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Trash Panda Cleans Up Nice: Fuckin’ Easy Sugar Scrub

My sister won the best Christmas gift award last year and gave me a sugar facial scrub. And now I’m almost out. Time to make my own.  Ingredients 1 cup oil  2 cups sugar 15 drops essential oil (optional) Steps Mix ‘em up, maybe add a bit more sugar or oil depending on if you like how the consistency turns out. So fuckin’ easy.  How to use Use half a spoonful or less of the scrub to gently rub into your face til the sugar dissolves, then rinse. Use up to every other day on face and neck, every day on other parts of the body. Store in a tightly sealed jar to prevent moisture from getting in. I use a tiny spoon to get the scrub out so I don’t get water in it when I use it in the shower. It’s great for all seasons - nicely moisturizing in the winter, a gentle scrub to remove sun screen in the summer. Recommended Oils I recommend using a nice light non-cosmogenic oil since you’ll be using this on your face. Jojoba is nice if you’re feeling fancy or grapeseed will work well and...
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Trash Panda Cleans Up Nice: DIY Baking Soda Deodorant

You can buy Secret at the store for like three bucks, and Tom's of Maine for five. So why bother making your own deodorant? I'll be honest, I tried this out of pure curiosity. I wanted to see if I could de-stink myself from stuff I can find in my pantry.  Turns out the answer is yes. It's also cheaper to make it yourself. The paste version takes all of two minutes to make, and the solid/stick version takes about half an hour. Trash Panda's 2-Minute Paste Deodorant Recipe Materials:   1 part baking soda // 1 part starch // enough lo-scent/hi-temp cooking oil to make a nice paste // max 10 drops of tincture or essential oil per cup of deodorant mix, if you're feeling it Process:   Just mix them together! Skin feel:   Grainy at first, then nice and smooth Deodorizing power:   Great for everyday light use, decent for heavy use Ease of making:   So easy, 2 min. prep time Cost:   $0.25/ounce (vs. Secret at $1/ounce & Tom's of Maine $2.20/ounce) Tr...
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Trash Panda Sews It Up: The T-Shirt Mini-skirt

It's cold, and I find myself in need of a butt-warmer. A butt-warmer, much like a leg-warmer or arm-warmer, is a tube of material that covers the butt and butt adjacent areas to keep them warm. You could also call it a mini-skirt. Trash Panda had heard tales of people making such skirts out of shirts, and so the quest began. CraftyCoup, may my cousins never tip over her trash can, made a post with instructions for how to make just such a butt-warmer with a sewing machine . And as she says in her post, it is very, very easy to make. But what if you don't have a sewing machine, or if you've never made a piece of clothing before? Fear not, Trash Panda will guide you. Materials:  T-shirt Scissors, sharper is better Needle and thread Measuring thingy (measuring tape is good, ruler is ok) Elastic for the waistband  Tailor's chalk or pencil, or maybe just normal chalk The Process:  1) Find a shirt that's got:  Some stretch to it: It's a mini-skirt, it needs to be at le...
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Trash Panda Sews It Up: Make Your Own Fingerless Gloves

Trash Panda treats gloves like socks. Buy a bunch of the same kind so I am not sad if one gets lost or worn out, because Trash Panda is constantly losing or wearing out gloves.  This is easy for the normal kind, but harder for the no-fingers hand warmer kind. So this raccoon sought to make their own for cheap. After some thought*, Trash Panda had an epiphany. Treating gloves like socks...what if socks COULD be gloves!  Why not turn old socks INTO gloves?  WHHHHATTTTT IT'S GENIUS! Turns out it really was genius.  I just cut the worn-out footy parts off a pair of old wool socks, then cut the right sized hole for my thumb(s) a little below the sock cuff.  Instant gloves! I made the sock cuff the finger-facing end of the gloves because it was thicker, more fitted, and already hemmed. The looser and thinner ankle side of the sock leg** was good for my larger and less-likely-to get-into things forearms.  Since they're my socks, they're already about the right siz...
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Trash Panda for the Holidays: Catalog Christmas Cards

In this season of mass consumption, Trash Panda likes to festively push back against the terrible capitalist machine.* I do this by creating alternative narratives for the shiny photos in holiday catalogues and turning them into collage Christmas cards.  It's nice because:  Wow are there a lot of holiday catalogues laying around Hurray, let's make something fun out of media that's trying to sell shit to us Catalogs, post-its, scissors, markers, sticky labels, pretty paper, glue sticks, GO I like to make figuring out the card captions a group activity with some of my more inventive friends since I find it easier and more fun to make alternative picture narratives collaboratively. Your mileage may vary.** Here is a curated selection from the last ten years of me making these weird-ass things:  ============ * Far be it from Trash Panda to shit all over Christmas - this raccoon loves the winter holidays. But unrestrained late-stage capitalism can kick rocks along with 2020. S...
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Trash Panda Likes It Hot: DIY American-Style Kotatsu

It’s been a fucking difficult year. And now it's the holidays and it's cold out and it's still not safe to spend time inside with loved ones who're outside of your pandemic pod. If you don't have a firepit or one of those expensive outdoor propane heaters how the fuck are you supposed to make this work? Enter the Trash Panda Kotatsu. Ok, so in Japan they've got these cool coffee table looking things with a heavy blanket skirt and a special heating unit attached up underneath. You sit on a cushion, put your legs underneath and snuggle up there to keep warm during the winter. These snuggly table friends are called kotatsu.  Actual kotatsu don't really work for American outdoor winter gathering purposes during COVID because: They're real short. Like just over a foot tall. They're meant for sitting around on the ground or on a cushion. Nobody wants to do that outside during the winter because the ground is cold and wet. Also most Americans are so used...
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Dumpster Fire, Forest Fire, Easy DIY Air Purifier

It has been a YEAR.  Trash Panda hopes you've been staying sane and safe. Well, as much as you can be in the year of our Everlasting Dumpster Fire 2020 ( Update July 2021: And the year of our Great Anxiety 2021).   Speaking of fires - today's post is about how to make a cheap & effective DIY air purifier. Depending on the rating of the filter you use, it’s good for wildfire smoke, allergens, or even viruses. Parts needed:     + 20"x20" box fan    + Furnace air filter, preferably 20"x20" and with a rating of MERV 13 or higher (more on this later)    + Tape or bungee cord Tape or use a bungee cord to attach the filter on the back/air intake of the box fan and make sure to have the little arrow on the side of the filter facing towards the fan. That's it. Just use enough tape to keep the filter on there, and try not to cover too much of the filter area with tape. You can screw on little metal brackets on the side of the fan to create a more ...
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