Last week when we began A Simpler Life series and opened our windows, I started to laugh.  It was pretty obvious what the next issue was that we needed to address in our home would be:  paperwork.

When Martin opened the window, several kitchen sketches blew to the floor.  We had no idea where they came from, and we started looking around.  I couldn’t believe how much we had been neglecting the paperwork at our house as we remodeled.  We didn’t even have a filing system set up yet. It was a bad case of being the notorious pilers instead of filers.

Here’s the challenge I took on and urge you to do the same to simplify your home just a bit more this week.  I love following this strategy:

First collect all the loose papers in your house.   All of them.  Like a scavenger hunt?

Try attacking the problem head-on and gather all of the papers you have laying around the house.  Don’t read any of them yet or you’ll never finish.  Just go around and pick them all up.  Make a pile on the table or your desk.  Since our house is so small, I did it in one sweep and made one large pile.  You may want to got room by room so you’re not hauling papers all across the house.  Don’t touch anything else.  Just keep focusing on all those papers.  It’s amazing to me how many little notes and manuals we have tucked in the corners of our house.  This project should have been done weeks ago!

Second get comfortable and start sorting.

It’s easy to overlook papers in our homes when we see them one by one.  When you put them in a pile, my gosh!  You see just how much they were cluttering up the house.  Now start sorting everything in the way that best works for you.  Don’t forget the recycling pile and scratch paper pile!  You’ve also got between December 1 and February 28 to submit card tops to St. Jude’s Ranch so the children there can use them for a fundraiser.

Life always feels a little more under control when the papers are put away.  Give it a shot.  Make an Inspired Room.  Walk around your house and scoop up any loose papers, then tell us how it goes.  We’d love to know about any tricks you have.  Goodness knows we’ll be re-doing this Simpler Life project again many times at our house, and we’re all about shortcuts.

(Image by Goldsboro)

When it comes to making eco choices, I can’t think of anything better than going directly to people who lead the fight and dedicate their lives to change.  Today I’m thrilled to introduce you to Karl Wald, the founder of Mr. Ellie Pooh.

You may recall that Mr. Ellie Pooh makes handmade stationery products that are from 100% recycled materials… including a whole lot of orphan elephant pooh and none of those nasty chemicals and bleaching agents.  With such a totally unique product, I just had to know more about the man who does it all.  I mean – paper from pooh?  Here’s Karl sharing his world-changing efforts…

Karl, when people hear that your products are made out of elephant waste, I imagine they kind of hesitate.  How do you break that barrier and encourage people to consider an alternative to paper products made by trees?  

You would be surprised, most people are thrilled about the product.  We do get about a 5% OCD type who run from the products but most people come running into the booth to see what we are doing.  When they hear we are trying to preserve elephant habitat as well as give great jobs to local villagers…….bam, they are sold.  I think most people want to buy eco-friendly products, and Mr. Ellie Pooh gives them the opportunity to make a difference with their purchase.

How did the idea for Eli Pooh come about? 

The idea for Mr. Ellie Pooh came about while I was over in Sri Lanka, volunteering to take care of domesticated elephants that were in some way, hurt or sick.  While working, I met a family who was making paper out of the Poo!  Very cool, I thought, if we could just make it pretty for the western market…..it might sell.  Sure enough, Mr. Ellie Pooh is going into their 5th year.
 

What are some of your goals at Eli Pooh? 

Our goals have been the same from day one: create a demand for our paper and make poopy paper in areas where there are wild elephants, thus creating a value for those elephants which doesn’t involve domestication.  We don’t want Sri Lanka to turn into a Laos, Thailand, or Indonesia where all of the elephants natrual habitat has been destroyed, thus leading to death or domestication of these wonderful creatures.

In your option, how can supporting small non-profits enrich our lives and communities?  Why is it important? 

Mmm, supporting non-profits is super cool, anything that gives back.  Our program is far from a non-profit though.  We encourage profit in our situation.  It is imperative that people know that our program is about bringing money to local villagers.  It creates a value for the Sri Lankan elephant. Without this value, these noble beasts will definitely be wiped out.    Our program is about bringing for profit jobs to local villagers……changing the mindset of the people that the elephant should be looked at as an asset, instead of being a threat or a agricultural pest.

Where does the inspiration for your products and ideas come from?

All the props for this question have to go back to all of our workers in Sri Lanka.  We have a design team of about 50 people……all of the inspiration comes from them.

What types of paper products does Eli Pooh use for your day-to-day business? 

