End of the Edinburgh Festival

Edinburgh Festival has finally drawn to a close and in doing so has just had an hour long celebration of fireworks and music. Being Scotland it was cold and rainy this evening, so I decided to stay in the warm in my house, snuggle up with a blanket and a cup of tea and watch the fireworks from the city panorama provided through my loft skylight. 

In case you guys missed it, here is a wee photo for you…

 

Edinburgh Castle Festival Fireworks

Click on the photo and you will be taken to a slideshow of pics from tonight’s event.

Native American Music on Princes Street

Whilst heading along Princes Street today to meet a friend for a show at the Fringe Festival, I wandered past a couple of amazing Native American musicians who were playing some sweet whistle melodies. I took a wee video (which I will upload later for you as I am using coffee shop wifi at the moment) and some pics for you guys, so enjoy!

Native American Musicians

Native American Musicians

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you saw these guys playing today, send me a wee comment and let me know what you thought!

Eco-Friendly eBay…

I have decided to sell a bunch of items on eBay in preparation for the slow demise of my old arthritic Mac. I have had my loveable little iBook for many years now, but despite numerous trips to the ‘hospital’ to get new parts and updates, the poor wee thing is now on its last legs. As with any tech, instead of buying new updated gadgets every year I always try to fix them and update them for as long as I can, one to save money (new gadget buys are always expensive) and two to reduce the amount of unnecessary gadget death I leave behind in my wake. My TV is still the same one I had 12 years ago that has a VCR built in, and still works perfectly for me.

Now, when it comes to computers, I’m a little picky…”I’m a Mac” as the adverts say. My brain simply does not work with PCs and I can’t find anything without the Spotlight feature, so because of this I want to grab myself a nice new laptop from their range. Laptops are pretty much the only tech I won’t buy as re-purposed items as I take my laptop everywhere with me so I need it to be sturdy and flawless from the get-go. Saying this tho, I am trying to be as green as possible when it comes to actually buying the thing. Now Macs are pretty expensive little beasts, so to green up my buying experience and take the edge off the cost, I am having a good old clear out of all my household items that I no longer need via the genius that is eBay. 

I was quite excited when I sold my first item in a matter of minutes of placing the item for sale, so I immediately got to work re-purposing my stack of paper and envelopes and packaging items to parcel it up for my lucky first customer. You may remember reading about the Eco-Friendly Gift Wrap a few posts ago. Well I decided to wrap the item I sold in a similar way, using tissue paper I had saved from the last time I bought a few cups for the house. Then, using the same magazine as I used for the Eco-Friendly Gift Wrap, I cut up the front cover to make a wee Thank You for Your Purchase card. I had a few old padded envelopes lying around, so to re-use these I simply took a piece of scrap paper and taped it over the front of the envelope and then wrote the new address for sending the item to on that. I took some pics for you guys, so feel free to use this idea yourself to green the way you send your post…

 

Eco-Friendly eBay

Eco-Friendly eBay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As always, if you like this idea, send me a wee reply or photo via the comments section.

Edinburgh Mardi Gras

Sunday was the Edinburgh Mardi Gras festival in the Grass Market. In a similar vein to the Farmer’s Market, Mardi Gras hosted a number of stalls selling locally made jams, hot coffee, ice cream and lots of locally made arts and crafts. The west end of the Grass Market was filled with people when I got there, listening to the band on stage. The weather was uncharacteristically lovely for Edinburgh, so a lot of folk had dragged their chairs out of the pubs to sit and enjoy the sunshine with a cold beer or two.

For those of you who didn’t make it along this weekend, here are a few photos for you to enjoy instead. 

Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If any of you made it along, let me know what you thought of it or better yet send me a photo back in the comments section.

Edinburgh Castle Terrace Farmers Market

Ok, so I am doing a little catchup here after a busy weekend. Saturday was the Edinburgh Castle Terrace Farmer’s Market, where you can pick up everything from porridge to root vegetables. They have a lot of organically grown, local farm produce, so I always like going down to pick up a few green goodies for lunches and dinners.

The market is on every Saturday morning and has a really nice atmosphere. For the first time in a long time it wasn’t raining today so I took a few snaps for you guys to enjoy. Normally folk look a tad soggy in the rain, so the bright sunshine on a weekend was a near-miracle here in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh Castle Terrace Farmer's Market

Edinburgh Castle Terrace Farmer's Market

 

Edinburgh Castle Terrace Farmer's Market

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As always, if any of you went to a Farmer’s Market in your hometown then send me a wee photo comment.

Pigeon Green Bike Basket

Having returned home this evening to run a wee service on my old 1980’s recycled bike, I found the old basket on the back had finally reached the end of its usefulness (it basically fell of the bike and refused to let me fix its threadbare leather straps).

Not giving up that easily, I wandered around the house until I stumbled upon an old, green plastic basket. Perfect! So with a wee bit of ingenuity and some rather shocking un-artistic talent, I now have a multi-purpose, removable shopping basket.

 

Pigeon Green Bike Basket

Pigeon Green Bike Basket

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just as well, seeing as I have plans to go veggie shopping at the Edinburgh Castle Terrace Farmer’s Market in a few hours.

Feel free to say hello to me and my basket if you are heading there yourself and as always, if you like this idea, leave me a wee comment with your basket pics.

