Living with Less: DIY Pop-Top Earrings

Hiya!

So, I made these earrings before I left the U.S., but I thought they went with the theme of making do and are very much in the South African vein of making beautiful things out of stuff that most of us would throw away.

They are among my very favorite earrings (and I have a HUGE collection, lemme tell ya) and I always get lots of compliments when I wear them.  People ask, “What are those made of?” and they’re always surprised to find out that they’re just made out of pop tops.  (That would be soda tabs if you’re not a Midwesterner!)

They are much lighter than you’d think for such fabulous, bold earrings:

 

Each individual pop top can shift around, which contributes to their strong, sculptural quality:

 

They really make quite a statement – for next to no money!

 

They’ve got great “swish”

 And I love the fact that they look totally different, depending on the angle or light:

 

I don’t have any pictures of when I made them.  But never fear – these are incredibly easy to make.  Just stack them to the height you want (mine are 29 tabs high), bind them together, and attach an earring hook.

In fact there are really only 2 things to keep in mind:

1. Keep all the tabs either face up or face down (rough side down is how I did mine), and
2. Flip the direction of the tabs as you stack them, otherwise they go lopsided.  In other words, the first tab will have the smaller hole towards the left, then the 2^nd tab will have the smaller hole towards the right, the 3^rd will be towards the left, and so on and so on …

Here’s how I bound mine together:

Do you see the thin jewelry wire?  It’s just looped through one side of the tabs and out through the other.

And even though I used jewelry wire to bind mine together, I think they’d be super cute if they were bound by a colorful ribbon, yarn, etc.

 

Experiment with what you have around the house – and enjoy them!

PS:  If you don’t drink a lot of soda, or don’t want to wait to collect all those pop tops, go on eBay.  You can find huge bags of them for $5 or so …

Living with Less: Cutting Your Own Hair

So, I'm completely paranoid when it comes to my hair.

Since the age of 12, I have had exactly 5 people style/cut my hair.  Two of those were in college, when my hair reached my butt and it was taking 2 days for it to dry.   A couple other times it was a big-day hairstyle kind of thing ... and then there is my beloved Lolo -- my hairdresser since before puberty (weirrrrd.)

Why this level of paranoia you ask me?  Well, I have had too many hair disasters to talk about.  PLENTY before the age of 12 (remember, I was an 80's child) ... then, let's see ... one of the aforementioned not-Lolo hairdressers cut my hair so disastrously and so crookedly that I had to go home and try to even it out myself and then wear my hair up a lot ... then there was the woman who just kept making exasperated noises at my head, as if it was all some strange, frustrating mystery to her (and left me looking pretty much exactly how I had come in) ... the one who swore I'd be out of there in an hour and 3 hours later she just kept saying, it's just that you have so much hair ...

I think what stumps them is that I have very "ethnic" hair.  And when I say "ethnic" I mean that I have like a frigging United Nations on my head.  I have 3 distinct textures of hair (very smooth, kinda rough, and a-wee-bit-brillo-pad-like); I also have almost-straight hair, wavy hair and curly hair.  And I have A LOT of hair.  Like a sh*t-ton of hair.  And it's thick and rebellious.

Lolo understands all this, and although he has to eat his Wheaties before I come in, he's never failed to tame my mane. (Rhyme!)

But as the trip to South African started to become a real possibility (and along with a million other worries) I began to think ... what the hell am I gonna do with my hair?  I knew I couldn't bring Lolo with me in my bags (though he is super skinny and probably could have fit!)

So what to do?  What's a super-paranoid girl to do?  What's a wants-to-be-self-sufficient-and-save-money girl to do?

She goes trawling on the internet for a solution, that's what she does!

And here's what she comes up with:

ALL HAIL THE CREA CLIP!

Oh yeah!  These 2, ingeniously designed clips allow you to cut your own hair without fear of looking like you took scissors to your own head whilst high on crack.  Built-in little levels let you know when a cut is straight; the blue one is smaller and is useful for bangs and the white one is quite big and allows you to cut the rest of your hair.

You can either cut it straight across your back (you'll need someone else to help), or do like I do:

This results in instant layers.  

This was just a trim -- I only cut an inch or so off:

The Crea Clip website explains it all better than I can (plus they have tons of instructional videos, which despite the infomercial feel are actually very helpful) ... but let me just say that I really love these two little clips.  It makes cutting my hair super easy (like 15 minutes and I'm done) and I've used them for trims like this, but I also used them once to cut 11 inches of hair off.  (I donated it to The Little Princess Trust, a UK charity that makes wigs for kids with cancer -- I couldn't donate it to Locks of Love in the US because my hair was highlighted and they don't accept highlighted hair, whereas The Little Princess Trust does.)

Now, you might ask what the heck does it look like, does it look awful, home-done?

All I can go by is my own experience, and I do get nice compliments about my hair ... so it can't be too bad right?  Of course my hair is curly, so it might hide imperfections more than straight hair, but then again, here it is straight:

Can you see the layers? Sorry I'm wearing black, but it wasn't meant to be a hair shot.

All in all, I can say that these clips are awesome.  And in the past year (or more, now that I think about it) I know I've saved a good chunk of money on my hair ... and although I'll always love my Lolo (seriously, he's amazing, he's at West Side Hair Care in St. Paul -- look him up!) I like knowing that I can always cut my own hair ... where ever I may be.

