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Basically, a new product line from big company Oilily looks suspiciously similar, from fabric to shape to the smallest facial features, to an old product line that independent small crafter Rosa Pomar has been lovingly producing on her own for years. The photo to the left is from the Oilily Summer of Love baby girl layette. The doll shown here is shockingly identical to the beautiful dolls that Pomar has been creating for years–see here for examples of her dolls from 2007....

Earlier this week, Julie wrote an incredible post full of eco-friendly wrapping ideas for all of your Christmas presents. With the craziness of the season, though, sometimes we don’t have time to create our own gift wrap, or, we just don’t have the materials on hand. All terrible excuses aside, I wanted to provide you all with another option if you don’t have time to make your own — buying eco-friendly gift wrap....

Every week in December, I’m inviting you to craft along with me. I have some projects that I’ve been wanting to make this holiday season–something Christmas-y for the house, some heirloom Christmas tree decorations, handmade gifts for the guys in my life, and a jazzy crafty contribution to Christmas dinner–and each week I’ll be featuring my project, as well as tutorials for several other projects along the same theme. Most of all, though, I want to see what YOU guys are crafting for Christmas....

At its heart, crafting is about channeling our creative energy into something tangible. Sometimes we keep what we make, sometimes we sell it, sometimes we give our creations as gifts. Wouldn’t it be great if we could use our crafty skills to help people in need? There are tons of crafty charities out there doing just that! Here are a few options for charitable crafting. Hats for Hunger We’ve talked about Hats for Hunger before, but here’s a refresher....

The Baltimore Center for Design has a utilitarian goal, one that will bring together the city’s designers for the purpose of discussion, and to provide community members a valuable resource. As an up and comer, the Center for Design is all volunteer run, with little to no budget. Though this is a challenge it has not stopped them from moving foward with all the things that a resource like this needs, all with an environmental bent....

Did you know that Christmas is less than ten weeks away? YES, it’s true. Where did the year go? Right? Well, I thought a great way to start planning for the holiday while cleaning out our craft closets is to upcycle and use up all the leftover crafting supplies. And what is a better way to de-stash them than making home made ornaments with them? With all those burlap projects we did this year, I’d figured, you probably have a ton of burlap scraps left over....

So I raided our closets. Luckily, my husband had a shirt and a pair of jeans that he wanted to donate. So I thought a drunken farmer would be fun and easy to make with them. I still had burlap coffee sacs after making the burlap fabric box and I thought of using it as the torso. If you don’t have any of these items, you can get them easily from your local Goodwill store and a local coffee roaster....

So I thought I’d replace my old ratty Christmas tree skirt with a new quilted skirt made with my family’s old t-shirts. You don’t have to use t-shirts; you can use any of your family’s favorite pieces of clothing – jeans, shirts, ties, or even baby’s onesies that were given to them on their birthdays or even baby blankets. The important idea with the heirloom tree skirt is that it includes memories of your family’s past....

Deck your tree with some super fun DIY Christmas Ornaments instead of buying new this year. You can save some money and reduce your holiday waste! This post is part of Important Media’s “More Love, Less Stuff” holiday event. This year, we want to talk about redefining holiday traditions to waste less and focus more on fun, friends, and family. Instead of creating more holiday waste, for example, what if we skipped the big box store and covered our trees in DIY Christmas ornaments?...

My kids play with LEGOs all over the house and the yard. This means that we have LEGOs ALL over the house and the yard. The kids act like I’m murdering them every time I call them over to pick up a random LEGO that I’ve found in some random place, I feel like I’m being murdered every single time that I step on one in my bare feet, and who knows how many we’ve lost to the lawnmower and the vacuum cleaner?...

Save money, eat more healthfully, and use your imagination to boost the flavor of your favorite foods when you restock your kitchen with these DIY pantry staples: bread: Begin with this homemade sourdough starter, and you’re on your way! canned goods: You know you want to learn to can. Here are five recipes to get you started. condensed soup: Isn’t canned cream of mushroom soup gross-looking? And all the recipes call for it!...

Confession: I love making Valentine’s Day crafts, because I love cutting out heart shapes! This upcycled heart streamer is a fun DIY Valentine’s Day decoration that you can whip up in under an hour. Every year, my husband cooks me supper on Valentine’s Day. He doesn’t do much cooking that doesn’t involve he grill, and I love the night off of cooking and dishes! Since he doesn’t cook often, when he does he finds super special recipes....

I don’t know about you guys, but ever since Julie posted her amazingly helpful tips on sewing t-shirt fabric, I’ve had jersey on the brain. Jersey is a finely knit cotton fabric, and just like with any other cotton, the conventional sort is not so great for the environment. Luckily, there are some great eco-friendly options for jersey out there! Here are a few: Shopping Online Green Depot has a few sweet, organic jersey fabrics in striped patterns....

Australian designer Jennifer Berney screen prints her beautiful designs onto 100% organic cotton/hemp fabric using water-based inks. Berney started her company, Formosa, in 2009 as an outlet for her two passions: the environment and visual design. She says that she favors eco-friendly materials partly because she feels it’s the right thing to do but also because they tend to be of much higher quality than many conventional fabrics and inks available....

These fabric baskets are purposefully a bit on the droopy side, because I don’t like to sew with artificial materials like interfacing. A little interfacing or even cereal box cardboard would firm them up, though, if you prefer that look. I like my baskets to look as slouchy as I am! To make these baskets, then, you won’t need interfacing, but you WILL need the following: five 6″ squares of outside fabric....

If you’re looking for fabric but in smaller quantities, Chop Chop also has a selection of some of our favorites for sale by the yard – Harmony Art Organics and Plover Organics. All of their fabrics are organic cotton in soothing colors and contemporary prints. I love the simple but bright colors found in the tulip print by Barn Organics, and for ten yards or organic-y goodness, their price is a steel....

Lisa Disciascio creates fresh, modern jewelry using reclaimed wood from fallen limbs. Each piece from her shop is more than a fashion statement – she uses felled branches from storm-damaged trees and transforms them into rings, pendants, and earrings. Her work has gotten a good deal of press lately, including a feature in the latest Real Simple magazine. Lisa is giving away a $25 gift certificate to her Starlight Woods shop (giveaway deets are below), and she was also kind enough to answer a few questions about what she does and why she does it....

1. Hooks Readymade gives us a simple how-to on turning a set of flatware into hooks. This would be a great way to use all of the mismatched silverware you find in thrift stores. These hooks can work in any room of your house too: mud room for coats, kitchen for aprons, and by the front door for your keys. 2. Jewelry Over on Ornamento, there is an easy how-to on turning a treasured piece of silverware into a bracelet....

The downside? Chalkboard paint is expensive, and I still have most of that can left over. The solution, clearly, is to create more chalkboards! Fortunately, there are loads of project and design ideas that call for the upcycling of even more useless objects with chalkboard paint, turning those items, too, into useful and beautiful new elements for work, home, and play. Here are five project ideas to get you started: My girls and I all really like to custom-paint our own cheap-o canvas shoes, but the results don’t exactly go with every outfit, especially if we go a little wild with the paint (which we always do)....

Apparently August didn’t get the memo that summer is winding down. After a very mild July, the heat has turned up just at the time when kids are heading back to school and fall duties are ramping up. When your poolside ponytail just won’t cut it anymore, look no further than the Gibson tuck. It takes only seconds to do from start to finish, but it has a breezy style that can work for anything from a quick trip to the grocery store to a nice dinner in your favorite little black dress....