Eco-Friendly Gift Wrap

So yesterday I mentioned gift wrapping. If you want to go green and save yourself some time and money, don’t waste the day going shopping for gift wrap. Recycle your old posters and magazines instead. Keep a box in your house someplace and whenever you are finished with your newspapers, magazines or any other items made from colourful paper, pop them inside. If you are a horder, just keep the one small box and send anything that doesn’t fit inside to the recycle bin. 

Now, all you need is a present. Once you have found the perfect gift, take a few sheets of paper from your box – newspaper and magazine ads always look great, especially if you can find a picture of a celebrity or product that your gift recipient is in love with. Depending on the size of the gift, you may need to tape a few sheets end to end so you have enough to cover the gift. Smaller gifts, you won’t need the tape, simply cover the gift with a sheet or two, folding the ends in as with regular wrapping paper and secure with string, surplus ribbon or funky stickers.

Heres a few pics I took tonight whilst wrapping up a gift for a friend. I used some pages from a copy of Waterstone’s Books Quarterly Magazine (Issue 33/2009) that had been lying about the house a wee while (pages 79 onwards if you want specifics) as the gift wrap. This magazine is free to Waterstone’s card holders so the gift wrap didn’t cost me a penny. I also put the present inside a Graze delivery box I got in the post this week (more about Graze later), which is made from 100% recyclable materials. To add to the effect of the wrapping, don’t tediously cut the pages out of the magazine, have fun with it, rip them out ragged and layer the pages together! For this parcel, I decided against ribbon or any sort of tie as the paper looks striking enough to hold its own. 

 

Eco-Friendly Gift Wrap

Eco-Friendly Gift Wrap

Eco-Friendly Gift Wrap

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eco-Friendly Gift Wrap

Eco-Friendly Gift Wrap

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I started doing this a few years ago for all my presents, using tissue paper I got from coffee shop mug purchases and in-store wrapping materials, junk mail brochures, take away menus that got posted through my door…anything and everything I could find that could be turned into gift wrap. I even used a current copy of the Edinburgh Book Festival 2009 brochure to wrap my family’s birthday gifts this year, placing the events and author meet and greet ads they were interested in seeing on the top of the parcel. And yes, they spent more time looking at the wrapping than the actual gift!

So, next time you are about to throw out that old glossy magazine, re-think and pop it in your wrapping paper box.

As always, if you like this idea enough to use it, please send me a snap of your finished eco-wrapped gift in the comments section!

Pigeon Green Pens

Ok, so remember that pile of paper you kept from the notebook project yesterday? Well, here is how you can make use of it. This time you will be using the non-plain, double sided printout paper, magazine pages, etc. You will also need any broken pens you have lying about – by broken, I mean that the plastic casing has snapped or some other unlucky fate has befallen your poor pen. Grab up the pens and take out the ink nibs. You can also do this to bring back to life broken pencils and crayons, but I kinda prefer the whole pen angle.

Now, we will be wrapping the paper around the pen, so it needs to be  about the same length as the ink nib. You may choose to wrap it tidily (i.e. with the pen lining up to the edge of the paper), or untidily (with the middle of the pen lining up with the corner of the paper. As this is an eco-project, we want to avoid glue if possible so go for the cheap, natural solution. Take a piece of paper to the bathroom and run it under the tap so it is soaked through. Then, come back your desk and lay it flat. Put the pen nib either in parallel with the paper or over a corner of the page and begin rolling the paper around the pen. Be careful on two points here – one, the paper is wet so could tear if you don’t take your time; two, be sure to roll the paper around the pen nib as tightly as possible, pressing the paper together as you roll. This will help to seal the paper as it dries. If you have a spare elastic band lying about, you may also want to tie this around the pen as it dries to ensure it sticks together properly. 

I have made a few of these and on occasion, the whole water as glue thing hasn’t been as long lasting as I would like, so if you find the same thing for your pens, my tip is to decorate the outer seam with a tiny sticker, or if you want to go glam that piece of ribbon you saved from your last gift-wrapped present.  

Speaking of gift-wrappings, I’ll be back a little later on with a wee idea of how to save money, paper and time with some completely funky, one of a kind gift wrapping suggestions.

As always, if you like this idea, please leave me a reply comment and show me pictures of your Pigeon Green Pens!

Pigeon Green Notebooks

While at work yesterday, I was pondering ways to re-use the pile of printouts I made last week but no longer need. I came up with a couple of ideas so will give you the first one today (its real simple!) and the second one later on.

Pigeon Green Notebooks

Pigeon Green Notebooks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, so first you need a wee pile of paper you no longer need, you know the stuff, printouts, wrapping paper, notepaper, etc. Go through the pile and find the bits that have one clean or plain side. You won’t find the double sided prints so useful here, but save them for project 2 later. Taking each piece of paper, fold it in half so the blank or unused side is on the outside. Once you have folded each piece, put them in a pile so all the folded edges are on the same side. Take a stapler and staple the open edges together. Hey presto – your very own Pigeon Green Notebook. If you want to be even more eco-friendly, use the office hole-punch instead of a stapler and tie the pages together with anything you can find – food bag tie from your lunch, piece of string, that hairband you broke this morning. Anything you can find to give it a second use. If you can use something that is normally a one use only thing then you get brownie points from me.

If you like this idea, send me a comment with a picture of your Pigeon Green Notebooks!