One Small Change : March

Well, technically this is our change for February, but I didn't get a chance to post it, and we haven't decided on a change yet for March.


Glass jars holding supplies in my studio

Our change was pretty simple and one that we had already made in the past but fell back on a bit... get rid of plastic. When I was pregnant with K, I discovered the damage plastic does to our health and the environment and swore to keep it out of our house as much as possible. Granted, we could never be 100% plastic free with plastic being in appliances, cars, my camera, this computer, etc... but we could make the change wherever it was possible. Bit by bit we replaced our plastic belongings, starting with the most important area - food storage. We became plastic free and it felt good.


Glass jars holding some bulk food

But over the past year or so, some plastic has snuck it's way back into our home. I'm not even sure how it infiltrated our walls, but it did. This challenge seemed like the perfect time to hunt it down and kick it back out. We rounded up the few rascals we had and either recycled them or donated them (depending on the type of plastic it was), and if need be, replaced them with a plastic-free version.


Some of my favorite Pyrex

I found that my vintage Pyrex (that I love oh so much!) is perfect to replace plastic Tupperware, as well as plastic wrap and aluminum foil. Now when I need to cook a casserole type dish I just cook it in the Pyrex and store the leftovers in the fridge with the glass top. I can then heat it right back up in the same dish, too, which saves on dishes and water. (another added perk.) I have smaller Pyrex dishes, too for all kinds of leftovers and snacks to store in the fridge. For storing food items in the cupboard and for taking food on the go we use old glass jars of all kinds. Some are canning jars not currently in use, some are pickles or applesauce we bought and then reused the jar it was in, and a few are jars I bought years ago. We really use these jars for everything, even as drinking glasses, flower vases and to hold the girls craft supplies, the possibilities are endless. Saves the environment, our health and money!


A shelf in the girls' craft cabinet

Some other ways we bring food on the go are with reusable cotton bags and sandwich wraps. The cotton bags we currently have are perfect for the girls when we go out. They like to have veggies or fruit in them and sometimes some dry cereal or chips.
I bought these bags a couple of years ago off of Etsy and they are just simply cotton fabric sewn together with a velcro closure. I plan on making some of our own in the future.


Our cotton snack bags

Speaking of making our own, I finished up the reusable sandwich wraps I was working on last month. I made four, total, one for each of us. To make them I basically just looked at my wrap-n-mat I had and followed it's construction but made a couple small changes.



The first change I made was to make ours bigger. It was too small for my homemade bread. So I made it slightly bigger to hold our larger pieces of bread. The second, and most important change, was omitting the vinyl in the wrap. I was thinking of just using organic cotton on the whole thing but I wanted the sandwich to be able to stay fresh for a few hours in the wrap and if I just used cotton air would get to it and make it stale. After a little bit of research I found some fun phthalate free oil cloth. I still didn't feel comfortable with it touching our food so I choose to make the oil cloth the outside of the sandwich wrap and then put two layers of organic cotton on the inside. They work wonderfully and we love them!



Thank you again, Hip Mountain Mama for this wonderful challenge! Now to figure out what our next change is.... What is your change? Every little bit counts!!!

I hope you are all having a fantastic Monday. Don't forget to enter for a chance at a beautiful playsilk from Desert Dyeworks, if you haven't already.

One Small Change : March