Secondhand Nation

Daughter of Invention: Vintage Make-up Cases

Kids are the best at improvising.  Here, a couple of phonebooks and an old make-up case make perfect booster seats.  Take that, Babies 'R Us!

I LOVE old make-up cases, or train cases, as some like to call them.  Every time my Grandma visited us, I remember my grandfather hauling in their light blue hardside Samsonite luggage set on wheels, including the make-up case.  I would always offer to carry up the make-up case, because then sometimes my grandma would let us play beauty shop with her.

These days, all my make-up fits into a tiny zippered pouch the size of a paperback book. I can't really feature myself getting so vain that I'd require that make space for all my beauty potions.  Still, when I see make-up cases in thrift shops, I always pause to check them out.  Usually they have really luxe features like satiny ruffled linings with mirrors, removable, compartment trays, and locks with little keys. So fancy!

These days, I like to shove magazines in 'em (especially nice for the your toity):

Or I use them to organize those aggravating little bits of toys my daughter is always perseverating over, like those ridiculously eensty Polly Pockets and Littlest Tiniest Weeniest Pet Shop - a pox on your wee little houses:

Radical Confessions...Or Not?

Hey Zine-Readers!  Have you ever read Doris?  It's one of the most popular and longest-sustained zines out there.  If you like zines, yet haven't heard of it, you're not paying attention - its creator, Cindy Crabb, is a prolific punk DIY super heroine. 

In any case, Doris discusses anarchism, permaculture, environmental degradation, politics and feminism, and living green through squatting and dumpster-diving.  I've been on a total Doris kick lately, absorbing all her words and ideas and comparing them to my relatively tame hetero life in a first-ring suburb where I pay the mortgage and power companies, while living in my square wooden box made out of ticky-tacky...

While going through the compilation book of her zines that was recently published by Microcosm, I started wondering:  am I getting more radical?  Or will what I'm doing to live greener soon become the bare minimum?

Sure, we recycle diligently in my house and we kitchen compost and we buy farmer's market food when we can.  That kinda stuff's in vogue and in the pages of Martha Stewart Living. 

Also, I do many things that are somewhat out of the mainstream in the name of reusing or conserving resources. 

Signs I'm just one step out of the mainstream:

I take great pains to buy resale over retail.  Out of cheapness AND easing the burden in the landfill AND the thrill of finding unique things.

I let it yellow if it's mellow.  (Sometimes my husband bitches about this being gross.  I try to drink more water so my pee goes undetected...sneaky, I know.)

I use reusable maxi pads, if I bother to use anything at all. If you'd like more details on this, let me know.  I don't believe there's such thing as Too Much Information, but I'm probably in the minority

I line dry all our clothes.  I even plan to try this in the winter.  (Shh.  My husband thinks I'm already crazy. )

I use old lace doilies or dampened dish towels to protect food in the refrigerator.   Plastic wrap gives me fits.  I don't plan to buy more when we run out of it.  (Shh.  Again, don't let the husband know.)

I am completely content without a dishwasher - honest!

I don't water the plants I don't plan to use.  This means the herbs or vegetables get the H20 love, but the lawn is almost completely brown, because I refuse to water it out of spite for its boring monoculture-ness. 

Certainly these are small things, though they might seem weird to others.  But I'm wondering if they will become more and more acceptable as people get more comfortable with sustainable living? 

(Long Rambling Aside:  Though I preach the gospel of thrift, I do fear that yard sales and thrifting pleasures will become cutthroat, competitive affairs and prices will be driven up higher.  I don't let it keep me up nights, or anything, but just saying...)

Signs I'm starting to become a radical lunatic:

Whenever I see the little bundles of sticks that people set out for the trash hauler, in the regulation length and size, I secretly consider stealing them all and composting them or mulching my yard with them.

This morning while showering, I decided to make natural potpourri from lavender, mint and bee balm in my yard.  Potpourri, people!  Potpourri is inherently crazy. 

My husband's ideas to build a greenhouse off the garage and power everything by bio-diesel are starting to sound reasonable.

I'm wondering if I can compost used q-tips and cottonballs...any ideas?

