Island of Opportunity?

My family is very blessed.  We were able to have a week away during school vacation to go to a glorious place called Maho Bay on the island of St. John, US Virgin Islands.  Our days were filled with hiking and snorkeling and eating and drinking. Truly paradise. I could write on and on of the joys of Maho Bay Tent Camps, but today I will just tell you about one aspect of their "Trash to Treasures" recycled art program.  I was so excited to discover that they had begun making cement counter tops, as I am dreaming and scheming of doing that myself here at home. 

Dan, a staff-person at Maho, was generous and friendly and tolerant of my taking pictures all week as he made a custom counter top for the art gallery at Maho.  Maybe Dan is Maho's version of David Berry?  He was just as tolerant and friendly. Here he is scraping labels off of blue wine bottles for use in his counter top.

At Maho, they look for ways to use the glass bottles that come from their restaurant.  Recycling on an island is both difficult and costly, so Maho has found ways to reuse their own glass. The counter tops are just the latest product.  The primary use has been in the glass-blowing program. In addition to the recycled bottles that will go into the counter top, Dan is able to use pretty glass cast-offs from the artists in the glass-blowing studio: shapes, canes and other pretty things.



 Here is Ginger, from the Art Gallery, arranging the glass pieces that will become the design in her gallery's counter top.  The blue mold edges are foam and the bottom of the mold is stainless, with lots of wax on top to allow the cement to release when its done.

Dan measures out the glass.

...and mixes it in with Portland Cement and a few other key ingredients that you can find at Fishstone supply.  He uses loose fiberglass fibers and a fiberglass netting to lay in to the mix that offers stability for the final product without excess weight and thickness. There are pounds and pounds of crushed bottles in each piece.

When it's dry and complete, it is amazingly thin and light.

Here is my friend Maria looking at the dried counter before Dan has ground off the extra cement (no pictures of that, as we were off snorkeling when it happened.)











The grinding and buffing exposes all those beautiful glass shapes and colors. 

 The counter was installed at the Gallery the week after we were there.  The folks at Maho blogged about it here.  Please surf around their website to see the other ways that they reuse, recycle and upcycle their waste. See a beautiful sink that Dan made of cement and glass here.

 

Looking at these other table tops has my mind reeling about the bottles and glass that I might work into my counter tops at home. For now... I'll focus on the sand between my toes and the warmth of Maho.  My last note has got to be a note of thanks to my pal Julie back in Maine who, with her husband Cam, made and installed their own cement counter tops with stones and glass and even trilobites, and got me dreaming about this whole mess.  Here is a shot of Julie's kitchen. You should see her bathrooms! Drooool.

Please comment, friends.  Anyone out there made their own? Care to share your experience?

Thrifty Fashion Fridays

You'll notice on my right hand sidebar, a new feature called Thrifty Fashion Fridays. It is the brainchild of my friend, Susan Tuttle. Susan and I have been collaborating and inspiring one another for a long time.  She and I bartered when she helped me create my blog's banner (if I remember correctly, I made her a pie?).  Now her love of thrift and fashion come together in this weekly project. Find out more on her blog: www.susantuttlephotography.com  and read her post for Friday, March 9th. I know I will want to participate, and I am hoping that by putting the button here on my blog I will encourage you to participate too. Or at least sneak a peak?  I think I will need to take it up a notch with my thrifted fashions. The XXL down jacket that I pulled from Bin #2 last winter, cinched so elegantly with Bristol's dog leash, paired with Bean boots and topped with my handknit cowl may not be the type of outfit Susan has in mind. Will the riches of the Barn of Opportunity let me build a worthy outfit, complete with accessories?  I'll have fun trying.

Barter Starter and Starter Barter

Maybe it is Dr. Seuss' birthday last Friday that has me in such a rhyming mood.  I simply could not resist the title of my blog post. Here's what it is all about.

I had a lovely shopping experience at Shift the other day and came home with a book of recipes for making my own cleaning supplies.  I want to create a class for the Long Branch School on that topic.  The owner of the store was friendly and helpful and interested in my project.  But the real jolt of joy came at the check out when I read a flyer taped to the counter...Join us for the first annual BARTER FAIR.  Oh, how very, very great.  1st annual? They are hoping to have others? So this would make the first one the barter starter.   Here is the description from the Shift website.

