AND THE WINNER'S ARE....

Congratulations to Jennifer Elizabeth Dulles and Brian McMahan! Though it wasn't announced I also want to congratulate our 200th Facebook fan... Virginia Poole Parks!!!! 

I have decided to give each of you a choice of the five t-shirt grocery bags or a vinyl LP clock.  For the bags, if any of you happen to be a Kentucky Wildcat fan, I have received a donation of quite a few t-shirts and can make all your bags supporting your Cats, otherwise you will receive a random variety of bags. The clock if that is your choice, are made from some old albums and clock mechanisims and numbers from the Habitat for Humanity Reuse Store. Please message me or email me at Lynn.GoodGarbage@gmail.com with your preferences and your address so I can be sure to get your gifts to you in the next week.

Thank you for your support!

Lynn's Calendar Repurpose Project

This weekend was the most productive I have had in a good while. I completed two repurpose projects. One is an old, wooden window sash which I will post about later. The other is the calendar repurpose I spoke of in the last Good Garbage Gab. I had a stained glass window calendar given to me as a birthday gift last year. It is so pretty, I just had to find a use for it and I needed some art work for my living room, so I put the pictures of that calendar to good use.


Looking around I realized everything I have hanging or sitting is square or rectangle, I needed something different. It hit me... I had a box of old scratched records someone gave me a long time ago, and I also had a bunch of those OLD AOL "1099 Hours Free" CD's sent out when you had to pay hourly for dial-up internet. I put some of both of these items to great use in this project.

I cut circles out of the calendar trying to use every bit I could that had the beautiful stained glass pictures on it. I decided on four big ones and was able to get 20 small ones. Using Mod-Podge, I glued them on the old records and CD's.

With this many, I knew exactly where they were going to go. My couch sits on a wall that used to be a flue for a fireplace and there was big empty spaces on either side. I just knew these would work wonderfully to fill in those spots.

Here's a close up of each grouping and then an overall picture... I LOVE IT!!!! New pretty artwork for me and pictures from a calendar that I love, preserved.

Did you work on a calendar reuse project this weekend? Or any other repurpose project? We'd really like to hear about it! Email us pictures and we will feature your's in an upcoming Good Garbage Gab!

-Lynn

Good Garbage Gab... DON'T THROW AWAY THOSE CALENDARS!!!!

Art Journal

 Hope I caught you in time! Don't throw away those old calendars!!! There are so many things you can do with them once they have served their purpose on your desk or wall. They can become bookmarks, wrapping paper, coasters, art journals, puzzles for a rainy day and you could even print out new dates and use them to cover the old ones, saving the beautiful pictures to admire again during 2013. 

Bookmark

The that one that kept me organized during 2012, hung in my kitchen and was a gift for my birthday last year. It celebrated the wonderful stained glass in homes around the beautiful neighborhood I had just moved to, Old Louisville. The colors on it are gorgeous! The pictures fabulous and the stories are wonderful...I just can't throw it away!!! (Well I couldn't even if it was ugly, but that is beside the point.)  I love this calendar so much I plan to cut pieces out and actually mod-podge them to either small canvases or tiles or some other medium and group them together on my wall in the hallway, or the kitchen, of my little apartment. Instant artwork! I can't wait to get started on them. I will post pictures hopefully in a couple weeks to show you another great repurpose idea. 

For more ideas be sure to check out our Pinterest page, Calendar Reuse Pinterest Page.  If you use any of these ideas or come up with new ones, we really, REALLY want you to email us a picture of how you reused your calendar! I love seeing all the creative things being done out there and I know there are LOTS of creative people following us... so SHOW ME THE MONEY! Ummm I mean SHOW ME THE ART!!!!

And if you just aren't feeling crafty... Good Garbage is always willing to take them for you and they will someday become something wonderful again instead of sitting in the landfill wasting away. 

Happy New Year!!!!!

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas, or another holiday you may have celebrated this season! We've had sicknesses, birthdays and lots of family time this week and still working hard to start the new year off right for Good Garbage. Good Garbage Gab will continue next week! 

Remember to continue saving things like bottle caps, corks, plastic containers, tp and paper towel rolls, and other items on our list found HERE. 

Wishing you a happy and safe New Year from our families to yours!

Like us? Well be sure to share our page with all your friends and family! We will have so much going on in 2013, everyone will want to continue watching us grow!! 

Holidays . . . A Time for Giving!

While you are trimming your tree, entertaining your guests, shopping for and wrapping all those wonderful gifts and before you throw things away, stop and take a look at what you are tossing and see if it could be re-purposed. Check out our list Good Garbage Accepted Materials and see if it is on here. You will also find the link on the right side of this page at all times. It is updated often and always current. At times you will even find a wish list attached to it.

Set aside a box and fill it with these items instead of throwing them away... Bottle caps, can tabs, corks, wine bottles, excess wrapping paper, toilet paper and paper towel rolls, decks of cards with missing cards, game pieces to old games and left over scrap from all your handmade gifts... there's a multitude of items we could use for art projects. 

If you own a business (and even if you don't) and you want to reduce your waste, take this list to work with you and see if there is anything you can donate. Maybe it isn't on this list but you think it could be re-purposed... Email us! We will be glad to talk to you about it. 

After the first of the year, we will have some days we will be setting appointments for drop offs! Thank you for your wonderful support!

