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Proprietress Anka got her crafty roots growing up in Russia, where sewing and making things were part of the school curriculum. When she moved to Ireland 12 years ago and couldn’t find work as a journalist she started making and selling her jewelry. Since launching Fabula, Anka has rediscovered a love for mixed media pieces and vintage and revamped components. Anka has generously offered to up a brooch or a necklace to one lucky Crafting a Green World reader!...

A mason jar full of cookie mix is a pretty traditional handmade Christmas gift. This project gives the idea a green face lift using a delicious vegan cookie recipe. Cutting back on eggs and dairy can help folks lower their carbon footprints by avoiding these animal products. The recipe in this project is based on my favorite chocolate chip cookies: Happy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies. These things are foolproof, and no one ever suspects that they’re vegan....

16 Recycled Hanukkah Crafts 1. alphabet block menorah. Upcycle your children’s outgrown alphabet blocks into candle holders, and then into this sweet menorah. 2. cardboard dreidel. A cereal box is the prefect weight of cardstock to upcycle for this dreidel. 3. CD and marker dreidel. Use a dried-out marker to upcycle it, or use a fresh maker and make spin art as you play! 4. dreidel snow globes. Upcycle empty baby food jars for this craft....

Whatever you’re in the mood for, here are the patterns and tutorials to get you started! Self-Drafted Witch’s Hat Pattern Don’t want to be locked into a specific pattern? Want a hat with a non-standard head circumference? Drafting your own pattern is the way to go, and here’s how to do it! If you’re a newer sewist, this is a great walk-through of the process of drafting a pattern–you’ll find that it’s easier than you thought!...

Our Christmas wish list ornaments have become a treasured tradition in our house, helping us remember the cute little things that are each child’s most desired gifts of the year. And since we use old, scratched CDs for the backs of these ornaments, the project is also a cheap, eco-friendly Christmas ornament craft for a cold, rainy winter morning (like this one, sigh). If you’ve got an old CD, scissors, glue, markers, a drill, and a kid who’s excited for Christmas, then you’re all set, because this year I’m giving you the template for this ornament as a free, downloadable pdf....

Upcycle your toothpaste tubes into this fresh bathroom caddy Looking for a refreshing alternative to throwing away your toothpaste tubes? This easy do-it-yourself project upcycles your empty tubes into a simple toothbrush holder. Upcycling materials like these are a great way to reuse without costing a mint. Materials : 5 empty toothpaste tubes scissors ruler clear tape hole punch ribbon or plastic lanyard binder clips Instructions : Tip: This toothbrush holder can also double as a pencil holder!...

This travel toothbrush holder isn’t the kind of fancy holder with a pocket for your toothpaste and another pocket for your floss. It’s not monogrammed, it’s not sewn from cute fabric, and it doesn’t match anything. What it is, however, is functional and quick to make. It’s the kind of travel toothbrush holder that you sew the day before your trip when you need a break from packing, the kind of travel toothbrush holder that you’ll actually use because you can just throw it in your bag, the kind of travel toothbrush holder that, if you accidentally forget it in your hotel room, won’t break your heart because you’ll know you can sew another one in about ten minutes....

Sydney and I were part of the Refashion portion of the evening, because Syd’s outfit was upcycled from other articles of clothing. You should have seen the Trashion portion, however–its outfits were made from plastic bags, inner tubes, industrial supplies, and other waste materials, and pretty much stole the show. Looking for a big-bucks fundraiser for your eco group, one that promotes community involvement and sustainability and is just plain fun?...

You need it to be soft, because you want your loved one to be comfy so that she gets that whole eight hours. Oh, and you need it to be awesome, because your loved one is pretty stinkin’ awesome. Using the organic natural flannel given to me by Organic Cotton Plus, I sewed a custom-sized pillowcase with an envelope back for my stinkin’ awesome kid. This type of pillowcase works with a pillow of any size, and I’m going to walk you through how to make it....

My Mammaw was quite the stylish lady. When she went out on the town with my handsome Pappaw in the 1950s, she always wore the best, most fashionable clothes, and she had the jewelry to match. Of course, those fashionable clothes were often home-sewn, and that flashy jewelry was often made of glass, but who cared? The lady looked amazing! When Mammaw, near the end of her life, handed me her jewelry box and the sticker labels and told me to pick out some treasures to keep (an excellent system, by the way, which worked quite well in our family), sure, I tagged the hand-painted bead necklace that Pappaw bought for her right after he liberated Rome, and the silver necklace that I’m too afraid to take out of its special dark velvet bag and actually wear....

