April is Earth Month and we just celebrated Earth Day earlier in the week. I’m always trying to be conscious of the ways my actions impact the environment: I do my best to recycle everything I possibly can and I’m conscious about ways I can reduce our family’s consumption of packaging and materials. I do know, however, that I could definitely improve in the “reuse” department.

No matter how much improvement I did in the reusing, repurposing and upcycling department, nothing could compare to the masterpieces found in the Glad Back Bag Recycled Art Auction. The super-talented mosaic artist Jason Mecier has created four pieces of art utilizing “wild life remnants” (also known as trash). That includes trash from these celebrities:

• Jesse Eisenberg of The Social Network
• Raphael Sbarge of Once Upon a Time
• Nathan Kress of iCarly
• Nick Offerman of Parks & Recreation

Mercier’s works of art are being auctioned off on Ebay through April 26th, and the proceeds will benefit Keep America Beautiful’s Great American Cleanup.

Along the same lines, The Picker Sisters are masters at the reusing concept. The Picker Sisters live by the saying, one person’s trash is another’s treasure. The two best friends actually travel around the US to find reclaimed trash to turn it into merchandise for their store. However, they firmly believe that we don’t have to travel far beyond our own home to find items worth transforming into beautiful pieces.

Want to learn more about repurposing trash into treasures? Here are a few tips straight from The Picker Sisters:

Practically practical :: As a designer, it’s essential to think about how a piece will function. Will the item get lots of use and have to withstand daily beatings? Make mental note of who will be using the pieces and how often, then design your projects using materials that will suit your lifestyle. Your creations should be both beautiful and functional. For instance, consider using an old trunk as a coffee table. If you want a smooth surface, get some glass cut at your local home improvement store to fit over the trunk, so you can still admire the charm of the piece, while making it useable.

Embrace the eclectic :: Mixing old with new, modern with antique, or rustic with mid-century, can bring freshness to your style and breathe new life into your space. And the good part is, you can choose items you prefer, not items you think you need to make everything match exactly.

Refresh key pieces :: Looking to freshen up your dining room chairs because they’ve endured their fair share of spills? Don’t throw them out. It may be easier than you think to reupholster the cushions with a fresh, new print, or, perhaps something spill-proof. With just a few key tools – such as an electric staple gun, pliers and screw driver – and you can have a fresh-looking dining set. Check out a how-to video at This Old House online.

Inspiration everywhere :: We draw inspiration and ideas from everything around us all the time. Magazines, the Internet and nature itself are brimming with interesting, evocative images and objects that may spark a thought that you can then incorporate into your own design. The most original ideas can come from the most unlikely places. So keep your eyes open and your creative goggles on, and draw inspiration from the great big world around you.

Glad has had an ongoing partnership with Keep America Beautiful during the Great American Cleanup for 27 years, but I just started using Glad Force Flex black bags a few weeks ago. I seriously can’t believe how strong they are! I started using them as regular trash bags to line our garbage and recycling cans. When they handled loads of trash without any sort of holes or weak spots, I had to try them out on other things.

I’ve recently used Force Flex bags to hold yard waste during our spring cleanup, and they’ve also held loads of clothing and household goods that I’ve donated to local charities over the past few weeks. Their tagline of, “handles whatever life throws your way,” have proven to be 100% accurate in my home! I even tried to push the end of a wire hanger through the bag and it honestly hardly even stretched, let alone puncture the plastic! 

With features like easy-to-seal closures, odor-shield neutralizing powers and 3-ply strength, there’s only strength and dependability to be found in Glad Force Flex bags. Take a look at Glad Black Bags online to learn more about the products, then check out Glad’s newest campaign, No Matter How Wild Life Gets, Clean-Up is in the Bag! You can create your own Wild Life episode and enter for a chance to win the $25,000 Grand Prize sweepstakes, or one of their daily $100 prizes!

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Glad Black Bag and received a Glad Black Bag product and a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate. I was also asked to “pin” one (1) Glad Black Bag Art Auction photo on Pinterest.

We don’t have a house full of nice things. It’s been a pretty conscious decision by my husband and I to furnish our home with a variety of Ikea and Target furniture pieces, along with a few secondhand items we’ve received from family members.

We got married and purchased our house soon after. At that time, we hoped that babies would be in our future, and it just never made sense to put together a home with lots of expensive, not-family-friendly furniture and accessories. After all, we both knew it would only end up being crazily protected or just ruined because we became tired of keeping little hands and bodies away from it.

I do know, however, that there’s likely some heirloom furniture in our future. My own parents have saved memorable furniture from family members of generations past. In addition, my husband’s parents have a gorgeous collection of antique items that consists of pieces from our family’s history as well as carefully selected items that they’ve purchased over the years.

While we don’t have many of those heirloom items right now, family members have begun to share select items with us. The items we’ve received have been appreciated, but they require lots of extra care, especially with two toddlers running around the house!

