Save Some Energy!

We all heard growing up 'Turn off your lights when you leave the room," but aside from saving money on the electricity bill, there are other important reasons to be responsible with our energy consumption. Electricity comes from the burning of non-renewable fossil fuels. Not only does the burning of them emit harmful pollutants into our ozone and promote global warming, there is also no way to make more of these precious fossil fuels we rely on so heavily. It's so easy to forget how important it is to be conscious of our energy consumption, so we made a short list of easy ways to cut down on the amount of energy we are using on a daily basis.

Blue Sky homes are the most beautiful homes, especially when energy isn't being wasted! Click here to get the tapestry.

 1. Just like Mom said, turn off the lights when you leave a room! We get so blue when we walk into our happy home and no one is home, but the lights have been left on.
2. Unplug computer, camera, and phone chargers when they are not in use. Even when they aren't plugged into your device, they are still putting out the same amount of energy as if they were charging. What a shame!
3. Use low wattage and energy efficient light bulbs. There isn't a huge price increase, they last longer, and they use less energy. It's a win-win situation!

Click here to see all our groovy backpacks, including this one!

4. Make sure that your car is in good shape and not emitting excess pollutants into the environment. Emissions testing is mandatory in big cities but not in rural areas. If you live in a rural area, we encourage you to be proactive and ask your mechanic to make sure that your car is producing a healthy amount of emissions.
5. Use cold water to do your laundry. Not only will that help keep your colors brighter, it avoids the heating of water, in turn saving energy.

What? Did you think we had things other than tie-dye in our laundry? :)

By turning these 5 simple steps into habits, you are doing your part as a responsible energy user. Tell your friends too, they might not know how making a few changes can make a difference.

From Egg Carton to Jewelry organizer in a few simple steps!

We love recycling everyday items into new, more exciting everyday items! This easy and fun tutorial shows you how to turn an old egg carton into a groovy jewelry holder. All you need is an egg carton of any size, paint of whatever color you like best, a paintbrush and some super funky jewels. Don't have any awesome jewelry? Check out our Seeds of Change line, a portion of proceeds goes to benefit the Amazon Rain Forest...how awesome is that?!

Start with a regular old egg carton.

Remove the top of the carton and the flap used to secure the top closed, leaving just the bottom tray where the eggs sit.

We picked a metallic gold paint and a fairly small brush to paint with, but the color is all up to you.

Cover the carton in a layer of paint, making sure to get into all the crevasses of the egg carton.

Let your carton dry and after that you can load it up with all your favorite jewelry, utilizing the support system built for the transporting of delicate eggs.

Love the tablecloth we used? It's our Special Wall Hanging! <3

image from thehippiecommune

 image from embryonic--journey

 image from spiritualhippie

 image from elhieroglyph

 image from toxicvoodoo

 image from 0rgasms

Make your own Prayer Flags out of recycled clothes!

We love to donate our old clothes to charity because it makes us feel so good! But every once in a while there's a textile that we love so much we can't say goodbye. While spring cleaning we found this old Blue Sky skirt that's just too big for us, but we weren't quite ready to get rid of it yet.

So we're looking at it and trying to think about how to utilize the five colors, and it hits us...prayer flags! We've been wanting to make prayer flags with our own hands so they're just that much more special and this skirt seemed like the perfect item to up-cycle. This tutorial doesn't involve a sewing machine, all you need is an old garment, a seam ripper, a ruler, scissors, hot glue and hot glue gun, and some string. Find a woven cotton garment that you want to use, any colors and patterns you're drawn to will work. The only thing we recommend is no stretchy fabrics, so tee-shirts are out. Please note that it is possible to work with knits, but it's going to require a LOT more work, so we'd stick with a woven. The most time consuming part of this project is deconstructing your garment, we watched movies while we removed our seams over a couple days so it wasn't as overwhelming as doing it in one sitting. 

After you've got your garment deconstructed your next step is to iron the heck out of your fabric. You want it to be as flat as possible. Once it's ironed, you can cut out 5" by 5" squares of your fabrics. We did 8 of each color and are going to put them in color order to more closely resemble traditional prayer flags, but there is room for creativity. We love the idea of each square being a different print with no rhyme or reason too. Go with the flow, work with what you already have and something beautiful is sure to follow.

We have a hard time working in a space that isn't organized, so we like to set everything out and make it a little easier on ourselves. Grab 5 flags and lay them out in a straight line. Use a ruler to make sure everything is in order. We like the look of about a 1/2 an inch between flags. Next pick a yarn or string to use to connect your flags. We used an 8/2 cotton thread. Give yourself about a yard of slack before you start. This gives you a bit of leeway when you're hanging up your pretty new flags.

With your yard of slack hanging out to the left of your first flag, squirt a dot of hot glue onto the left corner and press the thread to the left and to the right of the glue so that the thread is smushed in there securely without you ever having to touch the hot glue. Continue to do this in the middle of the square as well as the right side of the square, so that each flag is connected to the string in 3 places. Make sure that from each dot of glue to the next that your string is taut. This will help your flags to lay beautifully once they're hung.

Continue all the way down the line. Once you glue the last flag of that row, move them to left and start another row and continue the process until all of your squares are gone.

Hang with thumbtacks wherever you please and enjoy your good fortune. To get this look, pair with a Blue Sky tapestry. And yes, that IS a print of Fishman playing a vacuum cleaner on the right. :)

How many Buddahs are in YOUR house?

Someone asked us how many Buddha's we had on our home...the answer is a lot!! :) What can we say, Buddha's face makes us happy in any of the many representations that we've seen.

How bout that laser cut Steal Ya Face...sweet, right? We are thankful for awesomely artistic friends!

This one has a hole for a screw in bottom, but we don't know what to screw it on top of, or where the heck it came from for that matter.

Now who the heck would burn this candle? We can't see ourselves doing it anytime soon...

 

A Chinese watercolor on treated wood of Buddha with bamboo.

A tissue paper representation, with mini prayer flags in the back that we are obsessed with! We have a make your own prayer flag tutorial coming soon!! Keep checking back.

This is our most sacred, we've had it since we were 10 years old!!!!

 Candle holding Buddha, how kind of you! 

Doesn't this one look like the baby of the last one?

We can't figure out what the heck this guy is holding on top of his head, but we aren't gonna discriminate!

Even Buddha likes to dangle!

Shine on you crazy......Buddha!

Raise the roof Buddha! 

He looks a little weathered, but we love him so much!

And finally, the motherload, the Buddha of all Buddhas.

How many Buddhas do you have in your home??