reuse – Living Consciously

DIY Sports Skirt & Leggings coverup from an old t-shirt

Let’s get straight to the point here: I teach or take fitness classes almost all week long. I usually pack my classes in while my kids are in preschool or at home with my husband, and since those are the only kid-free time periods that I have, I often run quick errands either right before or right after class. While I agree that leggings are not pants from a style perspective, I do happen to still be dressed for Lagree fitness or yoga at those times. As an instructor, I have strong opinions about the type of workout pants that I chose, but that is a subject for another post. Suffice to say, baggy pants are not a good idea, either from a participant or an instructor’s standpoint. I wear workout leggings that provide compression, support, moisture wicking, and do not get in the way of twisting, flexing, and moving. So leggings as pants it is, at least when I go grocery shopping at Whole Foods after class on my way home.

During the winter months, I am more than happy to slip some warmup pants over my leggings for extra warmth, but when I have tried that in the Texas summers (110 degrees most of the time), I felt like I was suffocating within the first few minutes, and that was in the air conditioning! Attempting to be in a car that had been sitting in the sun for 2 hours was just right out of the question wearing 2 pairs of pants. I’m already carrying snacks, water bottle, yoga mat, grocery bags, even a cooler on some days. So carrying a whole extra change of clothes is equally out of the question. And why would I put on clean clothes when I’m all sweaty from class or when I’ll just have to change when I get to the studio? For the past several years there has just been no solution to the leggings-as-pants dilemma for me.

As I was cleaning out some old workout clothes last week, I came across several old fitted t-shirts. They were in good shape and fairly neutral colors. I had been drooling over this yoga skirt on Etsy but hadn’t pulled the trigger yet because I wasn’t sure of the logistics. The skirt doesn’t have a waistband and relies on tucking the top of it into your leggings or yoga pants. How would that even work?

I was willing to try cutting up the old t-shirts to try and make a DIY sports skirt and leggings coverup. Here is what I did.

Supplies:

Old t-shirt (see optional step below if it is wider than your hips)

Sewing machine, thread

Scissors

Something to use for a drawstring

Step 1: Cut right below the armpits to make a tube with the bottom already hemmed.

Note: I chose a shirt with very little design. If your shirt does have a design and you don’t want it, you might try turning the shirt inside-out and re-hemming the sides from the other direction. That could be handy anyway if your skirt needs to be narrowed to fit your hips.

Optional next step: The ideal width for this t-shirt tube is the width of the widest part of your hips. So again, you might want to re-hem to make it more narrow. I didn’t have to do it with this t-shirt because it was so narrow already.

Step 2: Turn the waistband under. Try it on at this point and look in a mirror, holding it up with your hands. You want the bottom of the skirt to hit just below your rear end. If you go to far down the upper leg, it just looks weird. You might have to cut more off the top to make it the right length. If you are a fancy sewing person, you can use pins to pin stuff here. But t-shirts are very good at holding shape and you probably don’t even need pins!

I turned mine under a little asymmetrically to allow for my rear end. If you have a rear end, you might want to do this too. My angle is not as severe as this picture looks, though, because I am actually just a terrible fashion and sewing photographer.

Step 3: Hem the waistband, leaving a gap for the drawstring. I took several pictures of this because again, not a sewing photographer.

Step 4: String the drawstring through the tube you made, using the gap you left.

DONE!

DIY Sport Skirt and Leggings CoverUp Final product | Living Consciously Blog — Completed sports skirt leggings coverup. I am staring off into the distance not only because I am so impressed by the skirt but also because when I smiled for this picture it looked really weird and creepy.

Super easy and fast! It definitely took me longer to try to take pictures of this process and the finished product than it took for me to make the skirt.

Other optional steps might include tapering the waist (this would be done before Step 3. I didn’t do it in my first skirt, but I’ll do it on subsequent skirts).

I’ll try to update this post with pictures of future skirts, if you make one from this tutorial, I’d love to see it – post it on Instagram and tag me!

