A Green Post: Crafty with Coffee

There’s ordinary St. Patrick’s Day stuff happening around our house. Lucky Charms as a special treat, drawing rainbows, green clothes and accessories, maybe a Shamrock Shake. Mostly I’m so happy that my sweet Irish-American husband is home from a month of travel that I just want to sit and look at him and celebrate the fact that he is the one putting the kids to bed tonight.

So instead of sharing anything exciting that’s holiday specific, I’ll tell you what I’ve done over the past month of getting through days knowing that I had to stay awake long enough to do bedtime myself. It happens to be a “green” post. Not crafty in a creative way, but easier for people who like experimenting with things.

Adrianna and I are both coffee-loving fools. Lately I’ve been hitting my max three cups a day. I lovelovelove my Keurig coffee maker– every cup tastes fresh and I’m not trying to guess how much to make for later and then dumping half a pot in the afternoon. A different flavor for each cup if you like. What I don’t love is the cost of K cups. It’s way less than Starbucks, but way more than the cost of brewing a pot on a per-cup basis. And then there’s the thought that I’m generating a lot of plastic trash. I have the reusable K-cup thing-y that came with my machine, but I don’t enjoy cleaning it. My dad was actually the one to tell me about these – caps that would make the K cups reuseable.

Have you taken a K cup apart? There’s just coffee and a tiny filter in there. It’s not all that fancy, really. Once you peel the top off, rinse it, let it dry and then it looks like this. Kinda cute.

The caps come in set of three with a brush. My third cap is red. Was avoiding a Christmas color scheme here by leaving it out.

I don’t really use the brush to clean the cup, I just use the spray setting on my kitchen faucet. The full-stream setting punches a hole in the filter, but the spray setting cleans it pretty well. I only use the brush to take the cap off after it’s been brewed.

Every time you re-use it the machine punches a new hole in the bottom. So, it looks like two holes were almost on top of previous ones…  looking like I’ve re-used it 7 or 8 times?

If you’re thinking of trying these, definitely check the model number of your machine and look at the compatibility. Machines vary. For me, this has been a huge money saver, and makes me feel better about not tossing so much. For recycling, they should be deconstructed anyway- and now I’m an expert at it.

If you haven’t read this post from last Friday, you’ve got one more week to enter the giveaway. Hope yours is a great weekend!