Big List of Earth-Friendly (homemade, compostable, recyclable, no-plastic) Holiday Decorations

December 16, 2014

...ts biodegradable by choosing cotton or wool yarn, and natural fiber cloth. Making little cloth ornaments is a great way to use up scrap cloth and yarn. Save colorful scrap paper for the paper projects. Popcorn/cranberry strings (pro-tip: stale popcorn threads better) Gather a few evergreen branches by the branch ends to make a broom or fan shape, decorate with a spray of berries, tie with a ribbon. Much easier than a wreath! A few cranberries stru...

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Return of the Caftan?

Mr. Homegrown

December 2, 2014

Domesticus

5 Comments

...we’ve already hosted a shoe making workshop we might as well host a caftan making class. That, I said, would make us fodder for Portlandia parody. Reaction to the caftan post fell into two camps. Baby Boomers chastised my Generation X cynicism and noted that caftans are comfortable and practical. Others thought the idea is as ridiculous as, well, hosting a shoe making workshop and grinding your own flour. In Facebook, someone posted the picture ab...

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Build Your Own Furniture

Mr. Homegrown

October 27, 2006

Design

5 Comments

...ack in the 60s and 70s left a few highly useful and groovy how-to books on making your own suburban-workshop-modernist furniture with a humble 4 x 8 sheet of plywood. The amazing art/architecture collective Simparch tipped us off to the world of plywood modernism how-to books and we at Homegrown Evolution recommend the stunning Sunset Magazine produced Furniture You Can Build, which is sadly way out of print and very expensive on Amazon, but avail...

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Home cooking advice?

Mrs. Homegrown

June 4, 2014

Food

30 Comments

...ay you’re going to be making soup stock for something (or something you’re making will yield soup stock) — what else can you make which will use the rest of that soup stock? Same for cooking up a pot of beans, or a chicken, or a loaf of bread. Same goes for opening a jar of olives or splurging on a hunk of good cheese. Multitask those ingredients. 5) Pick a cooking style and try to stick with it. Some may disagree with this vehemently, but I’ve de...

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Bushcraft Video

Mrs. Homegrown

March 29, 2013

Appropriate Technology, Preparedness

22 Comments

...because the invisible Nick is funny in this one. Fan quote: “Drip. Drip.” Making The Shoveaxe Bush Tool: He makes this incredible axe/shovel hybrid. It looks like a work of art. It looks like Thor’s hammer. This video is the actual making, step by step. I don’t know why, but I like watching welding. You can skip to the last couple of minutes to see it in action. The Hand Drill: What Works for Me: I like his attitude toward this most sacrosanct of...

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