DIY Recycled food dehydrator

Ok, first things first, humans have been using the sunshine to preserve foods for, well forever really.  Some of our modern delicacies like raisins and sun-dried tomatoes are still done in this manner.  Don't be afraid to try your own hand at drying food items.  It's fun, fresh from the organic garden and the power is free so it's an all around green living project.

I don't know what I was waiting for when I said last year that 2010 would be the year I'd actually go buy myself a food dehydrator.  Good thing I lacked follow through on that one. Instead I found out it's easy to dehydrate my food with no "special" plastic gadget.

This summer I'm working on some specialty items like a healing tea made from only the tips of my organic herbs and a special garden recipe Summer Sunshine beef soup mix.  In order to make these, along with some other items, I would have to dry and dehydrate some herbs, fruits and vegetables.  Of course being me, I tend to follow my whims and inspirations, I didn't really plan when or how I would do this.

One day last week we visited some friends on the mainland who have a HUGE garden.  It was the first time I was offered zucchini this year and I jumped at the offer. (Thanks Parks family!)

That night when I walked across the passenger only ferry (early dry dock for the Whatcom Chief this year) I was carrying 4 very nice zucchini in my bag 2 large and 2 mediums.

The original plan was to make zucchini bread but when I woke up the next morning it occurred to me that those zucchini would make a wonderful addition to my Summer Sunshine soup mix.

I had already been drying different herbs in shoe boxes and hanging them in bundles in the sunshine.  Why not cut up and dehydrate those zucchini?  But how?  My shoe box method wasn't going to do the trick for these fluid filled beauties.  That's when I began my recycling brainstorm.  Here's what I came up with.

Making a Recycled Food Dehydrator

Materials:

• A plastic flat from the garden nursery.  I have many of these because we can't recycle them here, so I am always looking for a way to re purpose them.

• Wire mesh scraps.  Hardware cloth with a 1/2 or finer works great.  (Alternately you could use window screen)

• Tin snips or some other metal shears

• Sunshine and time

Step 1:  Gather your materials.  Measure or eyeball your nursery flat to your mesh.  Cut the mesh to line the bottom of the nursery flat.  If using narrower scraps, just cut 2 pieces that fit inside and overlap them inside of the flat

Step 2:  Gather the item you want to dehydrate and add to the tray on top of the mesh liner.  On a sunny day things like herbs generally are dry the very next day, but items with more water like my zucchinis take a bit longer.

1/4 " hardware cloth

Step 3:  Place in a sunny area.  Choose a spot where it will be protected from wind, animals and rain.  This spot should also allow for air to circulate beneath your tray, so you may want to set it on 2 pieces of wood to elevate it slightly from the table or other surface.  I placed mine inside of my garden.  The fencing protects it from curious critters and raccoon prowlers.

Fresh sage leaves set out to dry for winter

Step 4:  Check your items daily for moisture content. If they are still damp toss or stir them and leave in the sun another day.  For long term storage your dehydrated food will need to be VERY dry.  Moisture remaining in the food is problematic and can be a place for mold to occur.  If your items need to be left out over night and you are concerned with flies or other insects (particularly when doing fruits) cover over them with another piece of your mesh or with some screen.

Step 5:  Once dried, store your items in labeled mason jars and use in your favorite recipes.  I'm saving mine for those gray winter days so I can taste the sunshine!

Here's some more photos from my sun drying adventures, so kick back, put your feet up and enjoy!

Shrink Plastic Project With Kids

In my post Recycled Bags Need Recycled Tags I shared with you how to use #6 plastic containers to make shrunken plastic tags.  At the time I thought this might be a fun craft project to do with kids.  Well I had my chance to try this project out recently with my 6 year old friend, Aubrei.

Hamming it up & ready for recycle fun!

Aubrei came to hang out with me one day while her daddy was at work.  Normally we like to go to the beach, playground  or just play outside in the yard when she visits. This time it was raining so that put a damper on our usual activities.  Time to get creative!

I took a look around the house for something fun we could do together and I found a clam shell container with the #6 in the triangle.  What luck!  I know just what to do with that.  We'll make some recycled shrunken plastic beads.

