The Garbage Lady, Finally an Introduction

Hi all! Thought I'd tell you a bit about how myself and my vision for Good Garbage. My name is Lynn Quire, born in Louisville and raised in Southern Indiana now back, residing in the wonderful area of Old Louisville. I am an avid advocate for reduce and reuse. A self-taught sewer and crafter, I mainly love to create  bags from shirts, pants and other various reused material. I have worked in business from the time I was 18 and have a love of learning new things. This has given me the opportunity to learn businesses inside and out from accounting to human resources to information technology. With this love of learning also comes a passion for teaching.

I have been involved with many non-profits, volunteering, fundraising and organizing events. Though mainly my focus has been on school and youth organizations, I have logged many volunteer hours teaching various skills and working at area events.

As Executive Director, I will be working hard to take the message of reducing and reusing across our community by working with reuse artists, teachers, community centers, other non-profit organizations and Corporations through workshops, classes and camps for preschoolers to adults. My goal is to get our community to stop and think before an item is tossed or recycled as to the other lives that item could potentially have; if not by you, by someone else.

In turn, this will help the community, especially teachers, obtain inexpensive materials for their classrooms, art and craft projects and masterpieces.

During this time I will be searching for the perfect place to call home for our retail store, workshop area, gallery and boutique. I'm always up for a challenge and this one is a dream I'm making a reality. 

You can reach me at Lynn.GoodGarbage@gmail.com or 502.437.9021. I would love to hear about places (Community centers, senior centers, after school programs or summer camps) where I can share the Good Garbage message and ideas on reuse projects and crafts. I believe the only limitation I have is the imagination...and seems there is no end!!!

I am plowing through fundraising and events, shedding blood, sweat and tears, to make Good Garbage: Center for Creative Reuse an Institution in our great city of Louisville!!! 

The Junkyard Clubhouse, Events & Call for Supplies

WOW! We have been so busy booking and planning events for this spring and working to get the all the business side of stuff taken care of, I haven't posted here as much as I planned! But I think it is time that we let you all in on all the wonderful happenings at Good Garbage . . .

Behind the scenes, Anne has been busy talking and working with a lot of wonderful supporters and persevering through mounds of paperwork so we can see our dream of the retail, workshop, boutique and gallery space come to life soon. No concrete dates yet. Still lots to do...But she is hoping to get us going on a mobile basis soon! 

I've been busy working on events for Good Garbage, for both kids and adults! Along with our mobile retail side starting soon, we will be scheduling workshops and makes all over town. 

Anne and I have created the Good Garbage Gang and The Junkyard Clubhouse! The Good Garbage Gang is open to everyone. We will have promotions, games, contests and instructables for repupose makes. 

The Junkyard Clubhouse will be an educational and hands on area at local festivals, community centers and other places around town, geared toward kids from 1 to 101. 

The Junkyard Clubhouse will be introduced at our booth at the Mighty Kindness Earth Day Hoot on April 13 from 12-6, at the Brown-Forman Amphitheater on River Road.  

On May 11th you can catch me showing you some cool things to do with a t-shirt at the Louisville Free Public Library's How To Fair, just in time for Mother's Day! You can leave with a necklace, bracelet or scarf for the special lady in your life! FREE!

Also on May 11th we will be at the Buy Local Fair at the Louisville Water Tower from 2-8 p.m.

The grand premier for The Junkyard Clubhouse will be at the Old Louisville Spring Fest in the Kosair Kid's Zone on May 18th, from 12-6 p.m. Kids will be learning how and why we should repurpose items such as the infamous Plastic Water Bottle, through stories, posters, discussions and hands on crafts. We will be turning the bottles into sun catchers and medallions, snake bubble blowers, stamps and itsy-bitsy gardens. There will also be demonstrations throughout the day that will be geared towards older kids and adults, along with a display of many repuposed items. We will also have a booth in the vendor area.

We are absolutely honored for Good Garbage and the Junkyard Clubhouse to have been asked to headline the children's area at The Grass Roots Gala on June 7 from 4-10 p.m. on 4th Street, hosted by the Center for Neighborhoods organization. Keep your eye out for more information on this!

