Day 24

Sorry for not posting in awhile! My life activities have been colliding around me in concerts, competitions, auditions, new dogs, and Spanish projects.
Even though I have not been posting, I sure have been keeping my trash! Here are some pics of what has been accumulating the the Bag:

 Look at all of that trash!! It came from such humble beginnings...

That was day one. Crazy!

I was looking through my camera and found this picture from when I was making the Bag:

 

I read the writing on the bag and was like: "I totally will, plastic bag!"

Anyways, that is all for today! 

~Maya

Days 6 & 7

So, a lot has been going on!
I took the Bag to the First Friday art walk in Portland which was really fun! I was not done crocheting it so whenever we would stop to look at some art, I would crochet. A lot of people took notice of my interesting medium and asked about the plastics bags to yarn process. I had made a whole bunch of cards with my blog address on them and handed those out as well.
So now the bag is DONE! I put the straps on it and filled 'er up with the trash I have been saving! It still needs a few embellishments, but now I can utilize it. I'm so excited!

As a side note, I took the SAT today. It was crazy, but after 3 hours and 45 minutes I felt like a free woman! Now that that is over I can focus a little more on my TRASH project and other things...

Here are a few pictures of my trashy escapades during First Friday as well as a picture of my completed Bag!

 

 Sitting outside the June Fitzpatrick Gallery listening to the Portland String Quartet...

Crocheting in the Longfellow House Garden.

Eating at Enzo's Pizzeria! yummy...

My blog cards!

The finished Bag!!! How cool!

That's all for today!

Maya

Day 4

Greetings!

Today I want to show you a sneak peek of the Bag:

It's quite colorful, is it not? This is turning out to be such a fun project!
Every spare moment I get is spent learning SAT words or throwing a few stitches onto the Bag. ;)
I think I'm going to make a video tutorial on making 'plarn'....mmm, I will after the SAT!

I would like to direct your attention to the 'Links' area to the right. I just added a link for the trailer of this Independent Lens film called Waste-Land. It's about this artist who goes to the largest landfill in the world to create art out of the trash there. He enlists the local people who work there to help, and ends up selling the art and giving the money back to the trash community! So cool! I started watching it and it was really neat. Check it out!
That's all for today!


Maya

Days 2 & 3

Hey all!

The past couple days have been really trashy! (in a good way) But not that trashy.
Today at my job at the library I had to cut out a lot of paper flower petals for a Story Time craft, so I dutifully took the paper scraps home with me.

The Bag is coming along quite well; I have had a LOT of help with making the plastic yarn from my mom and our friend Mary- Thanks guys! It is amazing how many bags I am using up; just imagine all of the bags you won't see stuck in trees off the highway...
I also got asked to teach a class about making my 'plarn' (plastic yarn) to a middle school advisory group! I'm really excited for it. :)

So today, my dad and I fixed up my bike! We put on some new tires and greased the chain and cables.
I'm super excited because now I can ride to the post office and library on my work days! Sweet!
The best thing about my bike is that it is a trash bike! We picked it up at the local dump a few years ago.  Take a look at how spiffy it looks now:

I love it!  I really like being able bike places because driving is so expensive these days as well as being bad for the environment...
So if you don't ride regularly, I challenge you to dig out the old junkers and hit the roads this spring!

Maya

Day 1

Welcome to Trash: a love story!
I know it sounds weird that I should call this a 'love story' because, who is that into trash? But I figured that during this project I would really be getting a chance to know my trash seeing as I am going to be carrying it around with me everywhere. And, I thought it sounded a bit clever.

So the whole idea for this started when I was watching The Story of Stuff. It is this really great movie (only 20 minutes long, for those of you in a rush!) that brings into perspective the entire process of producing stuff. And by stuff, I mean almost everything. Clothes, electronics, toys, food, stuff, stuff, stuff, and how the production of this stuff effects people and the environment. One point the movie makes is the fact that with all this stuff, there comes a lot of TRASH! Everything these days come in about a million layers of packaging! It's so unnecessary! And we have to do something with all of this trash; we can't just wave our magic wands and make it disappear! (I would if I could) Trash has to be buried in landfills, which can leak toxic chemicals into groundwater, or burned, which releases those toxins into the air. That is just bad news.

By the end of watching this movie  I was feeling in the mood to make a point (I often get that way) so I thought: 'I am going to save and carry all of my trash around for a whole month! I will make people notice me and all of my trash and maybe, just maybe, I'll make a tiny difference by making people aware about how much trash we make.' After this tremendous thought, I realized that I would need something to carry all of my trash in and decided to make a bag. It would be the most grandiose, gratuitously amazing bag ever (I'm studying for the SAT, did you realize?) because it would made from plastic bags! I know, hard to comprehend, but I have a method of making yarn to crochet with out of plastic bags. The bag is still being worked on, but it should be done by Day 6 of this project!

So now, I guess, comes the time that I tell you about my trashy exploits of the day! I did not make a lot of trash (though I did have a lot of clementine peels, but I'll tell you about that later) which was exciting because I was afraid I would make an embarrassing amount of trash the first day. ;)
If I remember correctly my personal trash count was:

1. a gum wrapper and gum
2. a small paper plate
3. a sushi box from Trader Joe's (my weakness)
4. an instant Pad Thai container, also from Trader Joe's (my new weakness)
5. two tea bag packages

And I think that was it. Now I won't be boring you with lists of the trash that I make each day, I just think that this was a good starting point.

Other things you should know about this project: I will only be saving my trash and recyclables, NOT COMPOST because I do have a compost at my house and I think it would just be plain disgusting after a couple weeks of toting that around!

Please ask questions, leave comments and the like! I am really excited for this trashy adventure! (is that a bad thing?)

Maya