Throw Me the Throw Pillow

In the past entries in this blog, I've been talking about helping Mother Earth and doing eco-friendly stuffs. And because of that, I'll have this entry as a tutorial on doing a craft that's very environmental and useful at home. I'm going to show how to make an alternative throw pillow and that's recycled. Well, my sister made this when she was in the fifth grade. I asked her the steps and in fact, they're as easy as counting numbers.

The things needed are so common in the house. The main thing that's needed is the paper or plastic wrappers. Gather around scratch papers or newspapers or magazines or cleaned plastic wrappers of foods and juices. Threads, needle, scissors and yarn are needed, too. And plastic cover shouldn't be forgotten.

If one wants to have a heavier and a bulky throw pillow then he should use paper. But if he wants a light and soft one to hug then the preference for plastic wrappers is chosen. Whatever the preference is chosen, gather them. After, cut them into tiny bits in either heart, square, star or any shape desired. Then, set them aside.

Next, have the plastic cover cut into the size and shape desired and there should be two of them that's identical to each other. Sew the two plastic covers in the sides, leaving the center an empty space  but just leave the top of the plastic cover and don't sew it yet. Place the tiny bits of either papers or plastic wrappers inside the plastic cover. The sewing of the top of the plastic covers is then resumed after stuffing the plastic covers. Trace the corners of the fully sewed throw pillow with yarn by sewing it to give the pillow a additional design and it is, then, good for practical use.

It's basically just cutting and sewing and all. An individual, by making this, isn't merely recycling but saving money. And more importantly, he is helping the world to lessen non-biodegradable wastes which will possibly be thrown in seas and biodegradable wastes. One thing that can save Earth is to look for alternatives that's beneficial to Her, right? So better browse for other alternatives and don't forget to make your very own green throw pillow.

Wish Upon a Paper Wishing Star

Photo from http://foldingtrees.com/2008/06/lucky-wishing-stars-tutorial/

Wind’s starting to blow cold and Christmas lights are starting to flicker to life. Christmas is really on its way! And red isn’t just the color of the Simbang Gabi season but also green. Being so excited for the twenty-fifth of December, this day, my sisters were up making a D.I.Y paper wishing star from http://foldingtrees.com/2008/06/lucky-wishing-stars-tutorial/. In fact, the paper wishing star was from a recycled material and in that sense, my sisters are being eco-friendly.

First thing, my sisters gathered magazines that aren’t much of or none of importance at our home. For safety measurements, I told them to make sure they’re old because my sisters might get into mom’s nerves! Scissors were needed and rulers, too. Then they made strips out of the pages of magazines that were a half inch. One strip is good for one paper wishing star. But well, one can always make as many as he wants.

Next, they made a loop at one end of a strip and form a basic knot; letting the shorter end get into the loop. I noticed that they, then, pulled the ends of the strip to have the knot tight, making a pentagon shape. Funny is that, my second sister termed the loop as the Cory Aquino’s Ribbon. The shorter end was folded to maintain the shape then the pentagon was turned over, making other part of the untouched strip wrap around the shape. The very tip of the strip was tucked into the flap in the pentagon so that there will only be a pentagon no more excess part of the strip.

The pentagon is then, ready to be shaped as a 3-D star. To have it form like a real star with the shape and dimension and all, my sisters pushed the in between of the points of the flat pentagon with their index finger. They did this pushing stuff to all the in between sides of the points. It seemed to be hard for them to shape the stars. Maybe it’s because of the size of the strip that they had used.

With all the stars that my sisters made, my mom will be glad to have them decorated at home. They are small and puffy and seemed to bulky which makes it unique from our other Christmas decors. Surely, Mother Earth will be glad. I believe that there a hundred or a thousand more D.I.Y that uses things that aren’t so useful in the house already. Learning to recycle them for the season rather than dumping them in the garbage bad, isn’t only price-wise but also environment-wise!

Solar Panels

Creativity has always been man's trait. And with man's need and demand to survive, resourcefulness comes into picture. Just like the problem of energy and global warming, it needs a solution. Man, with the two said traits, found an answer; the solar panels. And they are huge on being green.

Solar panels are used to supply energy or electricity. With the solar panel's help, the payment for the energy consumption is lessened. It is because solar panels doesn't have a lot of processes compared to the electricity sources we are using now. Bills are cut lesser because the electricity is generated from the sun. And obviously, the sun is free.