We use all of our paper products, from printing invoices to mailing bills in our envelopes.  Anywhere you can use paper, from note pads to pocket folders, Mr. Ellie Pooh has office supplies for you.

Do you have any favorite Eli Pooh products that you personally use?

We use our paper in our everyday life.  Something new that has come about is the use of our paper in letter press printing for wedding invites and such.  Our paper has the unique ability to emboss easily and deeply.  Makes for cards and invites that can’t be rivaled by milled paper.  

And why use Post-its when you can use Poo??

 
*Don’t forget that Karl and his team are offering 10% off their products this month with the code “hearts” at checkout if you’re swooning over this group’s mission.

(Images from Mr. Ellie Pooh)

Snow.  Rain.  Snow.  Slush.  What a yucky day in Berlin.

All I can offer you – especially those of you with sunny HOT days in the US – is a poem I wrote the first time I experienced rain in Berlin.  I have to say that the wet is my first complaint about living here.  My second would be the creepy lady who cut me in line at the grocery store and started yelling and waving her finger at me.  I still have no idea what she was saying.  All I know is that she was wearing leather pants, and she was not the kind of person who should be wearing stuff like that.  Especially in this kind of weather.

RAINY DAY
The weather here is miserable
I only have one little wish–
that I had missed that dirty puddle
so then my left shoe would not squish.

(Image and poem by Katie for Making This Home)

Sometimes I wonder:  are Martin and I more American or more European?  

Add a point to the European column today; here’s the entrance to our tarped off kitchen that will be COMING DOWN this week:

We treat the space like a back door to our house.  We have our door mat on the inside of our little bubble, and we always take off our shoes when we’re done working.  Germans always take their shoes off inside the house while most Americans tell us it’s okay to leave our shoes on (we start taking them off out of habit the moment we walk into someone’s house).

The idea of leaving my shoes on inside the house just feels yucky these days, especially when we’ve rented apartments with wall-to-wall carpet that can suck up all the dirt, lawn chemicals, and ice melters we pick up on the bottom of our shoes.

How do the rules go in your house?  Shoes?  No shoes?

So here’s a wild way to spend your day: examining our kitchen ceiling.  I promised a picture after we hung the wallpaper on the ceiling, and I didn’t do it.  (Bad Katie.)  Now the halogen  lights are up, and I’m trying to make amends, though I wish I weren’t because this picture tells me two things.

1. Our family will never make it as wallpaper installers.  It’s okay, I didn’t really like the job anyway.  Can you see the seams, especially in the upper right?

2.  Our family really REALLY needs to wash the house when we’re done with all this remodeling.  The entire ceiling on the left edge of this picture is slightly red.  That would be sawdust.  On the ceiling.

See?  Wild times, huh?

Yep, I’m going to be hearing about this one.  My brother has always teased me for being the family hippy.  After he gets wind of these habits I implement to cut back on trash, I’ll never hear the end of it.  So here I am on the altar, ready to confess.  Add this to things we do to afford living in Europe.  (Promise you’ll share the things you do so he knows that maybe I’m not all crazy.)

1. We use both sides of printer paper. In fact, our printer is always loaded with scrap paper since most of our print jobs like my poetry drafts don’t need a crisp piece of white paper.  It’s easier to remember to put new paper in the feeder when we need something presentable for someone else.

2. We wash out our reclosable plastic bags and reuse them. It doesn’t make sense to throw these bags out if all they’ve held is bread or chopped vegetables.  We turn them inside out and with a quick, soapy scrub, they’re good as new.

3. We reuse aluminum foil. If it doesn’t actually come in contact with food like when we cover leftovers or something baking in the oven, we fold our foil up and use it again.

4. We carry a reusable water bottle everywhere. Instead of buying disposable bottles when we get thirsty away from home, we pull out the Nalgene bottle we bring with us.  (It’s one of the only Made in the USA products we’ve found in Germany.)

5.  We buy tea in bulk. Tea is our primary beverage of choice, especially in the winter.  Getting tea in bulk is cheaper than almost any other beverage option, and it cuts down on waste just a bit more than using tea bags would.  Not only that, but we’re avoiding dioxins (a toxic chloride used to bleach paper including coffee filters and tea bags that can be a hazard in large doses).  This one – called Freunde Tee (friend tea) – was a gift from, well, some of our friends here in Berlin!

So whatcha think?  Would you be open to trying any of these things?  We’re certainly not experts in the field of frugality or the environment, though we really try to think of ways we can improve our habits.  With that, we’re also up for anything you might suggest we try…

Interested in more thrifty ideas?  Check out our favorite roasted applesauce recipe and our list of how we afford to live in Europe.