We had a lot of fun doing this project together.  Here's how you can too.

Supplies:

• #6 plastic for recycling
• scissors
• permanent markers 
• hole punch
• scratch paper
• cookie sheet
• oven
• string
• beads
• adult supervision

To start out, line a work area for the child with some heavy scratch paper.  I recycled a brown bag for this project.  Kids don't get to use permanent markers very often, so be sure to explain what permanent means or you may wind up with a "tattooed" little tyke or a redecorated work table!

Recycle artist in training!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line your cookie sheet with additional scratch paper.

Cut out different shapes from your plastic and punch a hole in each one.  These will be about 1/3 the original size after shrinking, so make them large enough for the child to draw on, but small enough to use for beading. 

While you are busy cutting out the plastic for the beads, have your child color a picture on the scratch paper.

All ready for the oven

Once the child has finished coloring interesting designs & pictures on the plastic, add them to the cookie sheet. Leave about 1/4" between each plastic shape.

When all your plastic shapes are decorated or you've  filled the cookie sheet, it's time to put them in the oven.  Be sure you run your range fan to ventilate any fumes.

Remove from the oven after 2-3 minutes and allow to cool out of reach of little fingers.  They will have shrunken down to about 1/3 of the original size and will have thickened up substantially.

Recycled beads make unique keepsakes

While your recycle beads are cooling, gather up your other beads and some string. 

For young children use large beads with large holes that are easy for small hands to work with.  Stringing beads is a good activity for developing  hand eye coordination.  

I like to tie 1 large bead to the end of the string as a stopper so they don't pull the string all the way through the bead.  Now just let them choose and add their own beads being as creative as they like.

Your homemade recycle beads will have holes too small for young children to string, so add a jump ring or string loop for them.

A special gift for Aubrei's special friend

You can make bracelets, necklaces and even sun catchers.

Aubrei decided to make a necklace for Bunny!

This project was a lot of fun!  We got to spend time creating together and we talked about recycling too.  Aubrei said her favorite part was using permanent markers! She was so proud of her finished necklace for her stuffed bunny too!

I hope you'll try this one with your children.  It's such a great way to encourage creativity and recycling. 

10 Tips For Hummingbird Photos

Whether you have a point and shoot camera or a more professional set up, photographing hummingbirds can be a challenge. 

I shared some of my bird photography on my post Hummingbird Happenings.  Since then I've received a lot of questions about what type of equipment I was using to get such fantastic pictures.   Surprisingly it's not all about the price of your camera. 

Here's my 10 tips to take striking hummingbirds photos:

12 mega pixel affordability

1. Equipment:  Camera's range in price from around $50 to thousands of dollars.  Having an expensive camera is nice if your a hobbyist or professional photographer, but for the rest of us it's not always practical or affordable.

I have a great little point and shoot camera.  It's an Olympus FE-46 12 mega pixel with a 5x optical zoom.  This little camera is a power house.  I use it for everything! My camera cost only $50 at Christmas time, so when I tell you that it's not all about the price of the camera you use I'm saying so from experience!  I'm proof that you can get priceless shots even with an inexpensive camera.

I've found the key for taking these great photos is knowing my camera and the best settings for the particular photo.  So experiment with your camera.  Try taking the same shot using several different settings.  Can you see the difference?  Choose the setting that looks best to you.

2. Camo:  Camouflage is not required, but it definitely helps to get great wildlife photos.  With hummingbirds being so tiny, it's important to be able to get fairly close to them and camouflage can help with that.

I took my first set of pictures in my regular clothes and I was able to get a few nice ones. For my next session I donned my camo cap and sweatshirt and right away I noticed the difference.  Those little hummingbirds had been keeping a bit of a distance from me in my street clothes.  Decked out in my camo gear they began flying within a few inches of me.  In fact they got so close I could feel the vibration of their wings!

Good lighting for great pictures

3. Lighting:  Finding the right light balance is key with capturing the detail and beautiful iridescent coloring on the hummers.  

