Bloggers against animal tests

Hello my sweeties,
You've already seen the new button in my sidebar, haven't you? I found it a few weeks ago on another blog and I loved the idea. As a vegetarian I'm of course against animal tests and for vegan cosmetics but unfortunately there are a lot of companies that don't produce with these guidelines. On this page

http://www.kosmetik-vegan.de/erbse/blogger-gegen-tierversuche/

you can find a list with firms producing without animal tests. It's a big help if you don't have to check this on your own for each product.
See you.

_Marie_
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memo - DRP envelope

Hello my dears,

As you know, this month everything is about upcycling and environmental protection. I'm looking forward to the next four weeks when I can give you my stuffy tips within reason.

Because I have to send a few letters the next time, I was looking for a better alternative for classic envelopes last week. After a short time I found this page

http://www.memo.de/index.jsp;jsessionid=aa9kqJJXoTaa?ref2 

and enquired about the production of this product

http://www.memo.de/DRP-Briefhuellen-DIN-C6/Direkt-Recycelte-Briefumschlaege-und-Versandtaschen/Versand-und-Verpackung/Bueroartikel.memo?groupId=4388&page=group.jsp. Instead of handling with new paper, they take scrap paper like old maps, calenders or posters for the envelopes. First class upcycling because of the avoiding of trash and making a new product out of it with less energy and water needs. This product can call itsself the most ecofriendly envelope according to the 'Öko-Institut', not bad?! A package with 100 pieces costs 6,84€, that means 6,8 ct per envelope. In my opinion it's a very fair price because you don't just help the environment but also German working places. Memo was very kind and sent me a parcel of it. Thank you again! I'll try them very very soon.

 

I found a lot of other great things in the shop, like Christmas presents or school and office stuff. But the coolest thing is this one:

http://www.memo.de/Solare-Mobilitaet-voltaic/Ranzen%252C-Taschen-und-Maeppchen/Schulbedarf/Bueroartikel.memo?groupId=17487&page=group.jsp

That's really a bag with a solar cell that can charge your smartphone or MP3-player. Great thing! Didn't know that this exists.
Great fun when browsing through the ecofriendly portal and have a great day!

_Marie_

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Word of the month 12/13

Hello my dears,
Luckily everybody knows recycling nowadays and more and more people regard such products when they are shopping. But how about upcycling? Do you know this word? I explain you the difference to recycling with an easy example:

You buy a bottle of water. The glass bottle has to get produced, therefore you need energy and resources. When the bottle is empty, you got two possibilities. You can put it into a bottle bank, your bottle gets a new life after remelt it down. That's a good idea but you again need energy for it. Instead of trashing it, you could decorate it and use it as a vase for example. In both cases your bottle lives a new life but with the second possibility you wouldn't need energy for it, so it's recycling that's even more environment-sparing. That's upcycling. You create something new out of trash. I already deal with this topic for a longer time now because the perfect combination of environment and DIYs is 

Maybe you can remember an old word of the months. I talked about my collection of sunglasses and was looking for a possibility to store them. About one month ago I had an idea and I was busy with this upcycling stuff. The basic shelf is always the same, I'll show you my version step by step. During the following four weeks I'll present you also other upcycled things. This time I used mandarins' boxes, old bonbon papers, old wooden boards and a tiny bit of color from the cellar.

Sunglassesshelf

For four sunglasses you need:
* one empty mandarins' box
* color
* glue
* 'glitter paper' [old bonbon and chewing gum papers]
* three thin wooden boards, ca. 7 x 18cm [you can take the wood from other mandarins boxes]
* 12 small spikes
* thin carton and cellotape

Let's start:
At first clean the mandarins' box, that means remove glue and paper from the sides and wipe it out. Probably there are some small holes in the bottom, so cut circles out of the carton and fill it with the tape into them. Now just choose a pretty color for painting the box' outer face and the wooden boards. If you want, you can of course paint it everywhere. When the color is dry, paste the inside of the box with the glitter paper in a suitable color, I collect these papers for years now because I think it's a pity trashing it. My paper hasn't clung at once so I put glue on several parts after the first drying again. When again everything is dry , mark six points for the spikes, there are always two points at the same height and have a distance from about 7cm, to the next two nails but you can see it better on the picture.

