Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Camping Clean!

The Bag Lady is all about re-purposing and re-using things, and loves coming up with unique and interesting ideas - it keeps her mind active. (Well, it keeps what's left of her mind active.... she has been decidedly distracted lately, and keeps marching purposefully into a room, then standing in the center of said room, gazing around, wondering why she went there. Sigh)

She is considering going camping sometime this summer, and was almost ready to discard an empty Downy container when she realized it just might come in handy. So she rinsed it out and set about thinking up an efficient "wash-station". (This part of the procedure definitely took a lot of time, considering her current state of mindlessness.)

First, she spray-painted it black. Her reasoning is that if it sits in the full sun, the black paint will heat the water (and it does!) making it much more pleasant than washing in cold water.


Then came the hardest part.... she gave a lot of thought (when she remembered it) to how best to set up her wash station, and finally came up with these items...



And set up her wash-station.

Now, if she could just remember where it was she wanted to go camping..... and remember to take it with her!



16 comments:

Leah J. Utas said...

Brilliant. Very clever of you to set this up and to paint it black.

the Bag Lady said...

Thanks, cousin! Now I have to field test it! LOL

messymimi said...

It looks like it will really work well -- i hope you find a place to go experiment with it very soon!

solarity said...

That is brilliant! Being allergic to fabric softeners I had never noticed Downy makes such a clever container, but I have the collecting jug from a defunct water filtering system that I saved to use during water outages. If I needed to heat the water up outdoors I could wrap it in a black plastic bag. (It's sitting in the basement now, along with various other containers, holding emergency water. There's nothing like living for years with the original 1930 water main for a rural water system to teach you to be prepared.)

I hope you get to field test this in several places. Soon. With camera.

Mary Anne in Kentucky

the Bag Lady said...

Messymimi - I hope so, too! I did test it on the deck and the water warms up nicely after a few hours.

Mary Anne - a lot of fabric care products come in similar style containers - liquid laundry soap, too. Of course, it takes a long time to empty one of the original contents!
And I'm sure wrapping a container in a black plastic bag would work - in fact, that was my original idea, until I found half a can of black spray paint!

Hilary said...

How very clever of you. You could make Martha Stewart hang her head in shame.

Joanna Jenkins said...

That is VERY impressive.
xo jj

the Bag Lady said...

Hilary - that cracks me up!

Joanna - thanks!

Geosomin said...

Wow. What a great solution! I am stealing this :)

the Bag Lady said...

Geo - go for it! You'll probably come up with some way to improve on the idea! :)

Karen (formerly kcinnova) said...

Smart!

Now if only I had time to go camping...

JavaChick said...

That is a really cool idea. If I ever go camping again, I'll have to remember it!

JavaChick said...

That is a really cool idea. If I ever go camping again, I'll have to remember it!

the Bag Lady said...

Karen - perhaps some day you'll have time!
JavaChick - go camping!! :)

Crabby McSlacker said...

Love this! What a clever idea!

And really hope you get the chance to check it out soon, and often. The summer slips by so fast!

the Bag Lady said...

Thanks, Crabby! Yes - summer is half over already... at least, up here it is!