Teaching children to use glass containers safely

NOTE: I am part of the Glass Is Life campaign and have received the Le Parfait glass jars from the campaign, seen in the video and picture. I did not receive any compensation other than that for this post, tips and tricks are my own ideas!

Before I actually had to keep two very high spirited human beings alive and happy 24/7, I used to be very high-and-mighty about what kinds of materials I would allow my not-yet-born children to interact with and eat from. Plastic leaches all kinds of undesirable chemicals, that was out. Paper creates a great deal of waste, is quite expensive, and is not durable at all. Aluminum or stainless steel is very nice for cups and plates but is terrible for storage since you can’t see what’s inside. What does that leave? Glass, of course!

Glass is so pretty. If you aren’t convinced, just check out the Glass Is Life Instagram account. Glass is also so sustainable — it never wears out! A glass jar can be used over and over for different purposes, for hundreds of years with no leaching. And if it breaks, you can recycle it.

Ah, yes…breakage. That’s what I hadn’t thought of back in the day before children. Back when glass baby bottles seemed like a great idea. So it turned out that I did resort to plastic a little more than I’d like, for quite a while.

There was a time when we couldn’t use any glass, because my children are strong and forceful when they fling things. Probably from newborn to about 3 years old. But suddenly, both my children are 3 and older! And I am finding that I can explain to them how to use glass safely.

Admittedly, it takes a little trial and error.

Letting them fail (and break)

One of the lessons about glass that had the biggest impact on my son was when we were at Central Market and he was walking down the aisle of glass artisan juice bottles. Well, he was kind of skipping, actually. Running his hand past all the bottles as he went…you can see where that goes. He knocked one off and it went crashing to the ground in a huge mess of juice and glass. An employee had to come clean it up. He got quite the talking-to from me.

But it made a big impression. All I have to do now when he is reaching for or holding something glass is say, “We need to be careful because that is made of what?” and he’ll say, “Glass”. “And what happens to glass when we drop it like the juice at the store?” he’ll answer, “It breaks”.

Controlled access

Unfortunately, my just-3-year-old hasn’t had the juice jar experience, so she’s a little more unpredictable around glass. Recently, we went to IKEA and they both fixated on a ceramic tea set. We told them that we would buy it for them if they could learn to be gentle with it. The tea set cost somewhere around $10-$15. It’s been a great learning tool about breakage! My daughter has broken several of the cups on the tile floor in their play area, but it has been safe because the ceramic breaks very cleanly without shards. Still, the toy is gone when that happens. By allowing her to break inexpensive things that shatter relatively harmlessly, we are teaching her about why we handle glass more carefully than plastic.

Ongoing learning

Neither of them have fully learned how to handle glass, so I make sure they aren’t alone with valuable glass items or glass that would shatter into a million little pieces. But I do let them handle glass and we talk about it each time. Here’s a little video of them helping me unpack some Le Parfait glass jars (which I hope to use soon in a DIY post).

Have you transitioned young children to using glass? Any tips/ideas?

Paperless Kitchen: go paperless for less

Even though I try to participate in Buy Nothing Day as much as possible after Thanksgiving, I do realize that everyone else is in the middle of gift buying. If you are aiming for a more conscientious holiday, like I am, would you be interested in supporting a small business targeted exclusively at reducing waste? And since you may have just participated in a lot of cooking and eating, and will probably do it again at some point in December, how about starting with the kitchen?

I have been working slowly toward a paperless kitchen over the years with my reusable kitchen towels and commitment to using real plates and utensils even when we have guests. So I am super excited to have signed up for the affiliate program over at Paperless Kitchen (affiliate link), an online store that provides all that you need to go paperless! My favorite is their Skoy cloths. When dry, the cloths are stiff like paper, but when wet they become flexible and extremely absorbent, like a super thin sponge or an extra plush paper towel. Each Skoy cloth is as absorbent as 15 paper towels! You can rinse and use again and again, and when dirty just throw them in the laundry. I put them in with all my other cloths and kitchen towels. They air dry extremely quickly (less than an hour), but I have even dried them in the dryer by mistake, and they come out completely unharmed.