TerraCycle - Outsmart Waste -Good Garbage has brigades

We are a TerraCycle supporter! TerraCycle's purpose is to eliminate the idea of waste. We do this by creating national recycling systems for previously non-recyclable or hard-to-recycle waste.  Once we are completely set up as a non-profit, we will benefit from the brigades by turning our points into money donations for Good Garbage. Check out Terracycle.com for more information on how this works.

Set up an additional recycling container in your home and start collecting the following. Let us know if you do and we will work with you to get your items picked up when your container gets full!

Good Garbage will be a collector for the following brigades:

• Cell phones - Standard cell phones, smart phones, iPhones
• Cleaner Packaging - Pumps, triggers, pouches, and flexible cleaner product packaging (no bottles)
• Colgate Oral Care - Toothpaste tubes, toothpaste caps, tooth brushes, floss containers
• Dairy Tub - all cream cheese tubs/lids, sour cream tubs/lids, cheese tubs/lids, yogurt tubs/lids, butter tubs/lids, margarine tubs/lids, any other dairy product tub, foil tops, plastic tub tops, and other type of packaging on all dairy tubs.
• Inkjet - Any inkjet cartridge accepted
• Personal Care & Beauty - lipstick cases, mascara tubes, eye shadow cases and tubes, shampoo and conditioner bottles, bronzer cases, foundation packaging, body wash containers, soap tubes, soap dispensers, lotion dispensers/bottles/tubes, shaving foam tubes (no cans), powder cases, chap stick tubes, lotion tubes, face soap dispensers, face soap tubes, face lotion bottles and jars, eyeliner cases, eyeliner and lip liner pencils,  concealer tubes and sticks, hair gel tubes, hair paste jars.
• Toner Cartridge - See this link for types http://www.terracycle.com/en-US/brigades/inkjet-brigade-r.html

TerraCycle then converts the collected waste into a wide variety of products and materials. With more than 20 million people collecting waste in over 20 countries TerraCycle has diverted billions of units of waste and used them to create over 1,500 different products available at major retailers ranging from Walmart to Whole Foods Market.

Our goal is to eliminate the idea of waste by creating collection and solution systems for anything that today must be sent to a landfill.

(from http://www.terracycle.com/en-US/about-us.html)

What we did this weekend...

Anne worked this weekend on finding ways to reuse these plastic red discs that we received from the Printing House for the Blind, looking for a fun and creative craft project for our up coming booths at local arts and craft fairs. Aren't they just AWESOME?!?!?!?!

I went picking Friday near Waddy, Kentucky. A wonderful lady let me go through a vast collection of office, Christmas and crafting supplies that were her Mother's. After I chatted with her more about what it is we are doing exactly, she showed me some place mats and a gorgeous bowl her Mom made out of Christmas cards. She ended up giving me the bowl, which we will have on display at our booths.

As we secure spots for our booths, we will be sure to update everyone so you can mark it on your calendar! 

Be sure to like us on Facebook and watch us grow!!!

-Lynn

Yarn, Yarn, Yarn...and Ideas

Yarn, Yarn and more Yarn!!! Oh my goodness the yarn! Received two, well stuffed black garbage bags full of all types of....yep, you guessed it YARN! We are quickly filling the shelves we built last week. We have to build more ASAP!!!! We are in need of scrap plywood, 2x4's and anything else that can be used as shelving, or stackable bins, plastic shelves, bookcases, etc.

Besides collecting stuff, we have been busy working on our plan and talking with everyone we possibly can about the creative reuse center. Passing out cards to anyone who will give us a minute. We have received a very warm response to our idea and hope we are building a great team of future volunteers as well!

We are starting a new feature this week simply called Good Garbage Gab. At least once a week (possibly more) we will be featuring ideas on repurposing items in your house, showcasing reuse artists and sharing thought provoking articles and such. We hope this inspires you to find ways to repurpose other things you might throw away and to keep as much out of the waste streams as possible.  Please feel free to post or email us with your own ideas. You are welcome to send us pictures of your finish products too. If you know a reuse artist, we'd also love to hear all about them. Be on the look out for the first post coming soon!

Thank you for following along, supporting and sharing our adventure in building Louisville's Creative Reuse Center. Keep watch for some exciting news over the next few weeks!

-Lynn & Anne

Hard at work...

We had a fairly productive week... Got some shelving built, had some great meetings, made some great decisions. We are moving forward!!! Each day Good Garbage is coming closer to reality!

Here are some pictures of the storage unit and one volunteer, who also donated the lumber, building shelves.

We have a home...

... at least for storage. This past Sunday we made it feel like home. Sort of anyway. We worked our butts clearing and cleaning up (as best you can a dusty, old buildings basement) our storage area.

Fortunate to get a jump start, we also couldn't do as much as we hoped because the old tenant hasn't moved out of it completely yet. Though we were very lucky to get a great start on collecting "junk" left behind by old tenants in the Hope Worsted Mills building. Lots of wood for shelves, the old plexiglass from the original windows that are being replaced, various types of paper, old computer keyboards, windows and lots of other stuff. With it being such an old building, we also felt very lucky we didn't run into any other furry 'tenants.' We left dirty but truly energized.

Today and over the next couple weeks we will build shelves, and continue looking for bins, storage containers, tables, and of course donated items we will be able to sell in the reuse center. The behind the scenes work for the center is keeping us extremely busy as well. We hope in the next few weeks to be sharing some very exciting news. Be sure to keep checking back on our progress...