The best natural lighting is on a cloudy day when the sunlight is diffused by those clouds.  If you're shooting on a sunny day, find a shady spot and try to take your photos in the morning or evening.  Mid-day on a sunny day the light will be too harsh and tend to wash out your color and details.   

Also, play with the white balance adjustment on your camera to find the best setting.  When shooting under the cover of my porch the light beyond the porch in my photo background was much brighter than the foreground.  To compensate for this I used a +0.7 - +1.0 white balance. 

4. Motion:  Hummingbirds are fast little fliers.  Since digital cameras don't always have an option to set up a fast shutter speed, it can be hard to catch these images.  

Check your camera for a sports or action setting.  This will have a faster shutter than your normal settings.  Even still it will probably be slower than these birds. 

Move your hummingbird feeder to a stable location where it is not swinging.  I set mine on our porch rail.  If you have a tripod, use that to stabilize your camera.  If you don't have a tripod, try resting your camera on a stable surface.  I don't have a tripod, so I set mine on a towel on the same porch rail.

Be sure to stay still yourself so you don't frighten the hummingbirds away.  

Avoid this by focusing on feeder

5. Focus:  Getting the focus on such a small and fast moving target can be difficult.

Set your camera on macro or close up.  This will help to capture the small details.  Set your display to show a target on your focus area.  

Because of their sporadic and quick movements, it's difficult to focus on the hummingbird itself.  Instead  zoom in to a spot on the feeder and set the  focus there.  Now when a little hummingbird lands on that spot the camera will be focused on it as part of the foreground.  This will give you a much higher success rate for good pictures and it's a whole lot easier trying to keep  the focus trained on the moving birds especially when using the zoom.

With the macro setting on most cameras, your picture will be clear at the focus area and blur out the rest of the picture.  You can see in the shots above how the focus went to the background and blurred the foreground image.  That is because I was trying to focus on the bird.  When the bird moved, the camera readjusted resulting in a bad shot.

Cluttered backgrounds distract from birds

6. Background:  When setting your feeders for photographing, be aware of the background that will be behind your shot. 

There's nothing more frustrating than snapping a perfect picture of a hummingbird in full glory only to discover that there are distracting elements in the background. I shot many of these! 

Try changing the placement of the feeder or you may be able to simply change the angle at which you are shooting to achieve a better background image and a better background makes for a better photograph. 

7.  Patience:  Be patient with the process and give yourself plenty of undisturbed time to sit and take photos.  

There's no way to rush this.  You'll be at the mercy of the birds landing at the feeder so just relax and enjoy some time with them.  It's fun to observe their behavior with each other and it's always nice to have a reason to be outdoors.

Use flash for birds in flight

8. Flash:  Use the flash on your camera sparingly.  Flash photos can wash out the color and detail of the birds with harsh light. 

There's one exception to this rule.  I discovered this little trick by accident, but what a great one.  

If you are trying to capture the motion of your hummingbirds in flight, set your flash for  "fill in" or whatever the setting is on your camera that makes a series of 2-3 quick flashes.  This causes a strobe effect that allows you to get a stop motion type picture without a fancy camera.  Cool!

9. Quantity:  To get quality hummingbird shots it's all about quantity.  Take lots of photos because not everyone will be a keeper.  

I can't tell you how many photos I deleted that just showed my hummingbird feeder! I would aim and shoot, but the bird would fly off. 

I took hundreds of shots and came away with about 80 that I really liked and another 50 or so that were fine.  That's the great thing about digital photography you can take tons of photos and just keep the good ones.

Crop for great photos

10. Editing:  Use a good photo editor to crop and adjust your pictures. I use Picasa from Google.  

By cropping your pictures you can eliminate excess background and bring the focus in to a particularly nice part of your photograph.  

Sometimes what looks like a poor photo from a full picture view can become exceptional by simply cropping it down. 

The photo on the left is a good example of cropping to turn an ordinary picture into something special. I was bummed that I didn't get the full face of the male hummer in his full color, but after taking a second look I realized that with a simple crop I still had a stunning picture of 3 females perched together on the right side of the feeder. 

