Photo Friday

Happy friday everyone! Hope you've had a great week. While it's been mild, we've still had early morning frosts, so pictures like today's reminds us of warmer months! 

Did you snap any great shots this week? Be sure to share them in the comments!

Holiday Season Upcycling DIYs

It's officially the start of the holiday season, and so it's only fitting that we have an upcycling blog post! There are so many fun crafts out there for any skill level. We've gathered X DIYs for you to try out this holiday season! Good luck!

Ornament Garland

DIY tutorial

This garland is pretty cute, and it's a fun and easy way to upcycle old ornaments that you aren't using this year, or extra ones that don't fit on your tree. The tutorial seems pretty easy and full of holiday cheer! 

Recycled Jar Snow Globe

DIY tutorial

Fun and cheerful looking, there's nothing not to like about this little snow globe! You can use an old mason or spaghetti jar and have a cute gift or decoration for the holiday season. 

Recycled Paper Tree

DIY tutorial

Either as a mantlepiece or a centerpiece, we think this lovely, wintery paper tree would brighten up any area and give it a little bit of seasonal flair. Maybe, if you were daring, you could test ou adding color to the sheets of paper first, although it looks great in white as well. 

Holiday Card Ornaments

DIY Tutorial

Every holiday season is brightened by the mail. Holidays are probably the one time of year where you consistently get mail other than bills and it's kind of nice! When the season ends it's easy to feel guilty trashing or recycling old cards, but this craft gives you a way to enjoy them for years to come! These ornaments work well on a tree, but we also think it could work well in a glass centerpiece. 

Stick Star Ornament

DIY tutorial

While yard waste is compostable, if you don't have a composting service or your own compost pile, dealing with those sticks and leaves from late fall and early winter can be a hassle. This craft deals with those sticks, although it could be fun to superglue some leaves on the front to make it very natural looking. 

Magazine Paper Ornament

DIY tutorial

Folded and coiled magazine paper can make for very interesting crafts. They're colorful and somehow feel chic, even though they're homemade. These ornaments are sure to impress and brighten up any tree. 

Cone Trees

DIY tutorial

This craft takes old dixie cups, toilet paper rolls, and scrap wrapping paper and makes a fun and decorative gift.  This fun craft is an easy way to give a smaller gift and looks very nice to boot! 

Cereal Box Snowman

DIY tutorial

Using old cereal boxes for crafts is always fun, but this cute snowman is sure to make everyone happy with the end result! 

Punched Tin Ornaments

DIY tutorial

These vintage looking tin ornamens have a high class feel, but are easy for even children to make! Plus you get to reuse tins from all your holiday cooking. These are fun and even more lovely shining against holiday lights.

Fabric Trees

DIY tutorial

If you're normally crafty, this craft may be perfect. Leftover fabric scraps will become chic and fun fabric trees for your holiday decorating. 

These are definitely some great Upcycling crafts that should lead to some fun snow days spent inside and some festive decor! 

Featured Article: 5 Steps to Prep Your Compost Pile for the Winter

Winter coats are definitely out of closets with the weather we've been experiencing in Iowa lately. It's important to remember your plants when winterizing, but it's also important to remember your home composting pile. One definite benefit of dropping off your compostable to a commercial composter is that you don't have to winterize your heap, the commercial facility will handle that for you. However, if you do have a low level of organic waste and compost at home, this article will really help you out. It's got all the easy steps you need to take to make sure your organics recycling is effective year round.

Do you take any other steps to winterize your heap? Let us know in the comments!

Read the original article here.

Photo Friday

Happy Friday everyone! Hopefully you're not too full from yesterday to check out this week's photo!

If you snapped any great Turkey day shots be sure to post them in the comments!

Featured Article: DIY Thanksgiving Decor Made from Trash

Can you believe that Thanksgiving is tomorrow? If you still have a little more decorating to do then today's blog post should help you out! We're featuring an article all about making decorations from things you already have!

This list is pretty great and it enables you to recycle! An added bonus is that a lot of them use food in some way, so when you're done the fruit, pumpkins, squash and other organic materials can go straight into the compost heap!

Read the full article here, and if you missed it you should be sure to check out our Thanksgiving DIY blog post!

Featured Article: A Greener Thanksgiving Day Feast

As Thanksgiving approaches it is easy to get swept up in the excitement of the holidays and go a little bit overboard. While composting your left overs is one way to handle the extra food, there are a lot of other things that going into Turkey day, that make it a pretty wasteful holiday. That's why we were grateful to find this great article that goes over a couple of ways to make your Thanksgiving a little greener!

All of the steps that this article goes over are pretty easy to follow, and they can make a pretty huge impact. However, we'd like to add one more step- don't forget to compost any turkey day leftovers (except for the turkey itself if you're a home composter, of course).

Read the full article here.

Photo Friday

Happy friday everyone! With all these chilly mornings, we've been remembering warmer days. Today's photo is one from warmer days, although we can still grind woodwaste on days like today!

Be sure to share your photo in the comments!