Brunswick Barter Market, Coordinated by Merrymeeting Permaculture and Transition

March 10th, Saturday
Time: 3:00-5:00
Please join us for our new, monthly Brunswick Barter Market swap event! Barter Markets are free and open to all, and anything can be brought to trade: preserved and fresh food, handmade items, seeds and plants, books, tools, your time or skills — whatever it is you’d like to share with others and exchange for things you need or want! Inspired by the Portland Trading Post events facilitated by Portland Maine Permaculture, the guidelines are the same, namely:

• No cash changes hands
• Don’t start the swapping until everyone’s there and has a chance to look around at what’s on offer.
• You can swap with someone or simply “gift” things to each other without taking a return item. Your choice.
• Make sure you’ve found a home for all your stuff before you leave (or take home what hasn’t been gifted).
• If you bring a food item with multiple ingredients, please label.

The idea is to create a space that exists outside the cash economy, practice non-monetized exchange, circulate surplus within our community, and have a gosh-darned good time doing it. Even if you think you have nothing to offer, feel free to come and check it out! The more people, the better!  Keep your eyes out for more details on the Merrymeeting Permaculture and Transition Meetup site.

 I really hope to check it out after I close the library on Saturday.  If anyone plans to go, will you comment here?  All that made me think about the most excellent barter of my own a few weeks back.  Teaching rag rug making at the Long Branch School, my students were talking about fabric that they would use to continue weaving  the rugs that they started in the class. 

A student asked if perhaps I would like to barter for some of the fabric scraps that I had. 
"Sure!  What's your currency?"  I asked.  
"Well, do you like bread?"  Heck ya.
"Do you like Sourdough bread?" Indeed I do.  So we met a week later and traded fabric for home baked bread.  We both felt like we got the good end of the deal -  the sign of a good barter.  The kicker?  She added a pint of sourdough starter, which I have wanted to try baking with for a long time. So there it was, the ultimate Starter Barter. 
 

I'm enjoying trying to bake all sorts of breads with it.  If you might like to experience a bit of heaven on earth, try baking the Sourdough Carrot Cake from King Arthur Flour Cookbook.  I'm off to have a slice right about now.

Plastic with your latte?

A snowy Thursday is keeping me away from the Barn.  Grumble. Time to blog.

Back in December I had it in my head to make stuff out of discarded gift cards.  How many of you received one of these at holiday time? I did!  With no shame, I asked the people at the local Starbucks if they might hold on to the otherwise discarded cards when customers use up their card's balance.  They said "sure", inspired perhaps, by the mini notebook I showed them, made from two cards? This photo shows just a portion of the cards they collected for me in a few short weeks.  That's a lot of plastic.

Say what you want about Starbucks. They save their grounds for me in the springtime for my compost.  And you will agree that they have some great artists who design their cards.

This is my favorite.

Holiday themes abound.

So over Christmas vacation I hauled my newly acquired plastic pretties along with jewelry-making supplies on a visit to our pals in New Hampshire. You remember my young pal Talia from an April post? She is always up for a craft with me.  She jumped right into it, and within an hour she was sportin' some cool Starbucks earrings.

A Google images search, and a Pinterest search showed me oodles of creative folks making stuff from these pieces of plastic. Here are a few of my favorites.

Pick up something called a Pick Punch and make a ton of these beauties for your next jam session.

Bryan Berg, known as the Cardstacker, built a city skyline in celebration of Earth Day, from 22,000 recycled gift cards (although he usually stacks playing cards). 

 

  If you go to his site you'll see an entire hotel room that he created from hotel key cards.  

 Back to the realm of realistically-try-this-yourself, you might want to try making your own fancy paperclips or bookmarks by following the tutorial at Instructables.  I found them not easy to cut with an x-acto knife and I'm too lazy to get out my Dremel drill right now.

An etsy artist named Kim Baldwin at Lifeaccessories made this nice bracelet out of my favorite Starbucks card.  Swoon.

So, you've read THIS far down in a very long post, and you shall be rewarded.

 In  honor of my 1st Blogiversary, I will make a tiny notebook out of 2 recycled gift cards for each of you who leave me a message here on my blog. No, not on Facebook. No, not via email, but right here on the Barn of Opportunity comment log. Please celebrate the Barn of Opportunity by joining me in my first giveaway. While supplies last... which should be around my 2nd Blogiversary!

Shed a little light on it

 As I approach my “blogiversary”, I am thinking about this first year of blogging  and about why I haven’t posted more frequently.  One reason I came up with is that I am often writing my entries late at night after the kids have gone to bed, and the quality of my photographs at that time of night, with artificial light, has been lousy.(exhibit A, Mr. Smurf at left)  My camera is El Cheapo and my photo skills are nil.   At times, the lack of a good quality photograph is all it takes to discourage me from sharing something.   In order to do better,  I found instructions  online for a DIY lightbox and gave it a go last night. 

 

A cardboard box, a box cutter, a big piece of nice quality drawing paper, and a light source. I had it all.  I had just the right size paper to fit inside the box, having found several big pads at the Bowdoin College Dump-and-Run years ago.  It took me 3 minutes and Mr. Handy Smurf was ready for his closeup. 