What's making solar panels convenient is that it uses renewable resource and that's the solar energy. With renewable resources, one wouldn't worry about it running out of number. And it doesn't burn fossil fuels that releases destructive carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, unlike the power plants do. So with this, it is safe to say that solar panels lessen global warming.

Solar panels were, at the start, an idea trying to get out of its inventor's mind to be part of the physical world. The inventor of solar panels is really resourceful and creative because he made something out of the readily available resources in nature. It isn't just something that adds up to the pile of trash in dumping sites. It is something eco-friendly and beneficial to man and nature. Who knows what other inventions lie, sleeping, at the back of a brilliant's mind that can save the worsening condition of Mother Earth?

Terra and Tech

Welcome to the twenty-first century. Welcome to the modern days where almost everything is as easy as blinking. From the complex things like communicating with someone that's hundreds of thousands of miles away from you to the simplest like cooking, they are all made convenient and within our reach. And this is brought up and possibly possible through technology. But well,  something's aren't what they seem and technology isn't an exemption; technology also has its shortcomings.

We now have telephones, computers, gadgets and all to reach our loved ones away from us. We now don't have to wait for twenty minutes or more to stop the rumblings of our tummies with instant foods. And we basically have the power to have our chores done at the count of three now with technology. But we also can't deny the fact that Mother Earth is sick; very sick in fact. With all these upgrades is our environment's deterioration and destruction; inversely proportional.

The thick, green forests are slowly declining in number due to land conversion. It's getting hotter and hotter in here each year or two due to too much release of carbon dioxide with less trees from vehicles and the electricity that we use. In connection to that, sea levels had grown higher and higher because the ice in the poles are slowly melting. Some animals and plants are becoming endangered and others, extinct. Disruptive, super and killer calamities like typhoons and sudden change in the climate is normal nowadays.

Well, it's not bad having technology around but we should be conscious of our environment, too. We should consider the consequences of our actions for what we do to Earth comes back to us in no time. We should find alternatives and other ways that won't give any harm to our environment. We should act now before it's too late to regret. And we should switch our lifestyles to a green and eco-friendly one or else, everything including us would just be another speck of dust in this galaxy.

A Letter to the Past (Sequel of "They Cutting Down the Big Trees")

She went to the storage room to clean it and there, she found a box with a color that's hard to distinguish because of the thick dust covering it. She brushed the cobwebs attached to it, blew the dust and opened the box.  Inside it was the wrapper of her very first Krispy Kreme, her very first cinema ticket, her very first admission pass to the circus and basically her keepsakes. What caught her eyes were the creased piece of pad paper, the color of a dry leaf. She touched the paper as if searching for something on its surface, placed the paper on the left pocket of her jeans and started to clean.

After cleaning the storage room, she get the paper out of her pocket, opened it and read the innocent writings. After reading it, she held it tight with her arms to her heart. She turned her laptop on but stopped for a moment then decided to get a ball point pen and a paper pad in the storage room. When they were in her tired and wrinkled hands, she sat in the dining table and took a deep breath. Writing the traditional way, that means with paper and pen, was something she was not used to for a long time already and this was what she wrote.

Hi, eight-year-old Stacy! This is forty-nine-year-old Stacy and yes I am the future you and you are the past me. I had read your composition way back July 5, 2011 about your lesson that day about the bad effects of cutting big trees. Sadly, those bad guys not only kept on cutting down the big trees but burned fossil fuels and built factories and all those shut downed Mother Earth and put her inside a kettle with boiling water in it. Stacy, the effects of it and the destruction of nature are more horrible than the ugly monsters, ghosts and beasts Mum scares you with.

I envy you so much because you have free fresh air specially in the province because here, we wear masks that purify the air that enters our noses. Our environment now is far from yours due to the burned fossil fuels used in big factories and in ever growing number of vehicles. If the little birds and the sweet, yellow sunshine wakes up every morning then what wakes us up now is the noisy chug-chug of the train, the busy buzz of the vehicles and the sick, gray light from the sun's rays. You have a garden in the backyard, right? You better make the most out of it because now, we don't have any garden except for the Domes because plants can't live under normal conditions; moreover, here, plants are grown in large Domes, a place owned by the government sealed to be protected from the very hot temperature.

Coats and long sleeves are never in the trend nowadays because the temperature is just way, way up. White Christmas is just up to the pictures now because snow never occurred since 2020 and there's no more snow caps, avalanches and glaciers in snow-coated mountains because all those snows and ices already melted. And it resulted to higher sea levels. You know, Stacy, you just have to consider yourself as the luckiest girl in the world being able to see real penguins, tigers, seals and eagles even just in the zoo and owning, Guardian, your Siberian husky. My children had never seen them because they are already extinct and so are the endangered animals in your time.

