We Need Common Sense Alternatives To Plastic

The handkerchiefs arrived last night.  Finally.  They were supposed to be here Monday but UPS said they couldn't find our house.  All's well that ends well and they arrived.  They are so pretty.

Of course, while waiting on the handkerchiefs, I made a bunch of them by hand.  I kind of like the little handmade ones.  I added lace to the last one I made and I really like it.  I guess I ought to start making some out of some other fabric than the polka dot fabric.  Can you tell that I really like that polka dot fabric?

I was browsing around on Etsy and other websites and noticed that this type of ladies handkerchiefs are given on special occasions with writing.  For instance, a white hanky with a light gray church bell design and a wedding date.  Also, a great idea is for Mother's Day, which is right around the corner. 

Don't limit yourself to ladies hankies, there are also men's handkerchiefs.  Those men's handkerchiefs with their initials embroidered in tiny letters in a corner are very high class.  Then there are the handkerchiefs that men wear in their coat pockets. 

If we could change from using paper tissue to cloth handkerchiefs; paper napkins to cloth napkins; paper towels to cloth hand towels, I wonder what kind of impact that would have on our eco-system?  All I know is that it would be better for the environment.  What other throw away paper products do we use?  Real plates could always be substituted for paper plates.  Of course, paper will disintegrate.  The purpose for cutting down on the paper products is to save the rain forests.  When my boys were young we did an experiment with dryer lint.  You can take the dryer lint, we it and mash it into a sheet.  Put the wet sheet inside a telephone book or something heavy and flat to let it dry.  When it's dry, you have a sheet of paper.  The term "rag content" when used to describe paper comes from the fact that a long time ago after your clothes were worn out, you used your clothes for rags.  When the rags were worn out, you put your rags outside your door for the rag collector.  The rag collector would take the worn rags and make paper from the fibers.  Not unlike our experiment with the dryer lint.  The rags were usually made from linen and made a good quality paper.  So, today, the higher the rag content in your paper, the higher the quality of your paper.  Makes me wonder why we have to cut down trees to make paper at all.

The main problem is plastic.  We need to get away from using so much plastic.  What alternatives can you think of for plastic?  We could make cloth baggies, but that's not as sanitary as plastic and really doesn't achieve the same outcome.  Hmmm.  I'd love to hear ideas for common sense type alternatives for your day-to-day plastic.  One thing that comes to mind is plastic placemats and tablecloths.  For goodness sake don't use plastic for placemats and tablecloths since you can get such lovely cloth placemats and tablecloths.

We took some time to put the Cajun Stitchery logo on some of my shirts yesterday.  Playing with colors is a favorite pasttime over here.  Have I told you that we love to embroider at Cajun Stitchery?  Yes, we do.