Anyway, the big news is the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale at Paperless Kitchen!

The following items are 50% off from 10pm Thanksgiving evening (last night) through Monday, December 2 using the code “paperless50”.

Here is the list:

4 pack of Skoy reusable paper towel replacements
2-tier recycled cotton carrier bag (for bento)
thinkbaby blue bento box
thinkbaby green bento box
Kids Konserve Waste-free lunch kit (Butterfly Go Wild pattern)
MyDrap folded cloth napkins, 20 pack in red, black, gray and ecru

BONUS: If you order in November (before end of day Saturday), you will receive a 4 pack of Skoy cloths free with your order!

And did I mention FREE SHIPPING?

So if you order today (November 29) or tomorrow (November 30) and purchase only a 4 pack of Skoy reusable paper towel replacements, you’ll pay approximately $4.49 and also receive an additional 4-pack free! That’s 8 reusable Skoy cloths for $4.49. I am totally doing this. They make great stocking stuffers too. Pair Skoy cloths with a spray bottle of my homemade Lysol alternative cleaner and you’ve got an inexpensive and eco-friendly gift.

Happy paperless holiday!

The Non-Organic Apple Wreath Solution

The other day at Trader Joe’s I got distracted by my children tipping over the kid-sized shopping carts and accidentally grabbed a bag of apples that were not organic. Oh no! Seriously, I wouldn’t freak out about this as much if apples weren’t rated #1 by the EWG as the most toxic fruit when grown conventionally. And yes, the testing is done on apples that have been thoroughly washed and peeled. The toxins run that deep in apples. Scary.

I’m not going to lie, I took it upon myself to eat some of them, but I didn’t enjoy it. All I could think about was the toxins! I had 4-5 apples left in the bag. What could I do with non-organic apples that are not fit for eating? I consulted Pinterest and found this wreath from L.Michelle using dried apples. She did a great job, it was very artsy. Fortunately, I have a dehydrator and one of those fruit/veggie slicers that consistently slices off large chunks of my fingers.

I have to admit that I did not look at her wreath’s picture when I ran to the craft store for supplies. I was too busy keeping both my kids in the cart and running to the potty with them midway through a 10 minute shopping trip. So my wreath doesn’t have the beautiful star anise or acorns or whatever. I made this thing on the floor with my kids jumping over it while trying to prevent them from actually eating the apples. Here is the result:

Definitely not as awesome as the original, but I hope that, with her instructions and my personal recommendation that you can do this even if you have two little “helpers”. Remember: you, too, can prevent the unintentional eating of non-organic apples by gluing your apples to a bunch of branches and hanging it on your door!

If you do make an apple wreath, please send me a link to your picture or tweet/Instagram it to me! I promise not to get mad when yours looks more awesome than mine.

Earth Day Lesson: Reuse, glass jars

For the third Earth Day Lesson in our series (previously, Upcycle and Recycling), I thought I’d talk about how I reuse something around my house. Since I’ve been transitioning away from plastic containers as much as I can with a 2- and 3-year-old, I have been saving and reusing my glass jars. While we are far past the baby food jar stage (and we actually never used baby food in jars, since I made my own baby food), we still use plenty of pasta and marinara jars, as well as jam and olive jars.

One of my favorite was to reuse glass jars is, of course, my homemade kombucha:

NOTE: You would only place kombucha in a sealed container once it has reached the fermentation level that you like and you put it into the refrigerator to stop fermenting. Never put still-growing kombucha in a sealed container — it will explode!

Another favorite glass jar reuse is to store snacks in my pantry:

The only danger with this use is that my kids can reach this shelf and occasionally we have smashed glass from little hands wanting peanuts, raisins, or dried papaya.

Finally, I’m almost always reusing a glass jar to make orange vinegar — soaking orange or lemon peels in vinegar to create a less intrusive-smelling vinegar for cleaning.

You can find my Pin for orange vinegar here.

Tag: reuse