In my backyard, I tried to combat creeping charlie with creeping mint.  Guess who's winning?

I've considered whether we should install a bidet when we remodel the basement bathroom - no more toilet paper!

I have been researching home-made conditioners that won't necessitate bringing more plastic bottles into my home.  I'm talking egg whites and honey, people. 

Pretty soon I'm gonna start blasting the Buffalo Springfield, I know! And trying to make holiday gifts out of my composted turds.  My family will walk around with frizzled hair from our low-flow showerheads like that one Seinfeld episode and the trunk of our car will be held on with a bungie cord and we'll all be wearing dashikis made from newsprint. 

Do I seek help?  Or is this the future? 

Pour Some Sugar on Me (But No Glass, Thanks)

This morning's shower made me want to snuggle up to the plastics industry.

My sugar scrub experiment came to a dramatic halt when the glass tub shattered all over the shower.

Completely my idiot fault for storing it precariously on the towel bar.  But still, it's rather hair-raising to be slipping around barefooted among bits of glass you cannot see.

So, in short, it was a complete cock-up and a terrible way to start your morning.  I need some hints from Heloise on how to handle this kind of accident - I'm sure back in the days of Olde when all shampoo bottles were glass, some eager-beaver housewife came up with a solution to this hazardous problem.  Readers?  Ideas?  Sympathy?  Anything?  Bueller?

Pour Some Sugar On Me!

I've been scouring the reviews over at Makeup Alley, for a freelance job I'm doing on beauty products.  It so happens that my editor assigned me to research and write about exfoliating body and face scrubs, which is like, for me, the Top Thing Ever.

So while comparing $68 tubs of brown sugar scrub, I came across this review, which was labeled as "Sugar" which was an "Unlisted Brand."  Hmmm.

Turns out the beauty addicts over at MUA aren't above Macgyvering up their own products in the kitchen in the pursuit of softer/clearer/whatever skin.   The reviewers explain how using raw sugar can be a great exfoliator and discuss the benefits of adding grapeseed, almond oil, honey or even essential oil fragrance.  A veritable gold mine of kitchen experimentation. 

But First Principles, people.  The simplest explanation is best so I decided to start by opening a sack of C & H and stashing a bit in my shower.  I took an empty glass tub of exfoliator that I bought on clearance at Target.

(Long Rambling Aside:  Isn't this always the way?  You get to liking some Target product, and bam!  It's discontinued.  Grrr...)

I've been using it on one side of my body, while the other side is getting the lavish treatment from a chi-chi brand that shall remain nameless which I bought from my local hippie co-op.  In case you're not able to detect one side of my body glowing exuberantly through my blog, I'll report back on the results in a week. 

(Last Rambling Bit:  Oh, and of course, I''m now reviewing products at MUA.  If it involves listing and cataloging the minutiae of my own life for no productive reason, well, then it clearly must go to the top of the priority heap.)

This Season's "It" Bag

Not, it's not an Hermes Birkin or a turd-colored Louis Vuitton satchel that costs more than the GDP of Sri Lanka.

It's a reusable lunch bag!  Ping!  Hard nipples!

My good friend Amber so thoughtfully brought this back for me while on vacation in South Dakota!  But though all of you can't have friends like Amber, you can still get your own reusable lunch bag.  They're everywhere.

With your own chi-chi lap napkin and silver flatware, you can eat in a dignified, slow way.  They call it fast food because you don't really want to stop and savor (or think) too much when you eat it, right?  Slow Down.  Bring food you can enjoy.  It's not called "Lunch Break" for nothing.  There's a whole lifestyle devoted to this, too - The Slow Food Movement.

Think of all the waste you'll avoid with a little tupperware and planning.  Quit fooling with crappy to-go cups with their skin-curdling, straw-squeaking unsustainable wastefulness.  Have your lunch on a plate or in a bowl, not in some ghastly styrofoam atrocity, without plastic cutlery breaking off fangs into your meal.  Eat your leftovers and keep your refrigerator cleanout to a minimum. 

So you wanna pack heat but need some fire power?  No problem - there are many before you who have dealt with this quandary, so let them provide you with ideas.