Stacy, I'd give everything to be you again. Even if it means leaving all these comfort of technology, I'd still do. I failed to protect the environment but I've done my best. Do tell them to care before it's too late. I guess I'll stop here and by the way, the year now is 2052.

She sighed - deep. She closed her weary eyes, folds starting to show up in her forehead and in the corners of her eyelids. Memories of her childhood came rushing like racing horses. The first drop of her tears fell from her left eye and soon, the whole room was filled with the sound of her sob. But her sob was inaudible among the noisy cry of the gray scale, metallic, high tech city.

They are Cutting Down the Big Trees

It's already late. Her mind is still wandering around and active as ever. She just can't lie in bed forever; her back is starting to ache. What she did is that she got out of bed and walked to her study table as if the floor is brittle and fragile, afraid of waking up everyone in the house. She turned her study lamp on, grabbed her writing pad and on her little, delicate right hand was her favorite yellow Winnie the Pooh pencil and this was what she wrote.

Today is Saturday, July 5, 2011 and its past ten, way past my bedtime, but I still can't sleep. I don't want to wake up Mum or Dad or Beca or anyone else. Well, there's something that really bothered me since Teacher told us about it this morning. And its the effects of cutting down the trees. It's just so scary like seeing a ghost.

Teacher said that if trees are being continued to be cut then floods might take place and it certainly would not be the ordinary one because it might be so deep that it would reach Dad's waist and that's up to my shoulders! There would be no more fresh air because trees produce oxygen. Teacher let us imagined ourselves being super small and were inside a kettle with boiling water and asked us what we'll feel. We told her that it is going to be super hot, that sweat will pour in every part of our bodies and that, we'll possibly boil as well. She told us we're right and that those were the things that we're going to feel if all the big trees in the world are gone.

Today, the condition of my surroundings isn't like that inside of a kettle. That is, the climate is still the normal tropical one. There are still big trees around; whether in the park, in the high ways, in school and in our backyard though Teacher said trees in the world today is slowly decreasing in number. I can still see green fields in the province though none here in the city.

I just hope those bad guys who kill trees stop doing what they're doing. And I hope earth inside a boiling water in a kettle wouldn't come true sooner or even later and that, it's all Teacher's imagination because it really makes me bite my fingernails.

Then she suddenly yawned and felt her eyes heavy. She wanted to crawl to her bed. She just wanted to close both her eyes. But she decided to continue and put into conclusion her writing. So, she did by adding the sentences, "Oh well, I guess sleep is already here. Good night, my writing pad."

She detached the piece of paper where she was writing from the writing pad. She tiptoed to her bed, peaked under it, went for the box under it and placed the paper there. She tiptoed back to her study table and turned off the lamp. After, she walked to her bed as if the floor is brittle and fragile and went to bed. Then the silence and coldness of the night embraced her.

Buying Local Products

Either on the radio or on  the television or over the internet, buying local products advocacy seem to broom everywhere. Back then, I just ignore them. And now, I realized that buying local products is very important. I realized that back then, I just ignore this thing which could help our country. And most importantly, practicing this could save our one and only habitat.

Imported and local goods vary in their transportation distances. Imported ones are needed to be shipped for like the nth times. While the other is shipped to markets a lot, lot lesser number of times compare to the latter. With lesser shipping distance, there will be lesser carbon dioxide released from ships or cars or planes. And its a universal fact that carbon dioxide is a gigantic contributor of climate change and global warming.

Aside from its advantage to the natural world, patronizing local products could help our our country's economy. Another thing is that doing such can help local entrepreneurs stay in the business world. And that local products are cheaper because there's lesser capital used which includes small means off transportation.

Upon hearing local products nowadays, it is inevitable to have some people flashing negative connotations at the back of their minds. What is commonly thought about local products is that they are of lower quality compared to imported ones. Well, like the imported ones, some aren't are very good and some not so. Maybe it's all about how one handles things that defines the objects quality.

Before heading to the cashier and purchase the imported thing in your hands, try to find a local version of it. If you found one but not convinced to buy the local one, think about your fellow countrymen. If it still doesn't, ask your self whether you can afford to risk Earth's sake for your own interest. And always keep in mind that there are more "e" in buying local products. And it is in buying them that you become economic-and-environment friendly.