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Do you want to try natural dyes for fabric but aren’t sure how to get the colors that you want? Here’s a list of natural dyes by color for easy reference. You know that conventional fabric dyes are bad news, but they’re just so easy, right? Pick up a bottle, and you’re instantly dyeing your fabric whatever color your heart desires! My hope with the list below is to provide you with some options to replace chemical dyes with plant-based and other natural dyes, no matter what color you’re going for....

My journey began with a super-cute Pinterest craft project: the ocean in a bottle. To make the ocean in a bottle, you–in theory–add sand, blue water, oil, and seashells to an upcycled bottle. The sand settles on the bottom, with the seashells resting on top, then the blue water, then the oil, looking just like a lovely little beach scene. Tilt the bottle, and the oil and water react to make rolling waves....

My kid loves collecting things. He has a “Collection Box” full of rocks, sticks, and tickets to various museums that we’ve visited. Now that pine cones are falling, he’s started adding them to the mix. Since we’ll soon have approximately 1,000 pine cones in our lives, I think that some pine cone crafts are in order. Pine Cone Crafts Dipped Pine Cones – Julie shows you three ways to color-dip your pine cones!...

I have canning on the brain these days! It seems like I run across tasty canning recipes constantly. Last week, I stumbled on yet another great canning idea: a Public Fruit Jam. The concept of public fruit is nothing new. Urban areas like Toronto and Seattle have urban fruit foraging groups. The idea is that there are fruit trees growing on public lands, and fruit foragers take advantage of the free, local produce....

A few days ago I came across these precious pumpkin rings from Wild Olive. The concept inspired me– the ring she created reminded me of a napkin ring holder! If you’re hosting a Halloween dinner party, or even Thanksgiving dinner, give your event a special touch with your own pumpkin napkin ring holders! What You Will Need: Toilet paper roll Book page or other recycled paper (newspaper, sheet music, etc) Hot glue/hot glue gun Scissors Orange, brown, and green crayon or marker How To Do It: Cut your toilet paper roll to your desired height....

Of course, no craft room would be complete without some good storage and organizing solutions! Here are some of the recycled ways I’m hoping to deck out my new studio. Next » Peach Crates

As I shared in the post, Nathan has offered to give away 5 copies of the digital version of the book once it is published! Here are the lucky winners (picked by Rafflecopter.com): Congrats to our 5 winners! You should have an email from us in your inbox! Want us to send awesome craft tutorials and fun giveaways like this one straight to your inbox? Sign up for our newsletter!...

Here’s another stash-busting project that I’ve been working hard on this week: covering recycled cardboard with pretty stash scrapbooking paper to use as wall photo frames around the house. The benefits of these photo frames are that they’re cheap, light and easy to mount without a lot of hardware, amenable to a plethora of modifications that will allow you to match your room or express your personality, and quick to make, letting you get as quickly as possible to the point of the project: getting your beautiful artwork out there on your walls....

Mind you, the kid’s American Girl doll is in pretty good shape. The doll’s hair is untangled, her face is clean–what more can you ask for? So I asked the kid what she found so enchanting about the doll hospital, and you know what she said? The hospital gown. The ID bracelet. If you send your doll to the doll hospital, that’s what she comes home in. Of all the possible sewing projects that my kid could possibly desire, a doll hospital gown has to be one of the easiest....

I don’t have a daily “practice.” I don’t meditate (boring). I don’t pray (atheist). I don’t do yoga (also boring). Sure, I clean and cook and exercise every day, but those things suuuuuuck, and I only do them so that I don’t starve or die from a bacterial infection or inertia. So, like all good rubberneckers, I found it appealing to read the memoir of someone who DOES have a practice....

In São Paulo, Brazil, trash-collectors called catadores collect 80 percent of the recycling in the city. These are not city employees. They’re individuals who pull rickety carts and collect discarded recyclables from the streets. The Can City folks are using the cans that the catadores collect in what they call a “mobile foundry” made from a reclaimed beer keg and other salvaged materials. You can see their first mobile foundry in the photo at the top and check it out in action in the video below....

While banana fabric might be hard to find, banana yarn is not. In fact we’ve talked about All Eco Banana Silk, a yarn whose fibers are hand crushed to get the material to spin. Banana silk yarn starts as bark from the banana tree. The bark is then soaked until the cellulose fibers are all that remains. It is then extruded into pulp and then spun into yarn. And Shangri-la Craft‘s banana yarn is also hand dyed by a women’s group in Nepal....

I know we’ve already sang the praises of hemp but it stands to be repeated. Hemp is a fast growing plant that is pest resistant reducing the need for both water and pesticides and herbicides. Hemp also helps nourish the soil right where it is planted, reducing the need for fertilizer. The fibers that come from hemp are long, very strong, and very versatile, allowing the fibers to be made into just about anything fiber related....

It’s not often that you come across a different type of fiber found in your yarn. There are only so many animal (alpaca, bison, musk ox, etc.) and plant (linen, cotton, etc.) based yarns. So I was pleasantly surprised when I happened upon tencel. Tencel is made from wood pulp that is spun down to make the fiber. The process boasts environmental claims as the pulp that is harvested comes from tree farms that are continuously replanted and the spinning process uses non-toxic solvents....

On Wednesday, I shared a question about a pop can craft, so of course I’ve had soda cans on the brain all week. Want to get your soda can craft on? These are some of the coolest soda can crafts I’ve run across! Metal recycling is actually pretty efficient, unlike recycling something like plastic, but it still takes energy to turn those empty soda and beer cans into something else....

You can upcycle it into a homemade book! These upcycled books are super handy, because you can make them in whatever size, style, and thickness you prefer. I love to DIY little scratchpads to tuck into all my bags. One of my teenagers likes custom sketchbooks with new paper but covers made from cardboard snack food packaging. The other teenager likes homemade sticky notepads from all upcycled papers. The below tutorials have all these DIY journals and sketchbooks and notepads–and more!...

Father’s Day is coming up, and just like I say every year, it’s not a Hallmark holiday if you don’t buy Hallmark. If you’ve got a dad in your life, you can just as easily make that dad feel appreciated with something homemade–and frankly, that dad should feel MORE appreciated with something homemade, if they know you at all and know how much work goes into handmade gifts. You don’t have to tell them that most of the homemade gifts on this list here are a lot easier than they look!...

Step away from the scrapbooking aisle! You don’t need those over-priced, store-bought supplies, not when you can make your own so easily, and from eco-friendly materials, too. Here are scrapbook supplies that you can make yourself: 1. aged paper. Antique paper with coffee. 2. alcohol ink. This is easy to make from old markers. 3. aluminum foil rickrack. It makes good page borders. 4. beads. Make them from recycled paper, and string them across an album page....

And the best way to do that is to spend a little extra time celebrating our national harvest holiday! Fortunately, since retailers are so busy frothing at the mouth over Black Friday, there aren’t excessive temptations to buy a bunch of plastic Thanksgiving crap. That means there’s so much more mental space for making eco-friendly non-plastic Thanksgiving not-crap for your holiday decorations! Check out the list, below, of my favorite tutorials for eco-friendly Thanksgiving decorations....

Grab a tee from your closet or the thrift store, and let’s make some t-shirt crafts! Are you getting a little bit of the spring cleaning bug? If you’re cleaning out your dresser and closet, maybe set aside some of the tees you were planning to donate and use them in some of these fun t-shirt crafts! Jersey fabric – the sort used to make t-shirts – is fun and versatile to sew with....