The Tiffin Tin has a great manifesto that will quell your fears about what and how to pack.  Brown Bag Blues keeps it real with great recipes for all ages.  And Pack My Lunch has great how-tos for parents who pack out their kids, too. 

Your body deserves proper nutrition and your wallet will thank you by saving you many, many wads of cash.  When you don't waste all your money on the slop these propaganda-spewing factory farming idiots provide, perhaps you can buy that ridiculous luxury handbag with the 10 year waiting list.   

Unusual Potting Benches

Check out SimplyGreen's take on the impromptu potting bench!

I'm no longer a voice in the wilderness for eschewing ready-made potting benches!

(P.S. I spotted another kitchen cabinet in someone's trash stash a few nights ago and had the husband spirit it away.  I might set it up to its companion or let Adrian put it in his garage lair.  More later.)

Jolie-Laide Gardening

Now that I've made composting sexy, I will now be Frenchifying my garden.  Let me explain.

Since I was inspired by H.C. Flores book, Food Not Lawns, the de-lawnification has officially begun.  That's right -- my lawn is getting the axe. (And it's not the only one:  check out what's going down in some lawns in drought-stricken California.)

My delawnification involves a slow, insidious creep that will soon take over the grass.  That slippery-slope argument people always bring up when talking about gay marriage?  That's what I'm doing - marrying my dog, marrying six other people - except in my lawn!  Get it?    Before my lawn knows it, the definition of LAWN will be completely changed!  Or not there!  Whatever!  On to the French part!

This exclusive method I invented is called Jolie-Laide Gardening.

Jolie-Laide is a French term which means beautiful-ugly. It's the concept behind why people find Sarah Jessice Parker attractive or women with mustaches or spaces between their teeth get all the men.  It's a great concept that gives unusual-looking women everywhere a shred of hope.  But it can also work in home garden applications.

Check out how cinchy it is!  You just take big hunks of nature and dump them where you think they would be better off.  It looks ugly, but it's growing and full of life and doesn't need mowing - that's why it's beautiful!

Lilac prunings get dumped by the side of the garage!  Wall-Ah!  No more stupid edge trimming!

Entire swath of creeping charlie ripped up in fit of obsessive weeding!  Cedar mulch dumped on the scene in pleasing, asymetical pattern!  Sage, yarrow and Vietnamese coriander replanted in a new, sunnier home!  Take that, boring monoculture!

Flower garden overgrown and spilling out over grass!  Rip back the edgers, dump in a pile a new dirt and pretend like you planned it that way!  (Tip over lawn furniture to make everything look extra raucous!)

 

The bottom line for Jolie-Laide Gardening is that, even if you lack gardening skill or spatial orientation, it's okay.  Growing things cannot be unattractive, by their very nature.  Though lawn purists and horticulturists might scoff at my willy-nilly placement, I believe that reusing mulch is better than trashing it.  Ripping up creeping charlie to grow lovely herbs does a whole lot more than pesticides and constant bitching.   Nature loves diversity. If only humans did, too. 

Secondhand Nation's 3 Clam Challenge: Day Three

DAY THREE

I notice several signs for garage sales near my house and my husband is a rare mood for resale, so he accompanies me. 

Our first stop is a moving sale.  Immediately, I sense trouble.  The garage the sale is in is markedly bigger than the house that was just sold.  This is because the family has a bunch of flashy cars, if you think a lipstick-red Dodge Viper counts as flashy. 

(Brief Rambling Aside:  The Viper's license plates were personalized:  VICIOUS.  Ewwww.)

The rest of the sale stank, too.  Mary Kay products.  Beanie Babies.  Porcelain dolphins mounted on rainbow glass.  Real klassy stuff. 

The next sale was held at a house where a couple live who the neighborhood kids have taken to calling "Dick and Bitch."  They are the Childless Assholes who collect over-kicked soccer balls and yell at kids every second they can - every neighborhood has one or two these fun duos.  My husband and I got all excited that Dick and Bitch might be moving, so we went over there thinking that their Reign of Terror might be over.

"Oh, no," said Dick, when asked if he was cleaning out for a move.  He exhaled a big raft of cigarette smoke on us and lounged back in his crappy webbed lawn chair.  "The wife and I do this to clean out, you know, every five years or so." 

