Fish Lips is a one woman show that is a great example of what someone can do with a little creativity and the desire to offer earth friendly products. All of their gift wraps are designed, printed and packaged in the USA on 100% DE-INKED recycled paper (with a minimum of 50% PCW) using non-toxic soy inks. The paper stock is a 71 lb satin finish which is luxurious and thick....
And yes, we are also eating the occasional burger and fries, the occasional fast-food burrito, the occasional bag of Skittles, and the occasional bag of chips. I know, every time I bribe my girls into the next leg of our 16-hour drive with another bag of Goldfish crackers, that the biggest part of what I paid for, and the biggest waste, went into that packaging that we’ll just throw away at the next rest stop....
Although in my family, we’ve been known to buy a block of beeswax just to sit on a shelf and look pretty (and be sniffed every time someone walks by it), we also adore these following five beeswax craft projects. Read on to check them out for yourself: For a natural alternative to the tin can lantern, check out this beautiful beeswax lantern tutorial from morning sun rae. Although the project works as originally presented, be sure to read the entire post before you begin–morning sun rae has helpfully edited this tutorial to include suggestions and modifications gathered from commentors....
Altering a book to use as a journal requires more than just scoring the perfect ancient tome. After you do a price check to make sure you’re upcycling trash, not destroying a national treasure, you have to physically prepare the book to receive your art, writing, and ephemera. First, remove 50%-70% of the book’s pages by literally ripping or cutting them out of the book. Everything that you’ll do to your altered book will add volume to the pages, so you need to remove most of those pages before you even start to avoid having your finished book look overstuffed....
Some things you just cannot pass by, such as a great toy hiding underneath a gross one. On a recent trip to Goodwill, my kid showed me this wooden shield. It was finely crafted, made from a solid piece of wood with sturdy straps on the back, but man, it was a mess. It looked as if it had been given to a kid to paint, and then that kid had painted one hundred thousand layers of muddy paint on it....
Hey there Green Crafters! The folks here at Crafting a Green World want to hear a bit about you. We’re wondering what you’re into. What draws you to crafting and to green crafting? Do you make things as a hobby, or do you have a crafty business? Or maybe both! We’re curious, so we wanted to use the comments on this post as sort of an informal poll to learn about you guys!...
My good friend and fellow green crafter Shannon Mulkey and I did a panel at this year’s Summit of Awesome, and it was….awesome! We felt like it was a bit silly to print or photocopy disposable paper handouts for a green crafting panel, so instead I whipped up this infographic sharing a lot of the resources we talked about on the panel. For you folks that couldn’t make it out to the Summit this year, I wanted to share the graphic here with you!...
Caitlin, the artist behind Pippijoe, is an independent designer living in Melbourne, Australia. She prints her beautiful designs on 100% hemp or hemp/cotton blend fabrics using environmentally friendly inks. She has a background in interior design and landscape architecture and a passion for textiles. Caitlin has always been drawn to natural fibers. She says that she loves “their look, texture as well as for environmental reasons. Hemp in particular is a naturally organic sustainable crop, and is very resilient and long lasting too!...
If I owe you a baby gift, read no further… …because I sewed you a baby gown out of upcycled T-shirts, and I freezer paper stenciled a TARDIS on it for you. If you have a baby gift of your own that needs to be crafted, whether it’s Doctor Who themed or not, check out the ideas below. They’re all made using recycled and upcycled materials, so not only are they crafty, but they’re also eco-friendly (and way cheaper than a store-bought gift!...
What You Will Need: Glass jars. I used 3 baby food jars. Recycled felt or an eco-friendly fabric. You could also felt an old sweater that you have on hand. Scissors Hot glue/hot glue gun Vintage buttons. If you don’t have any in your craft stash, you can make your own buttons! A black permanent marker Recycled paper. I used a junk mail envelope. Black low VOC spray paint How To Do It: Clean your glass jars....
