Hey there Green Thinkers!  Thanks for your patience in our brief interuption.  I took a few days off to spend some time with my mom face to face vs. virtual and during her visit we took the opportunity to spend some quality times in a very handy-fashion.

Remember when I posted previously about giving some of our older furniture some new life in order to give our new place a breath of fresh life?  Well, Mom, the man, & I undertook the  task of giving a face lift to our tea cart.  Check out the steps below:

1.  Find an old characteristic piece to give a great make-over.

The original version.

2.  Empty contents & sand it down to remove all the old shiny stuff, aka finish.

3.  Add primer.  The primer will allow your paint to show its true cover & hide any blemishes your old piece may have had and sanding couldn’t take care of.

Primed to make it prime!

4.  Wait until it dries.  Add paint, your color is your choice!  Consider using a low voc environmental version.

The makeover, a little lipstick goes a long way!

5.   Add a clear coat for the shine!

6. Pick out some cool vintage looking hardware (depending on your piece).

The jewelry

7.  Reload & enjoy!

from Ug...to AHHH

We are so pleased with our ‘new’ furniture! I had some other projects at hand, but I think we are going to enjoy our new things for a little longer before undertaking anything more for awhile.

Some other things to make your DIY projects even more eco-friendly:

• Remember to get your environmental, water based paints & clear coats. 
• Don’t forget that your tools.  We used a roller with a reusable brush. Since we used all water-based coverings, we were able to rinse it out before each coat & not have to create a lot of waste.
• Consider looking at old antique shops or thrift stores to look for your furnitures bling aka hardware.  Maybe you even have something lying around that you could convert.  If you are re-doing a dining buffet, consider using old silverware as handles, looking for some cupboard knobs – take a tip from my Aunt & collect unique stones from your garden to glue to a screw & install.

DIY projects are so fun, inexpensive & a great way to avoid excessive purchasing & waste. 

Have you repurposed anything lately? Share it with us!  We would love to share how you’ve turned something drab to fab, ug to ah, a big blurb to something to superb…you get the drift.  Shoot us a little background & pic to greenthinkinggtb@gmail.com, or submit to our blog carnival!

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Remember when Green Thinking Blog went to Bonnaroo in June?

Well, the stats just came in on how much of an environmental impact attendees made through their recycling efforts & Bonnaroo made overall with their full-on committment. Clean Vibes was on the campus to do the dirty work & tally it up!  The results were so great that Bonnaroo even won an award: The A Greener Festival Award, which rates festivals eco-friendliness all over the world!

Check out what was diverted from the landfills at this year’s Bonnaroo (stats provided by Bonnaroo follow up email to GreenThinkingGTB@gmail.com :

101 tons of commingled recycling
23 tons of cardboard
21 tons of scrap metal
45 tons compostable material
5 tons of cooking oil

All together 60% of all waste by volume was diverted from landfills!

This is so impressive, I wonder how Bonnaroo & Clean Vibes will top it next year?!

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Taking a little break from the Carnival of Green Thinking this week – we will pick it up again next week, so feel free to submit your favorite blog articles by the end of next Friday to share with the world!

I love musicals, I love singing & dancing, I love happy things that could be true, but are a little too quirky to believe fully. 

That being said, I do enjoy watching the fun television show, Glee, and since it is a new-ish television phenemenon, you probably know someone else who enjoys it too.

Since growing in popularity, everyone wants to jump on the Glee bandwagon & they are promoting a lot right now in some cute little snip-its…Britney S. Pierce is my favorite.

Right now they are working with American Express to do a promotion with the Members Project and are giving us an opportunity to do good with the actual characters of Glee!  Check out the quiz here and see if you are Sue or a Shue!

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It is that time again, we are packing up the family and relocating. 

The place we are renting now has tons of character & served its purpose when we needed to downsize, but now we have Rigby (who is growing like crazy!) and we are back on our feet to upgrade a little.

Even though we are upgrading from one bedroom to two, we really don’t need a lot of things – and that is the point of this post.  Our current place has a total bohemian feel to it – intricate prints against eclectic furnishings, a whole mix match that actually coordinates; and I love it!  The new place has a different feel to it though, a more sophisticated, elegant vibe is what I get.  Like I said, we don’t need new things, those things just need a new look!  Maybe even a new purpose!

Follow along in the next coming weeks to see how we are taking some of our old things and giving them a new life, and in turn, feeling like we have some totally new gear without the cost!  I must say, I am very thankful to have 2 dedicate assistants in this process – for one, they will keep me grounded as I tend to get carried away, for second, nothing is more fun than having someone to keep you company while working on projects!

Project #1:  Tea Cart turned Entertainment Center turned Sleek Bar

As you can see, this tea cart has been turned into our entertainment center.  It has a super cool vintage feel to it, but that just won’t cut it in our new digs. 

The Plan: 1) Refinish it to a darker color wood or paint it with a textured color.  2) Change out the drawer pulls with some funky, but classy looking knobs  3) Add a funky wine rack to the inside shelf with some cool glassware. 4) Wheel around from kitchen to livingroom as needed for a unique buffet/bar!

