Tangent: it would have been cool if I’d decided to send out Valentine’s Day gifts more than 26 hours before I absolutely needed to put those gifts in the mail, but whatever. A manufactured emergency caused by procrastination happens to be my crafting sweet spot! Being as I had a few hundred other things I needed to accomplish in that 26-hour window, ahem, I made the quickest and easiest bookmarks I could think of....
The fiber for these yarns are from traditional and rare breeds of Organic British sheep. It is eye opening to learn about all the different breeds of sheep and the different fibers that they produce. Just look at the sweet faces on the Bluefaced Leicesters and the Herdwicks! The other great thing about Garthenors is that all of their yarn is certified organic through the The Soil Association. They have a whole page dedicated to the ins and outs of why use organic and why organic in textiles specifically....
I first heard about pineapple yarn via Craftzine, and thanks to their ambitious interns have learned much about this cute little yarn. Yarns made from the pineapple or plants in the pineapple family are very similar to twine or hemp yarns. They are slightly more utilitarian but are easily workable. The fiber is taken from the leaves of the plant and can be made into 100% pineapple yarn or a blend....
Cold, dry winter weather is finally starting to roll out. Did your skin take a beating like mine did? After months of chilly wind and dry air, chances are your skin needs a little bit of TLC to get ready for summer. And we’ve got DIY scrub recipes to exfoliate and moisturize you from your head to your toes. Let’s get scrubbing! Sure, you can buy scrubs from the store, but homemade scrubs tend to cost less....
You don’t have to buy a bunch of valentines from the store so that your kid can have a happy day. Let them make these class valentines themselves instead! You don’t have to buy 20 mini-packs of Play-Doh, or a bunch of suckers to impress your kid’s friends (or their parents!). Your kids can have the responsibility of making their own valentines for their own friends. It may take a few afternoons, of course, but a labor of love is a fine way to spend one’s time, especially in the creative pursuit of spreading affection around one’s classmates....
Animals both big and small, tame and wild, will appreciate these handmade animal houses, all made from eco-friendly upcycled or natural materials. Whether you’ve got a pet that you want to pamper, or you want to welcome wild creatures to a safe place on your property, you’ll find a project to inspire you here: Armoire Aviary: Finches will have plenty of room to fly in this upcycled armoire aviary. Bat House: Build a bat house that encourages bats to come live in your yard and eat all of your mosquitoes....
Play dough is excellent fun. Aromatherapy play dough is double fun! As a sensory toy, play dough is also most magical. Sensory toys, toys that really trigger the senses, such as shaving cream, oobleck, or clay and play dough of all kinds, can calm an anxious person, focus a fidgety person, or soothe a distraught person, all through the simple acts of pulling and pounding and modeling. When you combine play dough with certain essential oils, then, you can add to play dough’s sensory benefits and create a tool that can help bring about mental and emotional balance....
You can use different size plastic bottles to create an assortment of black cat decorations for your green Halloween party. Supply List: Large Plastic Laundry Detergent Bottle Fine Grit Sandpaper Black Spray Paint for Plastic Glue Gun Glue Sticks Scissors 1 Black Sheet of Craft Foam for the ears 1 Piece of Black Craft Felt for the tail Assorted Collection of Flat Backed Faceted Acrylic Jewels (I used Jewelry Essentials Jewels Item #JC11378-123purchased from Michaels for a previous project with my daughter and had a whole box left) The jewels are used for eyes, nose, inside of ears, collar, paws, and tail tip....
Welcome to the Third Carnival of Green Crafts! Before we begin, let me just thank all of the crafters who participated in this month’s carnival for taking a weight off my mind. After reading all of these posts, I now have NO worries at all about landfill space anywhere in America. Seriously, y’all, crafters are obviously the solution to the trash problem. Go us! Before we begin, a few administrative notes: We’re pleased as punch to announce that the fourth Carnival will be September 4th at Whip Up....
