No sew octopus from old T-shirts

This is the no sew octopus I made. All you need are 2 large T-shirts (I'm thinking of my hubby's!), a pair of scissors, needle and thread, buttons, and help from your toddler! Just be wary of the length of your octopus' tentacles due to safety reasons. I think this would be even better with wool from old jumpers or scraps of wool, but because I'm living in the tropics, we don't knit!

I chose 2 large T-shirts, one black and one yellow and cut 8 long strips from the black T-shirt, and 16 from the yellow one.

Then, grab them at one end and tie them together. Insert a ball made of cloth and then make a head by securing the strips together with another strip of T-shirt material. Then braid the strips to get 8 tentacles! You can get your toddler to help! My son was busy counting how many tentacles we had left to braid :-)

Almost done! Sew on your buttons for the eyes and mouth. We're almost finished with ours, but my son wants to add on tacks (I think that's what you call them) to the tentacles to complete the look! Think that would be good to secure the braids too :-)

What to do with your detergent bottles 2

Well, I've finally finished what I started. After cutting up the bottle, I used duct tape to cover the sharp edges.

I cut out my pattern and used this cute bug fabric which I had left over from making a nappy bag for my son (when he was a baby). I cut 2 pieces right sides facing each other.

You then sew them up along the top and sides. Turn it inside out and it will make a snug cover for the book/paper holder. :-)

DIY notepads

Getting a lot of junk mail? You can use them as notepads in place of the post it notes. Very useful for jotting down phone numbers or reminders! :-)

What you need:

a) scissors

b) duct tape or masking tape (I prefer the former as it doesn't rip easily)

c) lots of junk mail!

Cut your junk mail into post-it-note sizes.

b) Take your tape and tape the ends. Run your pen or scissors along the edge to make sure all the paper sticks to the tape.

Literal Recycling Bins

Si(gh)ted at the airport....VERY easy to tell wat you're supposed to put into them, eh? Wonder if this in anyway, solves the proverbial problem of junk in recycling bins, or is the problem just people who are inconsiderate?

Pooh bags

Do you buy things that come wrapped in plastic, or get magazines mailed to you with plastic wrappers? My friend likes to use them for wrapping up the pooh from the stray cats that live in her neighbourhood before putting them in the rubbish bin. Some people would use newspaper, but you can recycle newspaper rather than the plastic wrappers. Plus, the newspaper won't be able to trap the pongy smell from the pooh, especially in Singapore's heat. So doggy owners and cat lovers, why not re-use your plastic wrappers this way !

Solar cookers

I found this via Green Kampong. It's a smart sun solar cooker by DesignQuadro designers, Anil Dincer and Murat Ozveri, and looks very fancy, don't you think? The reason why it's smart is because it can be hooked up to the internet and you can determine the nutritional value of your meal. It's an idea, but to be honest, I do think that it is OTT, and going by the pic I'm sure this is an OEI (outrageously expensive item :-p ) . Well, I guess they're only going for the rich, so that pretty much leaves the rest of us behind!

Hey designers, why not design your products to target the developing world too? By having a solar oven/cooker, the families wouldn't have to depend on wood for fuel, and cope with poor indoor air quality. Look at the Solar Cooker Conference (yes! I didn't know either!) and the Solar Food Processing Conference held this year in India and you will see that many researchers are looking into pushing for this in the developing countries.

The more you starve them....

You don't have to be green to be green

I like the song lyrics "Politicians feed us crap, celebrities are the same! It's all about how green they are and who deserves the blame"

What to do with your detergent containers

Some lad in my office had a brilliant idea on how to reuse these detergent bottles. He cut them up and they became document holders. I think you can go further and cut them in half and turn the document holders into book ends.

Here's my attempt:My container marked out with a marker.

Halloween

OK, it's way past Halloween, but don't these DIYs look cute?

Football pitch

Most, well, I think practically ALL men (well, maybe excluding those in Northern America) love, or even worship football (that's soccer to those in N. America). I'm dreading the World Cup because it will be on the other side of the globe, and most likely my hubby will be sleeping at odd hours.

CNN did an article on how green football is. In Singapore, almost all of the pitches are artificial pitches. According to the article, they can can save 20,000 liters of water a day. That's definitely a lot of water.

Grass pitch
My hubs says that it has to be smooth and flat and the grass can't be patchy. If it isn't the ball will bounce in all directions and will be unpredictable. But hey, isn't that what football is all about? Oh, he adds the players will injure themselves easily too. They are a pampered lot aren't they ? :-) A grass pitch can only be used for football for about 3 matches and then it's time to grow them greens again.

Artificial pitch

I think they changed the artifical pitch at St. Wilfred's just last month after more than 6 yrs of use. There's no need to maintain and water, or encourage the greens to grow perfectly. Perfect for the men in shorts (or so my hubby says!). However, they do come off the pitch with a lot of those pellets!

I do think in Singapore we can do with some solar panels at our football stadiums like those in Stade de Suisse in Switzerland. It has 10,000 panels on its roof!

Water shortage

My hubby works in China and needs to make frequent trips to neighbouring Macau (1 hour boat ride from Hong Kong). Macau is the Las Vegas of Asia, and it has embraced development at breakneck speed. Casinos and hotels have sprouted haphazardly over the once sleepy enclave. According to my hubby, he only drinks bottled water (not very good for the environment) in Macau and Zhuhai in China because tap water has a salty tase. Apparently, development and over extraction of drinking water from the water table has led to salt water intrusion into the water table. And now it appears there may be water rationing in Macau and neighbouring Zhuhai.

Pic - from The Standard

No time

No time to think about blogging.... swamped at work and at home.....