Bullshit Crafting Product: 002 Toilet Paper Tubes

I was inspired to see if my cotton seeds were still viable, so I put one in a sawed-off water bottle filled with soil to see what would happen. After watering, it sprouted in a matter of days. Truly a miracle since these seeds may very well be 5 years old or older. I can't remember the last time I went picking cotton bolls in my father's garden. When the sprout grew large enough to transplant, removing it from the bottle was very difficult. I had to slice the bottle down both sides to get it out and I'm pretty sure I damaged some of the delicate roots. By this time I had tried sprouting a few more seeds in the same way, and they did not survive the transplant when it came their turn, though I suspect one fell prey the the moth grub problem my patio has.

I would not have even bothered using the plastic bottles, but I have a shitton of them already prepared left over from a student experiment with plants. At the end of the experiments, I eventually had to get to work cleaning out the plastic bottles so I could recycle them. During the grueling work I had ample opportunity to reflect on whether or not repurposed bottles were the way to go. Would my students have used as many water and soda bottles in the first place if I hadn't told them they needed to bring some for an assignment? Was there really any environmental benefit to using the bottle as a pot before recycling it? We already had to rinse them once to use as pots, and then rinse them again so we could toss them in the recycle bin. What a waste of water! There has to be a better way, and I think I found one on Pinterest. What a great idea, using toilet paper tubes as seed starters. You can transplant your seedlings without un-potting them and the paper tube will decompose easily in time. Furthermore, I've always been a little dubious when I toss tp tubes in the recycle bin. These things aren't made out of the greatest paper pulp quality, and I can't imagine they recycle into anything very well anyway.

I did a little bit of research to see how other people were starting seeds. Thanks to the nosy nature of Google (second only to my grandmother) I started getting eBay ads for rolls of toilet paper. It's a thing friends, and I'm not even the only one who has noticed. Now why in the world would someone be willing to pay for and ship bulk toilet paper tubes? In my heart I hoped it's because everyone is really getting into gardening and need tubes for a massive amount of seed starting. Pinterest, well aware that I was showing interest in toilet paper tubes, showed me far more impractical applications that really pushed the boundaries of taste.

Adults are seriously making home decor out of toilet paper tubes. Mostly, the end products really, most definitely, look like they were made out of toilet paper tubes. Like, if someone invited me to their house, showed me their toilet paper tube wall art, and asked me to guess what it was made out of, I would instantly say toilet paper tubes. One of the problems in disguising this art form is that the most common design element is the simple squashed-tube shape which makes
a leaf-like design. It really, really just looks like a squashed toilet paper tube.

One way to disguise the material is to paint it. The problem with toilet paper tubes is that the crummy pulp the tube is made of is pretty absorptive and it's fuzzy, paper-pulpy nature often shows through. Even if it's painted with many layers or given a good dose of spray paint, it still looks like a painted toilet paper tube. Glitter seems to help, but I'm not an advocate of glitter-based solutions.

Some toilet paper tube art uses paper quilling techniques to add diversity to the shapes and patterns your art can take. However, the cardboard that is used to make toilet paper tubes isn't very forgiving. It's really crappy quality, and should be. It's a toilet paper tube. If you try to fold, bend, or roll this material, it tears, crumples, and frays easily. I'm not just imagining this either. I got roped into making party favors once with these things, and it's not easy. Considering what a frustrating craft material toilet paper tubes are, and their terrible quality, I don't know why anyone would put so much effort into something that is going to fall apart.

People with far more patience and skill than I have done some truly impressive things with toilet paper tubes, but you probably aren't one of those people, let's face it. I can see a theater set designer pulling off some impressive faux wrought iron using toilet paper tubes, and to me, the stage seems to be where this skill belongs. Up close, it's obviously toilet paper tubes.

Most likely will not be
used for actual canning

There are enough bottle caps in landfills,
Why do we need pre-decorated ones?

At the very least, craft stores haven't found out about this trend yet and started selling better quality vintage paper rolls like they do with those Ball jars and bottle caps of all things. So, while I have a lot to complain about, these toilet paper tube creations are actually repurposing trash.

Bullshit Scorecard

It still looks like toilet paper tubes	-5
Environmental friendliness...I guess	+5
Durability	-5
Grand Total	-5

Bullshit Crafting Product: 001 Decorative Cotton Bolls

Oh what serendipity. I'm in the middle of processing, dyeing, and spinning the cotton that my father and I have grown ourselves. I've also been researching this wonderful fiber to better understand how to do all of these things to it. Then I run into these things, real cotton bolls tied to a wreath or tied to floral wire in a spray. You would think I would be excited about seeing these things, like, "Oh hey, here's a thing I'm totally into right now, made into home decor! I should decorate my house in cotton bolls and then everyone will call me "The Cotton Gal', and I'll be all about that cotton all the time. Oh that wacky LuRo and her cotton!"

Certainly a Good Use of Materials

Lately I have been posting away about my dye experiments with cotton lint, but I'm up to other things as well you know. I made the mistake of liking penguins as a child and people still keep giving me penguin things. I'm not about to start another "thing" ever again. Anyway, being into other things, I reluctantly made a trip to the nearest craft store because there was a thing I needed.

To get to the thing I needed, I had to walk through the now requisite bins and shelves of things that are not crafts. The cotton wreaths and sprays were one of the many non-craft things that were there. Oh sure, you could incorporate those sprays into a floral arrangement, or you could embellish the wreath with other bullshit, but we're cutting really close to Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade territory, and at least she has the excuse of needing to feed herself and her family. No one needs to glue shit to a wreath under such duress that you have to buy a pre-made wreath much like how Sandra Lee makes cake out of pre-made cake.

So instead of moving on with my errand and ignoring the garbage, I stuck around to inspect it because I'm an asshole and love being mad about inconsequential things. The wreath already had a dead mosquito embedded in the fibers. Lovely. Now imagine this thing hanging on your front door or in your house for a season, getting covered in dust and accumulating spiders. How the hell are you going to clean it? Smacking the dust out or vacuuming up the cobwebs would destroy it.

Don't even ask me if I touched it because of course I touched it. It's made of real cotton bolls, and yeah, I kinda pulled the fibers out a little. It's not the greatest cotton. The staple length is pretty short but it is very white. At the price of $29.99, it's certainly not cost effective to rescue the cotton in the wreaths to spin them. The tag also says its made in China, but who knows where the cotton was actually grown, but it was grown somewhere, and in that place the soil was tilled and watered and cotton was planted. It was harvested and instead of being used for making fabric, cotton balls, or topping of the tips of ear swabs, these bolls got sent to some factory where they got tied up to a wreath or twigs of floral wire so that you can display it in your house for a limited amount of time before it gets dirty and ends up in a landfill. It was pretty crappy cotton, so maybe it was going to get tossed anyway, but considering how white and attractive the bolls are, I think not. There's a chance this crap was grown specifically for this application. What a waste.

Anyway let's wrap this up:

Bullshit Scorecard

Dubious qualification as crafting supplies	-5
Great spider-house	-8
Bizarro misuse of materials	-8
Grand Total	-21