EcoDIY with kids: a bird’s nest

I like this idea for an Easter egg receptacle.  We’re going to be away from home this Easter and staying in a B&B,  so this is a good idea for somewhere for the Easter Bunny to leave eggs for the children.  It’s messy and a great kids’ craft and it’s made of stuff that is …

How to make solar-tea

It’s summer in the Southern Hemisphere, the right time of year to cook up a brew of solar tea. Remember, your kettle is one of the biggest energy vampire gadgets you’ve probably got, so change the way you make your tea this summer? You’ve heard of slow food, this is slow tea. Step 1: You’ll …

Eco-friendly Xmas crafts

For an eco-friendly Xmas, make your own decorations out of garden and household waste. Twigs make an excellent Xmas tree, the bottoms of plastic bottles make gorgeous stars, and aluminium drink cans make sparkly baubles. Make miniature Christmas trees from a few twigs, or make a bigger tree with thicker branches and a threaded rod …

EcoDIY: WALL-E the recycled robot

Give some moms a big pile of recycling and instead of dropping it off at the nearest recycling centre, they come up with an inspired toy for their kids. This cute WALL-E robot is made out of what “Kitten Muffin” (not her real name, surely) found in her recycling bin, although looking at the raw …

EcoDIY: Home-made Massage Chair

This is the first time on an EcoDIY feature that I’m not going to suggest that you try this at home, unless you have the necessary know how to avoid electrocuting yourself, or similar. But I think that this incredible chair is still worth telling you about, check this out. Lin Shuseng, a 78-year old …

Eco-DIY: recycle old gutters into a vertical garden

When Suzanne Forsling moved from the US Midwest to Alaska, she discovered this novel idea for keeping her salad crops off the cold ground and away from critters who messed with them. She used new guttering, but there’s no reason why you couldn’t use old guttering, either that from your own home, or from a …

Eco-DIY: recycle old cardboard boxes into a cool laptop case

I’m particularly obsessed with cardboard boxes at the moment, because I’ve just moved house and the empties are everywhere. Of course I could just take them to the recycling depot down the road, but then I came across this awesome Instructable and just knew that this was what my boxes were destined to be. What …

How to cook in a hot box (and save energy)

When I heard about cooking in a hot box on Pia Taylor’s Mother City Living blog last year, I knew straight away that I had to have one. I’m always looking for ways to reduce my energy usage, so a hot box seemed a perfect addition to my energy saving toolbox. I did a bit …

Make: preserved lemons

If you have a lemon tree and don’t know what to do with your bounty, how about making some Moroccan style preserved lemons. Here’s how it’s done. Step 1: Sterilise one or more preserving jars (or just wash them in the dishwasher). Step 2: Cut your lemons into quarters, lengthwise, without cutting right through on …