizing their reuse bins and recycle bins properly.  Classrooms doing an especially good job at recycling and being energy conscious will win an Earth flag for the month.  These kinds of classroom awards are a HUGE deal at our school.  We also have signs on all the paper towel dispensers reminding us to use only one.

3.  Enroll in programs like Terracycle and Elmer’s Glue Crew .  You can recycle Capri Sun pouches, chip bags, and empty glue bottles and GET MONEY for your school!  How awesome is that?!  We have a central location near the lunchroom where kids can put their recycling.

4. Student Awareness. Our hallways are lined with student-created posters that encourage recycling.  Here are some of my favorites…

The Earth isn't a disposable camera

Eat, sleep, recycle

As the year progresses, I hope to share more ways that we are “going green!”

I’ll be taking my FoodStuffs wraps, packages, and bags to TWO holiday craft bazaars in November!  SHOP LOCAL this holiday season!

Tacoma is for Lovers

Sunday, November 22

12-5 P.M. at King’s Books in Tacoma, WA

&

Indie Banditas

Friday, November 27

10-5

Woodward Middle School on Bainbridge Island, WA

Hope to see you there!  Tell your friends!

Um, can someone tell me where the heck October went?!  It’s been a very busy month filled with lots of work, lots of music, and lots of crafting.

October 10th marked my dog, Lulu’s, third birthday.  Yes, I am one of those people.  To celebrate we took her to our favorite local doggie store and picked out a new collar for her.  We picked out this one:

It’s from Up Country Inc. and is part of their Green Market collection.  It is made with 100% recycled polyester webbing and polyester ribbon.

And, just because my dog is so darn cute, here’s a picture from her 1st birthday:

I begged my cousin to send me this recipe as it contained three of my absolute favorite foods: peanut butter, bananas, and chocolate.  I whipped up a batch this morning for breakfast and they are good.  Really good.

1/2 c. butter, softened
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
3/4 peanut butter
3 bananas, mashed
1 3/4 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. chocolate chips

Cream together butter and sugar, add eggs and mix. Stir in peanut butter, bananas, flour, baking soda, and vanilla. Add chocolate chips…stir.

Bake at 325 for 25 minutes.

I’ve always had a “scrappy-doo” bin (as my friend, Mollie, would call it) in my classroom.  It’s a place where you can put those pieces of paper that are still reusable for art projects, scratch paper, or whatever you need.  In most cases the bin would start to overflow by December, making it a huge eyesore and impossible to find things students wanted to use.

Now, the idea of a recycling center came to me this summer as I was organizing my classroom.  I’m REALLY TRYING to be super-organized this year and I thought it might help contain things a bit.  I had this old Sterilite 3-drawer bin that was kind of run down from years of kid-use.  I didn’t want to get rid of the drawers (because I’m cheap and those drawers can add up), but I also didn’t really have a use for it anymore.  So, I came up with the idea of a “recycling center”.  The center serves as a station where students can go if they need a piece of scratch paper (or to put paper that they no longer need but still has a blank side), smaller pieces of paper scraps (usually construction paper), and (in the future) old glue bottles, pencil stubs, or other supplies that can be recycled or composted.  The center also holds the large classroom bin that goes out every afternoon.  Usually students put in their plastic water bottles they bring from home.

Expect to see more school-related posts in the future.  The school I work at is participating in King County’s Green Schools this year, which I think will be a great opportunity for the students.

It was a pretty productive weekend for FoodStuffs!  I finally found the energy to cut out some snack packages and wraps and then went to work.  I finished 10 today, which is pretty good.  All I need to do now is take some photos!

Here is a sneak peek at what will be going up on the shop later this week:

I am so in love with all this fabric – this picture does not do these little baggies justice!  So, be on the lookout.  I suspect they won’t last for long.

Two of my very dearest friends had back-to-back birthdays this past week.  To celebrate their late twenties, we threw an impromptu dinner party of which the Food Network would approve.

Each couple chose an element of the meal: side dishes, main course, and dessert.

We had the car ride to Pike Place Market to decide what we were going to make.  Once at the market, each team had 30 minutes to collect all the necessary ingredients for their dish.

We were all successful in our missions (which is pretty darn good if you’ve ever been to the market on a Saturday afternoon!).  Here’s what we came up with:

Spicy mixed green salad with fresh white and yellow peaches, red onions, and sunflower seeds.

Halibut with tomato and tarragon butter (from Greg Atkinson’s book, Entertaining in the Northwest Style).  Served with asparagus.

For dessert: grilled figs with honey, grilled peaches with whipped cream, and a chocolate cheesecake bite.

All in all, a fantastic adventure with some really amazing friends!

My parents were in town this past week.  My wonderful mom left me a surprise this morning on my sewing chair…a Mario Batali lunch bag I’ve been drooling over for weeks.  I don’t really know what my fascination is for lunch bags and accessories, but I know I’ve ALWAYS had one.  So much so, that I remember agonizing over which box I was going to pick during my back-to-school shopping back in elementary school.  Around 13 years ago, I even started collecting vintage metal boxes.  I guess my obsession with lunch accessories came to a head when I started FoodStuffs this past April.

Anywhoo, for the past three years I’ve been alternating between two well-loved lunch bags.  The first is an oilcloth one I made when I was in college.  The second, an insulated Triceratops-shaped bag I found in the clearance isle at Target.  After being tossed around and shoved here and there throughout the past three school years, they are both looking pretty sad.  Luckily, my new Mario Batali bag has everything that I  loved about my previous two bags all in one: insulation, a distinctive shape, pretty fabric design, and the color orange (oh, how I love the color orange!).  Pretty, huh?

But wait!  There’s more!

The coolest part about my new Mario Batali lunch bag?  A portion of the proceeds go to the Lunchbox Fund, an organization that provides daily meals for impoverished children in two South African schools.  Their site says, “feed a child, nourish a mind.”  So true, so true.

Look at these beautiful kiddos, who wouldn’t want to help them out?