I made three boxes and found the perfect place to look at my favourites all the time. I hope you like this upcycled DIY and you maybe try it on your own. I'd like to see pictures of yours then! If you need any filling, here are the links to my 'bestsellers:
http://buntes-bonbon.blogspot.de/2012/07/brille-selbst-basteln.html
http://colorful-bonbon.blogspot.de/2013/11/glasses-birthday-model.html
_Marie_
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Same old story

[06.11.2013]
Hello my dears,

I saw again several TV spots about the pollution of the environment because of using plastic bags. After a few minutes you used it, it will stay for 100 years in the environment where it'll danger sea dwellers if somebody puts another trash can into the sea. You probably know what I think about this topic. I really like TV channels who interview some people about it and the people say 'Yeah, plastic bags are very bad, you should do anything against it!' and carry 10 bags in their hands at the same time. Such things just make channels a fool of themselves.

That reminds me of a very dull internship at a duller newspaper. Another girl and I should go to the swimming pool to ask girls about bathing fashion trends and make a photo of them later. One girl, wearing a bathing suit, said, she really hates bathing suits, bikinis would be much better. Well, I didn't publish it..

But back to the topic. I have a very simple solution for this problem. You can take plastic bags in the supermarket but the should cost 1 or 2 euros. With the money you could do some environment protection and the plastic bags would remain their own problems. Or another solution: There are automats for everything, why not for cloth bags?

But now I'll tell you the real story. My mum -I really like her, but concerning environmental protection she's the complete opposite of me- was shocked. Each EU-citizen uses 198 plastic bags a year and my mother wants to change it! For how many years do I tell that now? But if she'll really change it, it doesn't matter whether it was because of me or anybody else.

But now it's your turn: What do you say about this topic, have you already thought about it? If you want, you can send me an email with your opinion to blog.buntes.bonbon@gmail.com or leave a comment here. If there'll be some good ideas and you'll like my Facebookpage, I'll choose the best one and the winner gets an official Buntes Bonbon cloth bag! [Of course it isn't ready at the picture.]

          1.       Think about it.

          2.       Like the Facebookpage

          3.       Write an email with your idea and address.

Like always you can take part from wherever you are till the 30th November 2013.

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Attention, big crop!

[05.09.2013]
Maybe some of you have already heard about my fruit trees, I swoon over from time to time. Meanwhile I got three cherries, a peach, an apple, a pear and a plum. And for fruit trees it's usual to do a big crop in automn. You could use my fruits for ice cream, pies, jam, stewed fruit, syrup *bonbons* and whatever. Well, you could.

To be honest, my peach Persi [Yes, all of my trees have names] had to fight against the leaf curl. Nothing did help and so the result were 100 blooms but no single fruit.

Barne the pear and Anton the cherry are mine just since this year and so the neither had fruits. 

Riku, my apple started blooming last year in December. Maybe we can crop some candied apples for Christmas. But now?! Not really!

And so there are only three trees left and what should I say -Samu and Lilja the cherries don't like this year and show the modern bald look without leaves.

Shortly I get desperate. Six trees that didn't give me a single fruit, two of them no leaves as well.

But now it's enough self-pity, because my kind plum tree Oskar did it very well. The photo beyond shows the whole crop of my seven trees.

What should I do with them? Boil down? Freeze? Or just eat it all pure?

Next year will be better. I hope so!

_Marie_

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Virtual water

[28.08.2013]
Hey you,

Yesterday I watched a channel by choice for the first time, I just have known by hearsay before. That probably sounds a bit hard but the 'Bayerische Rundfunk' [Bavarian channel] has never been one of my favourites. Anyway I recognized a show called 'Faszination Wissen' [Fascination knowledge] about the topic water consumption and because everything about the environment is very interesting for me, I had to watch it.

You can find the documentary here: (Just in German)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrxruEPzD6g&list=PLP4hePAK6Tv5uODOlcl5MnLah2AmdH5J

For all who have no time to watch, here's a short summit.

The documentary is about the basically questions about the water consumption but it doesn't only show usual tips for water saving but also more thoughts to this theme. Who of you has already thought about the virtual water consumption? Virtual water is the water that's in all our daily products. In the new cotton shirt that has to 'grow' at first and which will be processed and maybe dyed or in the meat on our plate which drinks water as a -hopefully happy- animal, that eats feed that has to grow and it probably buggers some barns that have to be cleaned. It’s really alarming to hear that one kilogram of beef uses 15400l of water. Although I’m vegetarian this number shocked me.  