Because you really don’t need that many hard-boiled eggs. The best reason to blow out eggs before decorating them for Easter is so that you’ll have eggs that are NOT hard-boiled. Yeah, they’re scrambled, but scrambled eggs are way more versatile in the kitchen than hard-boiled eggs are. But useful as the absence of four dozen hard-boiled eggs is to my kitchen every Easter, that’s not my favorite reason for blowing out eggs before we decorate them....

Our local university did some renovations, and in the process replaced some lovely marble countertops with… I don’t even know what you’d replace marble countertops with. What’s the upgrade from marble? Anyway, these former lovely marble countertops, now lovely slabs of marble with ugly pools of concrete underneath, went at dirt-cheap prices to the university’s surplus store, where we snapped them up, because marble. I wanted to use them just as shelves, because who doesn’t want random rescued marble shelves around their house, but the giant pools of concrete on the bottoms, several per slab, were a huge problem....

Need to wrap a cute gift in a hurry? Here’s how to make gift tags out of junk mail security envelopes in under 10 minutes. I love crafting with security envelopes. They’re basically free printed paper that arrives in your mailbox unbidden almost every day. If you can’t stop the junk mail from arriving, crafting with the stuff is the next best thing, right? More security envelope crafts: Security Envelope Business Card Holders, Security Envelope Mini Notebook Wait – but what was that about free printed paper?...

Thousands are celebrating his visit, but if you’re not Catholic, there are plenty of other ways you can use these beautiful beads. I’ve listed a few ideas at the end of this post. But before you scroll down, check out this amazingly simple tutorial. How to Make Prayer Beads Materials Paper from your office shredder Dried rose petals School glue Blender Strainer Water Bamboo skewers String Directions I make my beads in small batches....

When the blacks in my outfits start looking faded, and my black shirt no longer matches my black hoodie, and my partner’s black work pants start showing wear at the knee, instead of buying new clothes I grab a couple of packs of cheap fabric dye, and over the weekend I make our black garments look like new again. Here’s how Buy some cheap dye. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but normally I HATE Rit dye....

You should have the right to repair your stuff, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Sometimes, looking at some random broken something-or-other, trying to figure out where to even start with how to repair it, it’s tempting to think that whatever broken object that lies before you is probably actually even on sale at Target… But no! Don’t go there! (Like, ever. Target makes my feet hurt, and whenever I go there I lose my mind and want to buy ALL THE THINGS....

A good coat can last a lifetime, but coat pockets? They don’t always last, and what good is a coat without functioning coat pockets? Don’t put your keys in danger! Instead, check out this relatively simple way to completely replace a coat pocket, and sew it in such a way that the new one is much sturdier than the original. You will need: scrap fabric. I used scraps of brown flannel that I found in my stash bin–my husband was pleasantly surprised to put his hands into his new coat pockets for the first time and feel such nice, soft fabric....

At least Craft Inc. makes the process a little more understandable, if not any less annoying. Craft Inc., written by Meg Mateo Ilasco, is a handbook for the crafter who wants to start a crafty business. It starts out at the beginning, speaking first to the person who may have nothing more than an idea, then takes you through the nuts and bolts of setting up a business, to financial and legal planning, to market research and publicity, and on through production, pricing, wholesaling, hiring employees, and on and on....

Even if you do not have the artistic skills of a professional painter (as I do NOT!), you can still put some pretty baller graphics on your pieces. I, for instance, had the dream of a deck chair with a black and white movie monster theme. Can I draw Gort, King Kong, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and, my personal favorite, Godzilla? No, my friends, I cannot. I can draw a cartoon cat....

Balsa wood is a pretty genius crafting supply. You can cut it with an x-acto knife. You can color it with markers. It’s easily wood burned. It’s light but strong. Kids can easily work with it. But is it eco-friendly? Quick answer: sometimes yes, mostly no. Long answer: keep reading. Balsa wood is quick-growing, and easy to grow without fertilizers or other added resources, so, like bamboo, it can be grown sustainably....