I hope these tips help you to get some wonderful pictures of the hummingbirds that visit your yard.  So get outside and get shooting!

Bring Some Spring Green Indoors

Bring some spring cheer indoors

Green is my favorite color! Green for the Earth, Green for growth and especially Green for spring! I love to watch the new foliage come out in shades of chartreuse and then harden out to emerald, evergreen and blue green.

I love to bring a little of that spring green indoors too! Today I'm gathering foliage with different shades of  green throughout the yard to make a nice little arrangement. I know most bouquets are full of brightly colored flowers with very little foliage, but it doesn't have to be flowers to be beautiful!  I don't have much in bloom right now, but I do have a lot of green going on in the garden.

To create a spring green bouquet, look for interesting textures, different glosses and shades of green.  Include some branches in bud and others with fully opened leaves and choose leaves of varying sizes and even some twiggy dead wood.

Grab a vase, jar or other interesting vessel and starting with the largest leaved branches begin filling.  These larger leaves will help form a sort of foundation from which to build. Then begin layer in your branches working from the largest leaves to the smallest.

A rule of thumb for floral arrangement is to work in odd numbers to create an appealing arrangement. However, this is a creative endeavor, so do what looks good to your own eye. You may want to clump 1 type of foliage together and use another type to spread throughout the arrangement. Also, think about creating different heights within the arrangement and step back from time to time to view it from a different perspective. 

I used Salaal as my base in this arrangement. The larger thick leaves of this native plant form a network of support to place my other leaves. Next I added the dead wood and then began layering in the other leaves from there to create a full lush arrangement.

The plants I used were Salaal, Oregon Grape, Sea Breeze branches,
Thimble Berry, Huckleberry, Butterfly Bush and Maple.
You can use whatever foliage catches your eye.

I did another arrangement using my houseplant cuttings.  It came out really beautiful and is a nice addition to the living room for color while these cuttings get new roots. 

A spring chore of taking new cuttings from my
houseplants became this pretty arrangement.

When the roots are developed, I will break this down and use these propagated starts to make new houseplants for myself, others for gifts and still others to maybe sell at the local farmers market this summer.

So as you can see, you don't have to have the bright colored flowers of summer to create beautiful bouquets. Use whatever is on hand and in season. The only limit is your own imagination.

Recycled bags need recycled tags

I've been wanting to have some garment tags made for my FatBottomBags, but after searching the internet for an option I found it is extremely expensive to have custom tags printed and it was impossible to find a recycled material option.  So after some struggle, I've found a way to make my own recycled tags to mark my bags as original FatBottomBags!

You might use this shrink plastic method to do a quick and fun recycled project with the kids *remember shrinkedinks*, or to create your own tags, beads, charms for a bracelet or necklace or even buttons for a sewing project!  

Here's what you'll need for this project:

• Cookie sheet lined with paper
• #6 plastic containers
• Sharpies or other permanent markers
• Scissors
• Hole punch
• Oven

Step 1:  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees

Step 2:  While oven is heating, begin to cut out shapes from your plastic container.  These will shrink significantly, so cut them about 3 - 4 times larger than you want your finished item sized. 

Step 3:  Using your regular hole punch, punch holes in the plastic.  For mine I put a hole on each end so I can sew the tags onto my FatBottomBags. 

Step 4:  Decorate with sharpies.  I just added the name FatBottomBags to mine. 

These large thin pieces will become smaller thick tags

Step 5:  Lay your decorated item on a lined cookie sheet.  I used regular paper to line mine.  Leave some space between each piece.

Step 6:  Once you've completed all of your designs and have your items on the cookie sheet, place in preheated oven for 2 to 3 minutes.  Be sure to run your vent fan to ventilate any fumes.  (I didn't notice any bad smell when doing this project)

Step 7:  Remove from oven.  Allow to cool on a flat surface.  Once your items are cooled they are ready.

Fast, fun and recycled!  I think these will look nice on my recycled FatBottomBags.  :0) 

Recycling magazines into Christmas gift bows

Easy recyled bows and they're festive and pretty too!