Kids love to make their own jewelry, and these pendants, crafted from upcycled cardboard, are especially fun to create and wear. The pendants cost no money, slip easily inside a letter to a pen pal, and, if the kid gets tired of wearing them, can be tossed right back into the recycling bin. Here’s how to make them: You will need: upcycled cardboard–cereal boxes and shipping boxes work well, although here we’re using old record album covers (we made record bowls with the albums inside) template and pencil–a jar lid or other circle, about 2″ diameter, is a good size for the template sturdy scissors hole punch–a narrow one works better at punching through thick cardboard than the standard-sized circle pens or markers to decorate–I HIGHLY recommend gel pens for this project, because they work on both rough and slick surfaces, and their colors really pop twine or embroidery thread...
Halloween decorations can be incredibly wasteful, but they don’t have to be! You could buy plastic decorations that you’ll probably only use once, but with a little crafty know-how, you can whip up your own custom decorations that are less wasteful and have a whole lot of heart. Karen showed you how to mummify glass candle holders and make paper luminary covers, and you can use reclaimed tin cans to make some light-up Halloween decorations, too!...
I love having fresh flowers around the house to bring color and life to a room. This week I decided to create a vase out of recycled materials to hold all of those gorgeous flowers! With a medicine bottle and toilet paper rolls, I created a beautiful vase to bring the outside, in! What You Will Need: A medicine bottle Toilet paper rolls. The amount you will need will vary on the size of your medicine bottle....
Seriously, I have hundreds of records. I listen to them every day, everything from the Annie soundtrack to Led Zeppelin, and my little girls can handle a record player as easily as they can a cassette player (yep, we kick it REAL old-school around here), and easier than they can handle a CD player or my ipod. One of the problems that you encounter when you scrounge and scavenge as many records as I do, however, is that most people don’t know how to store their old records, and so the majority of records I come across are scratched or warped or just plain pathetic....
Have you ever come across a vintage chandelier at a thrift store or garage sale, but were turned off by it’s “blahness?” Here’s how you can update a vintage chandelier and bring it back to life! What You Will Need: A vintage chandelier Low VOC spray paint Painter’s tape How To Do It: Clean your chandelier. My chandelier was in great condition, but was a bit blah for me. Here’s what I started out with:...
Below, I’ll run you through a couple of different techniques to try, one a little gentler and the other a little more aggressive. As you will likely have expected, the gentler technique has the least cleaning impact but puts the least stress on your fabric, and the more aggressive technique has the most cleaning power but is quite hard on your fabric. That’s why I’m telling you right off that it might not be possible to remove YOUR candle wax from YOUR fabric....
Many of you responded to this declaration with something along the lines of “OMG PLZ TELL ME IF IT WORKS OMG GASP OPEN-MOUNTED EMOJI OMG!!!1!!!!” Based on these comments, I’m feeling like you want me to tell you how my experiment went. Result: It. Was. AWESOME!!! Yes, you can 100% make sea glass in a rock tumbler. It’s super easy, and it comes out straight-up looking like sea glass. Here’s how to do it....
When I discovered Lisa Solomon on The Beholder, I fell in love. I would have never guessed that embroidering a simple paint chip could look so sophisticated. Her series of paint chip art plays with the fantastic descriptive names given to paint colors such as this one, Sparrow. Another fantastic use for your reject color ideas is this colorful and functional card holder craft from Design Verb. There are incredibly detailed instructions and step-by-step photos on his blog....
Mary Jane’s Farm, a publication of Mary Jane Butters, appears to be Martha Stewart Living for organic farm girls, or those of us who wish they were organic farm girls. Usually, I have a big problem with putting one person’s name and image all over things that were the combined effort of many talented people. However, my distaste of personified brands was trumped by aesthetically charming, recycled pages awash with useful content, and the company’s dedication to recycling and alternative energy usage....
As you saw in the shabby chic coffee table post, it’s easy to transform an old piece of furniture from drab to fab. However, you don’t have to redo an entire piece of furniture to give it a new look! Last weekend, I found a cabinet that wasn’t in terrible condition, but needed a little updating. With a few simple steps, I took a boring piece of furniture and gave it new life!...