Featured Article: 50+ Ways to Green Your Workday

Today's featured article is a great article about 50+ Ways to Green Your Workday. It includes tips on starting an office recycling program, ways to reduce workplace waste, ways to replace disposables, ways to declutter with crafts, use batteries sustainably, alternate transportation, greening up your coffee break, and many more tips and tricks to maximize your eco-impact, even at work.

We love this condensed source for so many helpful ideas! There are a lot of small and large changes listed depending on how willing your workplace is to transition. Don't forget- for your workplace organic waste companies like GreenRU are there to shrink your eco-footprint even more!

What do you think? Will you try to implement any of these methods?

Read the article here.

Top 10 Thanksgiving DIYs

It's just a little over a week and a half until Thanksgiving. It's hard to believe the holiday got here so quickly! If you're hosting a get together at your house it's probably about time to start decorating. It's easy to buy decorations at the store, but it is often cheaper and greener to make some yourself, using things you have around the house, plus a few store-bought craft supplies! Today's blog is our top 10 Thanksgiving decoration DIYs. Check them out!

Give Thanks Tablecloth

The table is a crucial part of Thanksgiving- it's a holiday that is all about eating and giving thanks! So what better than a thanksgiving tablecloth? This burlap tablecloth is very chic, and it can also be very personal since you're making it yourself! 

Thanksgiving Centerpiece Bottle Trees

 Centerpieces are also a very important part of thanksgiving. These bottles that have been repurposed as decorations make a great centerpiece, but we think you can use them all winter long on your mantel as well!

Thankful Tree

The idea behind this tree is to have guests write what they are thankful for on the slips of paper. It's a fun way to get everyone's ideas on it, and if you eat with the same people every year you can continue to add to it, so you will have years worth of thankful memories!

Giving Thanks Cigar Box

 This fun box allows everyone to write down a memory and keep it in the box. If you like the idea of time capsules, this could work great! It will also be a box you can reuse every year.

Thanks bottle mantel piece

This is a little different than the other bottle craft we have. This one you can put whatever words on it you like (as long as you have enough bottles)! It might be fun to do the family name and change the decorations with every season!

Thanksgiving Tree

 This is another craft we've had an alternative version for, however this one is a little more Thanksgiving specific with the leaves. It might be fun to use the leaves first as the place setting, and then have everyone flip the leaf over and write what they're thankful for after or right before dinner.

2x4 Thanksgiving Turkey Tutorial

 This 2x4 Turkey is so cute and you could use it to decorate any room in your house! This tutorial does a great step-by-step guide to making your new turkey friend.

Branches Leaf

 The unfortunate thing about this tutorial is that it isn't very specific- but the poster brings up a good point that with a little hot glue or wire it would be easy to recreate, and all of your supplies can be found in your front lawn!

Glitter Wreath

 This wreath is trendy and fun. We also think the best way to make the leaves is with old cardboard that you then paint over and glitter up!

Gratitude Mobile

This mobile is a fun craft to do a little bit ahead of Thanksgiving with the kids, so they remember to be grateful even before they take a bite of the turkey.

Those are our top picks! Do you have any great crafts that you've found this thanksgiving or have a favorite of the ones we've shared? Be sure to let us know in the comments!

Photo Friday

Happy Friday everyone! Thursday this week we took a quick trip up to the capitol too see Governor Terry Branstad signing a proclamation for America Recycles Day (November 15). This week's shot is from the signing! Check it out:

Did you snap any great or memorable shots this week? Be sure to share them in the comments!

Featured Article: Reuse Campaign Signs

Finally, after what feels like a long campaign here in Iowa, the elections are over. Regardless of political afiliation there is something everyone can agree on, campaign signs are very hard to deal with after the election! The mixed use of materials makes them hard to recycle and all the work that goes into making them weatherproof often makes them non-recyclable as well. However, our featured article found a fun way to reuse those old signs- to give you additions for your bike for next spring. Imagine riding down the street with this cool basket:

Now, thanks to your bulky political sign you can! The article we found gives a couple different cool bike additions all made from old campaign signs.

What do you think? Is this a good way to reuse campaign signs? What do you normally do with yours after the election?

Read the full article here.

Featured Article: An Umbrella That Makes Recycling A Part Of Keeping Dry

We're a big fan of new sustainable products here at Chamness Technology, Inc. and we love featuring them. This umbrella is a great object to have if you often find yourself caught in the rain without anything to protect you from the downpour.

The case for this umbrella is very small and can easily fit just about anywhere. All you have to do is find your nearest object of choice to block the rain- a napkin, a newspaper, whatever, and just screw it into your EcoBrolly. This frame makes anything into an umbrella (and afterward you can rip up your wet papers and stick them into your compost bin).

What do you think, would you buy the EcoBrolly? Do you think newpaper will keep you dry? Let us know in the comments!

Read the full article here.

Photo Friday

Happy friday again fans! This photo is kind of old, but it's a good one of our compost turner doing it's job. Don't forget to post links to your photos in the comments!