 Hi guys, so we are here with another video. Hello This is sort of a cross between the mindful series And my muse for my creative year I At the time of filming this don't know which one I'm gonna title this as and I may live The leave this little clip of me talking about that in their video. I might not I don't know but I'm trying really hard to be more mindful in the not only in the art room But in the house use less plastic Be more mindful of what I buy buy sustainable and local when I can To the extent that we even bought a new bed from a local company that was at least in part made with Sustainable and recycled materials organic cotton and that sort of thing So I'm trying to do it. I'm not going to be able to ever probably be plastic-free there's just too many things that I Need to use in my everyday life that are plastic or that have plastic in them That doesn't mean that where I can I can't cut back and so I'm going to when I can and Right now my muse is screaming at me to do something about the kitchen scrubby sponges If you've been watching my channel for a while, you know that I've spoken before about in the art room and in The kitchen I use scotch green and yellow kitchen scrubby sponges In fact, I think it's in the art of the mindful video Being mindful in the art room video. I don't know which part it is where I talk about Cleaning it might be part two. It could be part three. I don't remember where we talk about cleaning your art supplies What to do with the water and all of that I show my current icky sponge But I'm really trying to get away from that those sponges are made. They're all plastic and they're not Decomposable, they're not recyclable like they're just yeah, they're just clogging up the landfill. So I Watched a lot of videos Searched over the internet to get a lot of ideas and then finally stumbled across something that yes I could buy but I also could just make and so that's kind of where we're at today So I'm going to make my own sort of a scrubby sponge thing. It's kind of a cross between a rag and a sponge What you're going to need to do it is some old towels and Something scratchy for one side like this is burlap now this burlap looks thrashed and distressed so to speak because it is I washed it This is a burlap ribbon 30 yards of it from the floral department at the local fabric store And craft store and I took the whole roll. I unrolled it I put it in the washing machine and washed it because I knew it was going to do this And I knew it was going to fray and pill and I wanted it to do it before I actually made my sponges and not after I Have lots of rags. We talked about them in one of the being mindful videos And so I went and grabbed a piece a bigger piece of a rag We don't use often and I cut it into strips that are about six and a half inches high High this way and then the width of the towel I used this piece of four and a half by six and a half inch cardstock as a template and Then I cut two rectangles a single thickness and I sewed them together Now I have a serger or an overlocker depending on where you are in the world and what you call it So I went ahead and surged all the S edges on that that machine. You don't have to do that You could leave it raw You could zigzag it if you have a regular sewing machine, so you are gonna have to sew for this project If you don't so maybe you have somebody in your life who can make you some of these there are Etsy sellers a sell reusable sponges There's a line of sponges called the unspunge And they're sold on Etsy. I'll link it below. I have the stuff. I wanted to just make them So I did want it a little bit cushiony not to I mean It's not like a sponge, but this is thick terry cloth And having one layer two layers instead of one makes it a little bit thicker Now you could just use it like this in your kitchen and it makes a nice little spongy rag thing I really want it to be scrubby on one side. So that's where the burlap comes in so I cut the burlap and How long are these they're about 16 inches it approximately so we're gonna fold them in half and I'm gonna surge around the edges of these two and then we're gonna sew it to the back side of the Terry cloth, so I'm gonna go surge all of these together and I'll be right back Okay, so now we have eight of these are double-layer terry cloth all Surged or zigzag together around the edge And then we also have eight of these double layer of burlap all zigzagged or surged around the edge Now the reason you want to zigzag or surge around the edge before you put these together is because Otherwise every time you get these wet the terry cloth is gonna fray like crazy and the burlap is gonna unravel So you really really really want to do some kind of finish around the edge This is basically just loosely woven string and so yeah, if you don't do something to try to seal it It's not gonna last very long And that being said it's very messy and if I could I would show you my pants because I have black leggings on which are Now speckled with white spots Okay, so once you have these sewn together and you know for what you're going to use them for they don't you'll You'll notice this one's not that it's a little bit smaller each one of these is a little bit different so I might Pick through them and match up ones that are close what I want to do is take these these are from the Surgeon, this is it leaves these tails on every corner I'm gonna tuck them towards the middle on both pieces and Then I'm gonna straight stitch onto my regular sewing machine all the way around the edge to sew these together So I'm gonna do that and I'll be right back. All right once you have them together They're gonna look something like this and I think it's gonna be a good You know kitchen sponge or even to clean my hands the burlap is just rough enough That it's going to get you know the paint off my hands, which is one of the reasons. I like the scotch sponge also to get you know that stuff off the inside of your dish pans and Those kind of things that you hand wash It's just rough enough to get it off without Scratching the pan. That's another issue. I think you also Probably should soak your pans anyway if this isn't scratchy enough to get it off Which you know, I've been known to cook something and then Anyway, that's a whole other conversation But I think these are gonna work really well And when they're past it and they're you know, not usable anymore. I can compost them. I can recycle them There's some places around the country that recycle fabrics but I also if they have to go in the landfill at least its fabric it's gonna biodegrade and Yeah, so this is gonna be cool now when you are picking your fabric the burlap isn't or generally is an organic material But you want to make sure your burlap and your terry cloth probably are all are mostly cotton And that they themselves don't have plastic in them but this even if they have a little bit of Plastic type materials in them. It's still probably going to be less than a kitchen sponge So anyway, give it a try see what you think and yeah, I'm gonna give these a shot and I may send a couple To a couple of people. I know who might enjoy them and see what they think. That's it for right now Don't forget to like share and subscribe Hit that little bell icon if you want notifications of new videos when they come out If you don't have a serger Like I said, take your different components and just zigzag around the edge Use a small tight zigzag and go around two or three times before you sew your components together And that will work just fine if you don't have burlap You could use some other kind of scratchy fabric Something that's washable something. That's all are mostly cotton natural fibers You could also if you're just looking to save money maybe use some plastic Netting some plastic like onion bag type netting. I haven't tried it without but you could try it so see what you think and Yeah, if you'd like to be part of my creative year, you don't know what that is It's a Facebook group where we share creative ideas and inspiration and the link is in the description below along with my link tree link Which has all my social media the places you can support the free content here on YouTube and over on Facebook including teespring merch and Spoon flower red bubble my Etsy shop were to buy my book my Amazon affiliate store I have written a book and more and the most important thing of course is to go out and have a great day Do something nice for yourself. Maybe the planet and you deserve it. So does planet earth and yeah, that's it for right now I'll see you later. Bye guys