A good example of items that we’ve received is a set of wooden chairs like this one:

It looks pretty nondescript, but this chair is solid wood with a gleaming finish and quite a bit of detail in the rungs and spindles. It’s also special because it’s from my grandma. As nice as it is, it’s also useful, and we keep one of them in our kitchen to provide extra seating for company.

I must say, however, that it’s not uncommon for me to look over at this chair and see something like this:

Yep. That’s peanut butter. In this case, I’m guessing it was from a sandwich that Piper opened up, picked apart and “shared” with the dog when my back was turned. I’m actually a little surprised that the dog didn’t do a better job cleaning up!

Since the peanut butter was dried and hardened, I knew this was the perfect time to try out my new can of Guardsman Purifying Wood Cleaner. I just sprayed some of the cleaner on a rag and wiped down the rung of the chair. A few swipes later and it was clean! It didn’t leave a residue behind, and the wood was as glossy as ever after cleaning it.

I was just paging through the newest issue of Real Simple magazine and I found The Definitive Cleaning-Products Road Test article. I perked up a little bit when I saw that Guardsman Purifying Wood Cleaner was rated the best surface-specific spray for wood. As it was among 345 products tested, that gives it a bit of cleaning clout!

Guardsman is running a Stop Cleaning. Start Caring. campaign featuring design star Tracy Hutson. Visit Guardsman online and share your favorite furniture picture and brief story for a chance to win a personalized design experience with Tracy Hutson, $1,500 for a room makeover and suite of Guardsman products!

Finally, the icing on the cake is that Guardsman is kicking off the Stop Cleaning. Start Caring. campaign with a sweet $25,000 donation to Habitat for Humanity! 

You can buy Guardsman Purifying Wood Cleaner for about $6 at Bed Bath & Beyond stores and at various fine furniture stores.

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf Guardsman Furniture Care and received a Guardsman product and a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.

Do you wish you could have a conversation with someone who could tell you specific ways to get your finances in order, how to get your home decluttered, how to save money and how to simply be happy with what you have? Crystal Paine’s audiobook, The Money Saving Mom’s Budget: Slash Your Spending, Pay Down Your Debt, Streamline Your Life, and Save Thousands a Year could possibly do that for you.

This book gives you specific tools on how to stop excessive spending, reduce debt and save money, among lots of other advice. Although this book is clearly written by a mom, its advice is not specific to just women, parents and/or homemakers. I truly believe that almost anyone can pick up a few pieces of valuable advice from this book.

There are 9 chapters in the audiobook, and each provides helpful advice in a variety of areas:

1. If you Don’t Know Where You’re Going, Any Train Will Get You There

2. Are the Chaos and Clutter in Your Life Keeping You from Financial Success?

3. Give Yourself an Instant Raise Without Increasing Your Take-Home Pay

4. Go Totally Plastic-Free–Temporarily

5. Coupons Are Not Just for Junk Food

6. Beyond the Basics: Advanced Couponing Techniques

7. 25 Ways to Lower Your Grocery Bill Without Clipping Coupons.

8. Going Out on the Town Without Going Broke

9. Embrace Today

The Money Saving Mom’s Budget audiobook is narrated by the author, Crystal Paine. The book clearly outlines the principles the author believes will lead readers to financial success. Hearing her speak passionately on topics she’s become an expert in helps personalize the book and definitely helped me feel connected to the author.

One key area that makes this book stand out from others in the “personal finance books by bloggers” category is that the author dedicates a good amount of time encouraging readers to declutter their homes to achieve streamlined lives. While I absolutely support this argument (really, could anything bad come from living in an uncluttered home?), I think there’s a lot of grey area in the subject.

I fully admit to having clutter in my home. Sometimes I want to get rid of everything. Most times I realize that my priorities are set in a way that doesn’t leave a ton of time for a top-to-bottom, 100% home-decluttering brigade. However, I’m feeling good with where my husband and I are at in managing our finances. After listening to the chapter on “chaos and clutter” I found myself feeling a bit discouraged about the state of my home. Then, I stepped back and remembered that this persuasion to declutter and streamline was based on getting finances in order. I reminded myself that we have an emergency fund, we’re saving for college for our kids and we have a home we can afford. Perhaps getting rid of some of our excess things could help put us in a better place. Or maybe it’s not a hard and fast rule, and the author is projecting what’s worked very naturally for her. Either way, it was a good reminder that I don’t have to do everything in the book to feel or be successful.

I have to say, I’ve been a longtime reader of MoneySavingMom.com, the website the author founded and continues to maintain. Her site is a wealth of information on living frugally and embracing the entire life that goes along with it. All in all, there’s not a lot of information in the book that can’t be found on the website, but the book succinctly and logically puts the most necessary information at your fingertips instead of requiring you to sift through the incredible amount of details that are online (although I highly recommend getting caught up in many of the online articles if you have a few hours to spare)!

The Money Saving Mom’s Budget: Slash Your Spending, Pay Down Your Debt, Streamline Your Life, and Save Thousands a Year is available on Amazon for $14.39. 

If you’re not into audiobooks you can pick up the paperback for $10.99 or the eBook for your kindle for just $9.99.