Mmm.  How very practical and fascist of you, Dick.  We declined to buy his overpriced pasta machine and windchimes shaped like dolphins (what IS it with dolphins?) and headed to the next sale.

Which was even worse, if this is possible.  It was a gaggle of junky bikes and a one-car garage filled with old winter clothes.  On a 95 degree day, this was unbearable.  The woman was elderly and she had what seemed to be her grand-daughters setting up with her.  After a bit of smalltalk, we graciously beat it.  I don't understand people who bother with garage sales when all they have is clothing.  It's really never worth the effort of a garage sale.   Nobody wants to buy your wool blazer in July.  Either consign it at Turn Style or donate it!    

We walk away, muttering and annoyed, my same 3 wrinkly bucks trying in vain to burn a hole in my sweat-dampened pocket.

To be continued...

Secondhand Nation's 3 Clam Challenge: Day Two

DAY TWO

The next day was Tuesday, which is Customer Appreciation Day at Unique Thrift Store, which means 25% off all purchases. So, same wrinkly 3 bucks in my purse, I went over to see if anything appealed.

Wow, Unique is packed on Tuesdays! The nearest parking spaces were in Outer Guam and once inside, everyone was butts-to-nuts. But I didn't have a kid or cart, so I could weave in between all the gawking hard-core fly catchers blocking all the aisles.

My first mission was to check out furniture. I did see some nice pieces, but nothing I needed. Then I checked out the curtains, because hot weather + naked windows = sweaty house conditions. I came upon some home-made-from-70's-era-sheets curtains that would have fit my sitting room quite nicely: blue and green stripes, three panels, okay condition, cotton. I decided to think about them while I checked out housewares.

But housewares was full of Christian Rock CD's and grody candle holders and twisting between the mouth-breathers was a pain, so I went back to the curtains to give them one last look. They were $3.45, which meant that I'd slide under my 3 Buck Rule quite nicely.

But then A Gross Thing Happened.

While I was looking at the curtains, a trio of three females came by, a mom and her two daughters.  The one daughter was protesting "It wasn't me!  I didn't do it!" and the other daughter was covering her nose.  The mom was saying, "Jeezus, what have you been eating?" and "That's bad enough to gag a maggot."

Clearly the protestor was lying, as her approach wafted a huge cloud of stanky-ass fart.  Combined with my humble mission AND a complete stranger's fart cloud, I got the hell out, buying nothing.  I realize none of this is Unique's fault.  But occasionally thrift shopping's lack of ambiance gets to me.

To be continued...

Secondhand Nation's 3 Clam Challenge

What can you buy for 3 dollars? 

A fancy coffee drink?  Almost a gallon of gas?  A couple of shit-bomb burritos at Taco Bell? 

Considering the fact that minimum wage continues to be 4 and a quarter, and that theoretically, the guv'mint expects us to spend three and take the bus home on a buck twenty-five, what can you buy with 3 dollars here in the U.S., the richest nation on the planet?

(Also interesting is the recent experiment by Senator Barbara Lee who embarked on the Food Stamp Diet to see if she could survive on just 3 smackers a day.  The comparisons are dizzying and I feel a Long Rambling Aside coming on, but this entry is going to be long enough.)

So this week I went out to see what 3 bucks could do for my household in the secondary economy.

DAY ONE

I started the week at Savers, as Monday is their 99 cent day for certain color-tagged merchandise. On this particular day, the blue tags were 99 cents. I didn't find much. For a while, I waltzed around with this milk glass hurricane lamp in my cart (originally marked at $14.99! ha!) but then I realized I'd have to scrape off the crappy painted flowers on it and the metal work was GOLD and I hate gold.

So I put it back. And walked out. Nothing at Savers, 99 cents or otherwise, that my family needed, for less than 3 bucks or otherwise. A huge bummer. Usually Savers has lots of good stuff.  Except, sometimes I wonder if the donation intake people are blind when it comes to furniture.  I don't think actual cats would want some of the scratched-up, hacked-to-hell junk that the staff seems to think is saleable. 

To Be Continued...