 

 I played around with 2 light sources; my standard sewing light made by Ott which has the nicest full-spectrum light (come to think of it, I found that at the Dump-and-run as well!), and a simple $8 shop light from Home Depot.  I might even dig out the tripod to steady the jiggles. 

 

  I was so pleased with the results that I went around the house to see what I could photograph!  

Semipalmated Plover, carved by Mary Alice Hatch, my Grandma, in 1978.

Here is to beautiful photographs in the coming year’s Barn of Opportunity Blog.  Please leave me a comment.

Those beloved T shirts

I just got off the phone with a friend who was brainstorming with me how she might preserve a beloved rock concert t-shirt which has become threadbare.  She was thinking tote bag, while I was thinking pillow. I mentioned my sister Sharon, who has made many many many quilts out of t-shirts for friends and neighbors.  It is a tradition in their close-knit neighborhood in Rochester, NY, to save your kid's t-shirts through the years and give the whole pile to Sharon who will make an amazing graduation quilt for the kid who is headed off to college, or boot camp, or wherever. 

  I told my friend I would email her a picture of one of Sharon's t-shirt quilts and instead decided to share a few with all of you.  In this shot you will see one of the lucky college-bound kids looking at the quilt that has just been given to him as a surprise. (His mom is one of my sister's best friends from high school- not a neighborhood kid)  I would like to say that he is saying, "Wow! This is great! Amazing! Thank you!" but I have to tell you the sad truth is that he is giving his mother ( in the black tank top) grief for taking his t-shirts, some that he was still able to wear.  "That's where that went! Hey, I was still wearing that"... etc.He went on and on and didn't say thank you.  I was there at the presentation and I wanted to strangle the brat.  It made me so mad, to think about the work that went into the quilt and the planning that Sharon and her friend had done.  I think I'm still mad at that kid.  Studying Sharon's expression in the photo, I'm not sure she is biting her lip to stifle a laugh or to keep from crying. I was looking around for the nearest croquet mallet to wallop that ingrate.

I found a website where someone has collected and organized 50 photos of different t-shirt keepsake quilts.  They aren't the prettiest of quilts, but the memories and the years they represent are palpable.  I kinda like the one made with 30 Obama t-shirts!  If you are feeling  handy, I found an online tutorialfrom a professional quilter in Idaho with some great photographs on how to do it yourself .  Thank you, Ann from Idaho.  So here's to Ann and Sharon and the other thoughtful quilters that we know and love. May they all feel appreciated.

...and won't these T's make a nice quilt?
   

Coffee, Adoption and Friends

 I've been having a lot of fun with coffee bags lately.
While sewing a few of these bags, I realize how adoption has woven its threads through these projects and through my life.  I met Alan Spear and Mary Allen Lindemann who own Coffee By Design  several years ago when they were in the process of adopting their daughter from Russia. I was teaching adoption education and they were in my class.  We have remained friends and Mary Allen has always supported my crafting ventures. I won't go on here about all the wonderful things these people do, in Portland, and in the coffee growing countries, but I could fill pages.  My favorite CBD coffee, the one that starts my day is Rebel Blend.  (You can buy their coffee at Little Dog in Brunswick if you can't get down to Portland.)  Lately, they keep me stocked with used burlap and jute bags. The bags themselves are geography lessons:  Sumatra, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala.  I have "upcycled" the bags into totes which have sold well at the Long Branch store here in town. I've also discovered that the scraps burn well in my woodstove!

I wish I had taken a picture of the tote bag I made from this beautiful Colombian coffee sack.  It was really nice, and I almost kept it for myself.

  Allen and Mary Allen have developed a special relationship with the community of coffee growers in Jardin, Colombia and have funded the building of a kitchen and cafeteria in the local hospital.  If you buy a pound of Colombia Antioquia Jardin Alma del Cafe, a portion of the price will go to support that project.

There are other reasons that this region of Colombia is special, but I'll blog about those another day.  On to a different country, and different adoption story, and a different coffee sack.

This tote was made from a bag shipped from Antigua, Guatemala, a beautiful city surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, and crisscrossed with cobblestones, history and culture. Notice the logo on the coffee sack... its the same Santa Catalina arch as in this picture I took on my visit to Antigua.  Notice a glimpse of Volcan Agua in the background. 

I was very lucky to have travelled there in 2007 on another adoption journey.  This time, it was my friends Jonathan and Lalla who were in the midst of the long process of adopting their son Ben from Guatemala.  While fostering their son in Guatemala they lived in Antigua and I spent a wonderful 5 days there.  


Coffee, adoption and friendships.  Oh, how rich I am.