Beside all the facts the movie talked about the ‚Water Footprint‘ a kind of table that shows in three colours the water consumption of a product. In the future I’ll surely compare some products and decide the better one. Who wants to compare on his own, here’s the link:

http://www.waterfootprint.org/?page=files/productgallery

The green drops show the rainwater, the blue ones the water that has to be added, like for watering and the gray drops symbolise the amount of water that has been polluted because of dung or dyestuff for example.

I don’t know if such a table can help enduringly but I hope some people will think about this topic. Every one of us can just do a little bit but already Sarah Connor sings in Stand up ‚You know that everything was nothing at the start‘.

_Marie_ 

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Green, green, green :)

[15.06.2013]
To revisit the word of May 'nature', I chose green as the colour that will accompany us during the next four weeks. And well, it's beautifuk to finally see anything green outside, after everything was just gray.
The picture (1) shows you my new door plate. I'm very happy about the great outcome, I let fabricate the plate only for me ;) It wasn't very cheap with its 17€ price but I think it is worth! A wonderful souvenir of our finnish boys, which you can hang up without seeming to be tennielike.

Photo (2) shows to different nail polish, I really like to use. I prefer painting my finger nails with the dark one but then the foot nails get light green. I bought the light one at Claire's, it is very flowing but its colour excuses everything. And the dark one is of the brand Kiko, the nail polish paradise :)

On picture (3) you can see a lady's mantle in my neighbour's garden. Well, I probably don't have to explain more about it, just a wonderful photo. You can see how uncomplicated but beautifuk the nature is.

Photo (4) wasn't easy to take because I just have two green things in my armoire, although the colour suits everybody I think. With brown hair & something green you get somehow a kind of brightness and blonds spark with it. I bought the oversized blouse at C&A this year, if your body isn't in summer feeling yet, a oversized thing is fantastic ;)

 

_Marie_

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Floodwater

[11.06.2013]
As you can see, the 'structural alteration works' are nearly over and so I have time to do a real post again. Because of circumstances this time it will be about a serious topic that concern a lot of people in Germany and our neighbouring countries: the floodwater. The thought to loose everything at one dash is very terrible for me. Not only your whole house but also all documents, all photos and all nice memories get destroyed.

Especially a lot of people in Saxony and Bavaria have these problems and that's why my parents were in Rosenheim and Deggendorf last week with the red cross to cater for the evacuated people and the back staff. Both were overwhelmed by the solidarity that prevails here. And I'm also stirred by the way, how people help each other in this emergency. If it's on the radio, the TV or not least on Facebook - everywhere help is offered.

Also we're far away from the happening, we can help more than we can believe. Everybody of us can help the concerned people with monetary donations. Everybody should think about what he can give, I'm sure you all have unused things that can help the victims. Everybody should know that he can be the next in such an emergency.

I feel for all victims, hope the situation will be better soon and the people can build their houses again. I respect all aides!
I beg you to help. Visit this page:
http://www.drk.de/weltweit/katastrophenhilfe/hochwasser-2013.html

Every penny helps.

_Marie_

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Word of the month 05/13

[20.05.2013]
I have to say sorry that I was so lazy about posting the last few weeks and I also have to say that I’m tired of apologizing me all the time! This doesn’t mean I don’t want to post anymore that means I’m annoyed of having so less time for things which are important for me.

A blog is like a diary, you can write about everything that touches you and so you also survive the harder times much easier. Well, I think I was enough melancholic and it’s time to write about the word of the month.

is the topic this month.

Why? Because I’m angry so often because so many people just ignore it. What are we without our beautiful nature? Right, we wouldn’t be here. I engage myself in this topic for a longer time now. I think there’s no single thing that is better than doing a long walk through the forest. Well it might be better to lie outside under the starry sky. It’s warm, you hear the sound of a grasshopper, you smell the grass and you start dreaming. To make everything more perfect you lie on a ground next to a lightening road and rubbish is all over the place. Isn’t this gorgeous? Shouldn’t we keep only small places free of this and care about the animals and plants who live there?  

PS.: You might wonder why the English post is much shorter than the English one. I posted a few things that are only known in Germany or already out of date ;)

_Marie_

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