Scott Meeks – aka Crunchy Scott – is the newest member of the CAGW team, and we are so happy that he is here! Did you guys notice the super awesome tooth fairy craft that we posted yesterday? That is the first of many tutorials coming up from our newest writer: Scott Meeks. You might know him as Crunchy Scott from his guest post where he shared his video tutorial for making a DIY miniature terrarium....
My kid has studied ballet for around eleven years now. For that entire time, ballet tights have been my nemesis. Even that year when the leotard for her age group was pale pink and the class must have spent half the time rolling around on the floor for the way she came home every week with dirt ground into it–that year I still hated those ballet tights more. The six full years that I spent putting her hair into a high bun before every class and not a single time did she ever not complain about how I did it until she finally just learned how to do it herself?...
What You Will Need: A picture frame that has a large wooden frame. Sand paper Chalkboard paint How To Do It: Remove the picture and glass from your frame, if possible. If you can’t remove the glass, make sure you tape it off with painter’s tape. Sand the frame. You don’t have to sand it too terribly much, just enough to knock of the shininess. Wipe off the frame with a dry cloth....
Need to pack a sandwich or some snacks for your kiddo? Make a DIY food wrap, and kick plastic baggies to the curb. If you’re a regular reader here, you know that finding food-safe fabric for snack bags is a hot topic. Most water-resistant fabric is coated in plastic. No, thank you! Connie at Bird & Seed uses an alternative method to make her DIY food wrap water-resistant: she coats it in beeswax....
Got a Halloween party planned? Save money and resources by making your own DIY Halloween decorations. OK, so technically you don’t even need to be throwing a Halloween party to make these DIY Halloween decorations. You can use them to just get your house into the spirit of Halloween. When it comes to DIY decorations, I’m of the “less is more” school of thought. Don’t try to make all 12 of these DIY Halloween decorations....
Make your own DIY lighting! Take a glass lamp from plain Jane to shabby chic in just a few minutes with a little bit of lace or ribbon and the right sort of glue. When my husband’s grandparents sold their house to buy a condo, his grandma Jane let me ransack her sewing stash. We are talking decades of vintage sewing notions. It was heaven, you guys. I love Jane Frye dearly, so for years I’ve held on to these things, waiting for just the right project to use them....
Turn a thrifted men’s t-shirt into a cute DIY sequin top. No sewing required! You don’t need sewing skills to make a DIY sequin top. T-shirts are made with jersey knit fabric. Unlike woven fabrics – like the sort used to make most button-up shirts – knits don’t fray when you cut them. That means no hemming or sewing! This DIY sequin top by Ann at I Love to Create uses fabric glue to add the sequins....
Curb crawling: The art of driving slowly down residential streets in search of discarded furniture, TV’s, or even large boxes or broken lumber to be used or repurposed elsewhere. Would you stop and pick up an interesting metal item from a sidewalk? Would you hesitate to snag a broken lamp or busted VCR from the curb? Would you go so far as to reach into a dumpster behind a store and remove something from it?...
Now you can take a virtual walk with me through a few of my favorite festival crafts… It never ceases to amaze my inner child when I see someone has taken funked out metal parts and welds them together to make whimsical creatures. This flying bird monster & friends looks like it all began with a tiny BBQ propane tank. In the same booth as the flying spaghetti monster I discovered these gorgeous boxes made from Elephant Poo....
To offer a unique and green approach to the gift wrap industry Gift Bags Gone Green have created fun and funky fabric gift bags that are washable and reusable. The bags are not only green because they are reusable but they are made from upcycled, reused, and vintage fabrics. These bags are not mass produced, once a fabric design is used up their will be no more bags of that design....
We’re huge fans of second hand fabrics over here. We love scouring thrift stores and estate sales or rifling through rummage bins for fabric remnants that just need a little love to have a whole new life. Whether we’re talking zippers or revamped neckties, there’s nothing like finding something second hand and repurposing it into a fun project. Upholstery samples are an awesome, free (or very inexpensive) source for high quality fabric....