PS:  I recommend curly-headed girls like me straighten their hair before using the Crea Clip, it will result in a much nicer cut.  Oh, and sorry for the lack of pictures, but while it's easy to cut your hair on your own, it's not so easy to cut your hair on your own and take pictures at the same time! :o)

Living With Less: Our Digs

OR:  AN INDULGENTLY LONG TREATISE ON TEMPERANCE

So one of the things that I wanted to focus on in this blog is getting by with less -- the whole notion of living out of 2 Suitcases -- living more for the experiences than for the things, being kinder to the environment and generally living up to that old Yankee adage of "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”

There are many aspects of that now in my daily life -- no car = walking everywhere, no dryer = line drying, etc., etc. -- but one of the most obvious ones is our flat (apartment):

It's been very nicely remodeled and furnished by it owners, but still, it's tiny.

The "bedroom"

The living room

The "office"

The kitchen and "dining room"

 The very nice & modern bathroom

Coming from living in our 1200 sq. foot, multi-story home in Minneapolis, we're now in a studio apartment that probably isn't even 400 square feet.

And you know what's pretty effing weird?  We're actually really liking it!  And this comes from a woman who loves her quiet, alone and private time & space (no, really, it's true.)  We thought this would just be a temporary place, and we actually had the opportunity to move into a one bedroom, but we liked this one so much better we decided to stay in it. 

There are lots of reasons we like it:

- Time & materials to clean it:  minimal.

- It REALLY makes you think, do I need this?  You can't buy a lot of crap because it simply won't fit (and that's very important because we don't want to have to ship a lot of stuff back to the States eventually.)

- Given the perfect location for Aaron's work, shops, and all kind of amenities, it's quite affordable.

- I love our balcony!:

And for me, one of the biggest things is that it feels like Aaron and I are spending a lot more "quality" time together (how very "Afternoon Special" of me.)  For example, back in Minnesota, many evenings, we'd both be doing different things on different floors of the house.  Now, he's making curry, I'm writing this blog and
we're both listening to a whole album together (sadly, something we hardly ever did at home except on road-trips.)

Of course there are times when it's annoying.  Like if one of us wants to go to sleep and the other wants to watch a movie.  But a compromise must be reached -- and quickly -- because believe me, it's impossible to stay mad at each other in a space this small.  Silent treatments, grudges, etc. simply can't exist when the only private room is the bathroom -- cuz what are you gonna do, sit on the toilet and pout all night? 

I think the biggest thing to negotiate has been how to make sure that we, two slightly-tending-toward-OCD people, don't drive each other crazy with such limited space and furnishings.  Because while I wouldn't describe either one of us as "neat freaks," we do each have pet peeves and we both tend to feel and think better when the space around us is clean and organized.  I think it's because we both tend to be, um, "creative thinkers," and if our house looked anything like our thoughts we'd be in trouble.

So for example, I can't stand unorganized stacks of paper and have a kind of crazy need to organize, compartmentalize and label everything.

Wheretofore, here are my pantry shelves:

I kept cardboard boxes (from cereal, oatmeal, etc.), wrapped them in duct tape and got out masking tape to label.  So that way I'm utilizing a very small space to its best advantage without having to spend money on a bunch of containers.

Likewise, the flat (generally well equipped) was a little low on storage containers -- so we keep our old yogurt tubs (I'm gonna start making my own soon, fear not!), empty veggie trays, etc.:

And by the way, once you start keeping them, you realize HOW MUCH PLASTIC WE USE AND THROW AWAY EVERY DAY.  It's insane.

And like I said, the flat did come furnished, but there are things that we've found we needed, like night tables.  Normally, we'd just go to the IKEA or a garage sale -- but here we can't, so here's my night table:

A chair hold stuff at arm's height and then a nice sturdy box that Aaron got at the museum holds all the stuff I'd normally have in a dresser/night table.

And here's Aaron's night table:

Yes people, that's one of my beloved suitcases (Doña Quijota, as you'll recall) continuing to faithfully serve!  With our extra luggage inside to give it some heft & stability and a tray (which was in the apartment) on top, it works great.

And an old plastic mince (that'd be ground beef to our American friends) container (washed with boiling water) holds all our power adapters, converters, etc. 

Here's our joint closet:

We both have shelves for pajamas, undies, socks, t-shirts, etc. -- but this is the majority of our clothes.  I also have my shoes in here (I did have to break down and buy a shoe organizer here) -- all of my scarves, etc., are on one hanger -- and all of my jewelry, hair accessories, etc. are in this organizer that I brought them in from Minnesota:

More boxes from the museum hold all our DVDs (which we brought in CD wallets from Minnesota) under the sofa:

Another museum box holds all our books on top of the fridge:

Bathroom storage -- extra toiletries from MN, meds, etc. -- everything is in boxes or bags and labeled:

I've told Aaron, I don't think I ever want to live in a big house again.  I want a nice little place with a big, open living area and on one floor ... because after living in such a little space -- and really liking it -- now thinking of our house in Minneapolis (although, believe me, I LOVE our house) it feels a bit excessive ...

So there you go, that's life in Casita Armte-Duarstrong.  Now, if a super terrific one-bedroom opens up in this building, we might be tempted ... but for now, this really feels like home.  And hey, tiny though it may be, the view isn't too bad, right?