Project #2:  Reuhpholster a Sentimental Seat

This chair has a sentimental feeling to it, it is the first piece of furniture my hunny gave me & he found it at a garage sale.  As you can see, it too has a super vintage feel to it, which I want to keep – just with darker wood & a funky printed fabric.

The Plan: 1) Restain the arms & legs to a dark wood (similar to that of the tea cart). 2) Create a slip cover to give a new look and feel to a super cool seat!  The fabric I am considering has some bright vibrant colors and intricate patterns to bring a lively pop to the solid colors of the room while keeping a vintage feel with a sophisticated look.

Another option would be to repurpose your old comforters or draperies to cover your old chairs!

Like I said, stay tuned to see how these projects actually turn out

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Last weekend I blew out a tire while driving on the highway.  Scary to say the least, scarier yet because my spare tire was in less than desirable condition. Water had found its way to my trunk and rusted the rim of my spare, making it leak a slow and painful leak, well on its way to death.

Besides needing to get home at that immediate moment, it is obvious that spare tires are a necessity, and as a former girlscout I must always be prepared – so the only answer was to buy a new doughnut. 

From the advice of the really nice mechanic who suggested I buy used – aka,recycled – I did some research &  found a great resource for all kinds of car parts!  LKQ Corporation is a national chain that can provide all the used parts you desire – and usually at a price less than what you would spend on the new thing. 

The experience was like visiting a beautiful graveyard.  Thousands of cars did not die in vain because we get to use their parts and keep a part of them running forever.

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During my morning coffee I ran across this helpful little video on MSN.com.

Take a couple of minutes to learn some useful tips!

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Do you have something you want to swap?  Do you have something you need?

XX…….XX…….XX

Got to Swapmamas.com.  This is an online community dedicated to swapping goods.  How it works is:  You post what you have in one of the various channels, and you look for what you want.  You can only swap or gift on this site – no $$$ no paypals and all shipping coordination takes place offline.  Rules have it that the giver pays the shipping deal.  Easy-peasy, green & fun!

What I love about this is that it goes with the GTB philosophies of not buying new when you can get something used in perfect condition, plus, you create a sense of harmony by the people you meet through your transactions, and it make the old cliches true: What goes around comes around; One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

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I hadn’t ever thought of this before, but does the Earth want us to conserve? compost? recycle?  Have I been butting my nose where it isn’t wanted?

According to Robert Laughlin, and featured in an article in Newsweek, (Newsweek, 9.12.10 by George Will) the Earth just may not care if we meddle.  Laughlin shares the idea that the geological timeframe of the Earth will happen regardless of what we do in the meantime. He argues that ‘Climate change over geologic time is, Laughlin says, something the earth has done “on its own without asking anyone’s permission or explaining itself.” People can cause climate change, but major glacial episodes have occurred “at regular intervals of 100,000 years,” always “a slow, steady cooling followed by abrupt warming back to conditions similar to today’s.”’ 

I must say, I see his point – and since he is a Nobel Prize winner in Physics, he has some ground to stand on.  Even so, I still think it is in the interest of human nature that we embrace conservation and show a respect for where we live. 

What are your thoughts?  Leave us a comment, a tweet, or an email.

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This coming week my friend is having a garage sale, it got me thinking of all the great treasures people have in their homes…I am sure she will turn up a few cell phones – maybe a bag phone, an old car phone, the Zach Morris version walkie-talkie phone - ah, the possibilities. 

Remember when the RAZR by Motorola was all the rage? Then the Blackberry? Now the iPhone, I mean iPhone 4? You can practically recall the events in your life by what kind of phone you had at the time!

Now that the world upgrades technology on a regular basis, what happens to the quickly rejected versions?  Recycle mobiles is the newest trend in the wireless industry. 

One way to do this is to visit Envirofone and get paid to do something good for your earth.  Now, that shouldn’t be your only incentive – but $$$ in your pocket isn’t too shabby either.   Plus, the life of your phone is two fold this way; often, sources that take your old phones refurbish them to provide to lower income areas or reuse their parts and avoid landfills as much as possible. 

Whatever you do with your old bag phones – do not, I repeat, do not put them in the waste bin.  These electronics do not break down in our landfills and just become a waste of space.  Not to mention, cell phones will leak harmful chemicals that will bleed from the batteries and plastic directly into our natural soil resource. 

Therefore, I repeat, recycle those mobile phones!

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Ever consider banking with the environment? That is right! There is a Recycle Bank.

You could get totally rich just by doing things you already do, such as  reducing, reusing and recycling.

Seriously, do you recycle at home, recycle or electronics, or belong to the eBAy Green Club?  If so, you can easily earn points to add to your Recycle Bank.  Then you get to turn those points in to get discounts at a thousand or so retailers!

Do you like shopping for ecofriendly products, do you like going out to eat, what about music on your iPod?  If you join Recycle Bank, these are just some of the things you could redeem with your points!

Already, users have helped save over 9 million trees and almost 630 million gallons of water!

Consider this, Recycle Bank could be a really easy program for you to take advantage of – but it could also be a great incentive to get that person you know who needs a little encouragement in the eco-friendly department to jump on board…I can just feel the points rolling in!

http://www.recyclebank.com/

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