We have lots of other things in the works so the calender of events will be updated constantly. A link can be found on the right side of this page. Be sure to bookmark it!

I'm also putting out a call for supplies that I am desperately in need of for the activities I'm doing at the various events. If you have any of the following items, please email me at lynn.goodgarbage@gmail.com and I will be more than happy to pick them up. We have some time to save up! I would like them by April  13.

• 20 oz plastic bottles, preferably clear
• Bottle caps
• Older terry cloth towels and wash cloths (worn, thin ones are great)
• Colored permanent markers, or dry erase markers
• Styrofoam food containers (ie take-out containers, etc. NOT cups)
• Water color paints (ie the ones that come in kid kits)
• Small paint brushes
• Colored T-Shirts, Can be solid color or multi-colored, but not white. Old t's with small stains are fine, but they can't have dried goop on them. 
• Bins or medium/large lidded containers to put these items in.

***All items need to be washed, clean and dry.

I am SOOOOOO excited to get these events going and showing everyone how fun it is to repurpose stuff!!! Hope to see you at ALL of them!

~Lynn~

It's Time to Start Those Seeds... And Reuse That Shredded Paper

Today is looking to be a very cold day and we are expecting ice this evening! Yuck! But I know spring is right around the corner. My friends at Timebank and various blogs are talking gardening and I realize I'm missing my garden, badly. Moving to an urban apartment, I don't have a great green space I can just till up and community gardens have waiting lists. This year, though, I have decided I'm not going to let that stop me. I am planting a container garden! 

Of course, I don't want to just go buy plants...I want to grow from seeds! And NOW is the time to start them... So I found this great way to reuse shredded paper or torn newspaper to make seed starters. It was so easy! 

You need: Blender, Newspaper, Water, Strainer, Muffin tin, and the sun preferably or an oven will do. 

Tear the paper in about 1" squares (doesn't have to be precise) or use shredded paper and fill your blender about half way. I don't have a blender, so I used my 'shake maker.' Fill the rest of the way with water. I let it soak for a little bit because the newspaper soaks it up. Blend until its a soggy mess paste. Add water or paper as needed.

Pour in the strainer and press most of the water out,until just moist. You don't want it to be completely dry. Then just put a bit of the goo the muffin tin, spreading it up the sides and making sure your bottom is good and covered. You don't want too thick, but you do want it strong enough to hold your dirt. 

I would have preferred to use the sun's heat to dry these, but the day I decided to make them was cold and rainy. I set the oven to 250 degrees and put the muffin tin in. I honestly didn't time it and at one time I turned the oven off because I could smell them baking. Later, I turned it up to 350 because they weren't drying fast enough. My suggestion is to turn it up to 400, then turn it off and put the muffin tins in. Best time is after you bake something and you can put them in when you've finished cooking and use the heat left in the oven. 

Once completely dry, they pop right out of the tin. Fill with compost, soil, seeds and give them sun, water and love. When ready to put them in your garden, the whole thing can be planted. Happy Gardening!

For more awesome repurpose, reuse and recycle ideas, follow us on Facebook, Twitter (@GoodGarbageSDF) and Pinterest! 

CALLING ALL LOCAL REUSE ARTIST, CRAFTERS & THINKERS

We would love to showcase your artwork, crafts and reuse ideas on our Community Pinterest Board. Email me a picture, a short description and a link to your blog or website or Facebook page, if you have one. From kids to adults, amateur to professional! Show us what you got and what the Louisville area can keep out of the landfill!!! I plan to showcase some of you on our blog itself, as well. These need to be pictures and things you have actually done yourself, not just reposts from Pinterest.

Even though I have tried to incorporate pictures of local items on our Facebook cover photo, I wish I could take full credit for this, S.C.R.A.P. Bin posted this wonderful idea on their Facebook page, and I thought it would be a cool idea for us to do too.

Looking for this to be a fun project!

~Lynn