I've been wanting to try this project that I found on How About Orange to craft your own gift bows using magazine pages.  I made several using her method of staple and glue, but they came out a bit bulky due to the staple in each layer.  With a little experimentation I found a method that worked for me.

Here's what you'll need for this recycle craft project:
     * Paper cutter or sharp scissors
     * Hole punch
     * Brass plated fastners - You can find these at the office supply store, or even some grocery stores.  I found mine in the school supply section at Albertsons
     * Colorful magazine pages

This is a fastner.  The point is 2 pieces that open up to secure your paper

So the first thing you'll do is choose a colorful page from your magazine.  Garden magazines are good for full pages of color photos, or I found that the ads in other magazines were good sources for color I wanted to use.  For this bow I'll show you with a beer ad.  Don't worry, when the bow is done you'll be suprised it came from this:

Now, trim off the torn edge and set aside for recycling.  Then align your page with the edge of the cutter and cut off a strip.  Repeat until you have 4 strips cut.

Next, rotate your paper so that you are cutting from the short side.  Cut one strip.  This short strip will be the center of your bow.

Now, rotate your paper back to the long side and cut off 4 additional strips.

You should now have 4 long strips, 4 slightly shorter strips and 1 very short strip.  Starting with the shortest strip, form it into a tube where the 2 ends overlap by about 1/2".  Punch a hole in the center where the overlap is like so:

Push the fastner through from the inside of your tube and then pull the 2 ends of the fastner apart just enough to keep the tube from falling off.  Don't tighten it all the way yet because you'll  still be working with it.

Now grab your first shorter strip and fold it in 1/2 to mark the center.

Open your strip back up and you'll see the fold line marking the center.  Now take 1 end and fold it over twisting it to form this:

Make sure your ends overlap here by about 1/2" and punch a hole in the center like this:

Now place the fastner (still attached to your tube) through the hole.

Repeat with all 4 shorter strips rotating each section as you add it to the fastner.

Then do the same with the 4 longer strips and add them to your bow.  When you've added your last strip adjust the fastner to secure.

You can't really see the beer ad anymore, all you have is a beautiful

recycled bow to finish off your holiday packages!

That's all there is to it!  When you're ready to add this to your Christmas gifts, simply add 2 sided tape and attach.  I thought these came out so great I made a whole stack of them to use on my gifts

Pretty in Pink, Purple, Yellow and Green

They're festive in Blue and Turquoise.

But of course my favorite are the GREEN!

Have fun with this project and try experimenting with other papers too.  I think some of my junk mail could make pretty bows, but I already shredded it up and put it in my worm bin.  Next time, I'll be saving some out for this project.  Another good one for Christmas would be those Netflix red envelopes.  No limits, let your imagination run wild!

Recycled Christmas Cards to Gift Tags

I save everything.  Every little bow, ribbon or scrap of rafia that comes my way via gifts and packaging.  I have a bag in the laundry area where these things get accumulated throughout the year.  It's great because when it is time for me to wrap gifts I have a lot of recycled items to choose from to make the perfect presentation! 

I've also been saving Christmas cards that we've received.  Someone posted a great idea about making gift tags from recycled Christmas cards on the Facebook Fan page back when we were running our Green for the Holidays Giveaway.

I decided to combine my stash of bows and ribbons with that idea and create some gift tags for our canned food & goodie baskets we're giving out to our friends this year.

Gather your supplies. 

This is a pretty, easy, and earth friendly project you can do in a short time.  All you need are some scissors, a hole punch, a stack of last years cards, some ribbon and a pen.

Choose an overall pattern to cut out for your tag.

Be sure there's no writing on the backside of the picture.

Each card is different, so you'll just have to take a look and decide on a pleasing pattern for the shape of your gift tag.  This one I simply cut out following the over all shape of the main design on the card.  Once you decide on your pattern, cut it out using the scissors, then find a good spot in the design to punch your hole. 

Here's a few in process.  You can see I just cut them out

following the overall pattern of the picture.

Now add a cute bow made from your recycled ribbons

Add your message to the back

So spread your holiday cheer and feel good because you are recycling and giving a gift to the earth too!

Here's the tags I made!