Recycle!

Have you ever watched this video http://www.storyofstuff.com/? I ran across it on a blog I read awhile back and it really shook me up. I think I already knew a lot of what it said already but really liked the way she put it all together in one great big scary story.
And if it doesnt scare you then it should. We people as a whole are big wasteful creatures and we should all wake up and do what we can about it. I have slowly over the years tried to change my habits. Now I tend to save everything. D makes fun of me sometimes by holding up some part of a food package and asking "Do you want to save this?" Nine times out of ten I do. Its amazing how many things you can reuse if you just put your mind to it.
One of my latest projects involved ten old holey stained t-shirts and a piece of latchhook canvas. Upon moving here I really felt the need for a nice bath mat. Sure you can fold a towel and set it on the floor but I prefer a nice thick mat to set my toes upon after leaving the bath. So I set to work making myself one. First I cut a piece of canvas to the size I wanted with a little excess going each way. THen I counted my squares down one side and across the bottom, multiplying to get the whole number of squares in my piece. I felt this was an important step as I was using a mix of colors. I wanted to make sure I had enough strips cut before I started so I could mix them well and have a nice color balance. After determining the number of strips I needed (appr 5,000) I started cutting my t-shirts into tiny strips (about 1/2 inch by 4 inches) This took me three days. And yes, I know I'm crazy. After the strips were cut I just hooked them onto the canvas in the same way you would make a normal latch hook rug. I think it is so much nicer than those yarn latch hook rugs. It comes out nice and thick and very heavy. Its made from pure cotton (depending on the tshirts you use) and it just looks really good. Now I do have to admit I wasnt sold on the mix of colors I used. Granted they do match the colors of my bathroom to a point but I would have prefered a darker mix. I might just throw it into the next dark red dye bath I have going and see how it turns out. Until then I think it will do as is. What do you think?