Because who doesn’t want their cat to reach their full potential? Your cat and dog will surely reach their full potential when you give them some of these cat or dog toys to play with! Each project below uses upcycled materials in its making, so that it’s eco-friendly (and cheap to make!) and has a full tutorial so that you can easily DIY your pet its newest, most fun plaything:...
Fall is here and the cooler weather has arrived! My favorite accessory for cool weather is a scarf. After finding tons of tutorials for scarves, I decided to put together 5 of my favorite DIY scarves: 1. Upcycled Sweater to Hooded Circle Scarf and Leg Warmers by The Cheese Thief The Cheese Thief takes one average sweater and turns it into a hooded circle scarf and leg warmers. I love how she uses the entire sweater instead of just one piece....
I then realized I could potentially make some money from my hobby but I had no idea where to start. And I know I wasn’t alone in wondering if I should make the leap from hobby to business. If you’re considering selling your crafts The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Selling Your Crafts by Chris Franchetti is a great resource that covers pretty much everything you need to know about selling your wares....
title: “Articles " ShowToc: true date: “2025-06-26” author: “Mary Stewart” title: “Articles " ShowToc: true date: “2025-07-22” author: “Bong Smith” title: “Articles " ShowToc: true date: “2025-06-30” author: “Derrick Nelson”
Gidget recently inquired about PEVA as a possible clear plastic alternative. I jumped at the chance to look into this plastic, which I had not heard of, to see about its potential for crafting and how it rates in relation to PVC. Gidget pointed out that IKEA was selling clear plastic shower curtains and that they were made out of PEVA, not PVC. I happened to be at an IKEA the other day and was able to look over said shower curtain....
Summer is for kitschy children’s crafts. Popsicle sticks, pom poms, the ubiquitous lanyard, plus a few thousand mosquito bites are all that’s necessary for the perfect summer. Kids’ crafts, however, can compete with the eco-friendly lifestyle that we try to teach them. They want foam stickers and plastic beads, and we want them to craft with twigs and pine cones! One of the ways to teach children to craft positively is to teach them the DIY mindset....
Marchers and supporters for the Women’s March on Washington, D.C., on January 21, 2017, have inspired an international craftivist movement called The Pussyhat Project. The mission of The Pussyhat Project, which was co-founded by Krista Suh and Jayna Zweiman, is to craft a visual statement, both for the marchers in Washington, D.C., and for their supporters around the world. The iconography of the handcrafted hat, its pink colors, and its construction that gives it cat-like ears when worn are meant to call to mind conventional female tropes, and thereby highlight the specifically female perspective of the protest....
It can be hard to help kids think up fun activities to occupy them, especially when it sometimes seems as if all they want to do is play video games or watch cartoons. When I received this free review copy of 150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids, by Asia Citro, I had expected to see some fairly typical “how to occupy your kids” advice, much of which would probably be too baby-ish for my kids....
SodaStream is the perfect solution. With a SodaStream machine you can quickly and easily make soda right in the comfort of your home. I received the Fountain Jet SodaStream machine for review. I have shied away from soda machines in the past because I thought they would be complicated. But boy was I wrong. From out of the box to fresh soda took less than a half hour and that was with washing the bottle and reading the directions....
When the weather gets cold, the cold get crafting! It’s been in the teens and twenties here in Atlanta, and cozy clothes and blankets are basically all I can think about right now. You can imagine my delight when I was browsing on You Tube and came across this handy tutorial from Whitney Sews for turning old t-shirts into a reversible scarf! Normally, this is where I’d add my two cents on how to green up the project in the video, but in this case I can’t think of a single thing that needs changing!...
I’ve got a big bowl of corks in the kitchen that’s mocking me. They dare me to find a project to use them up. Well the joke’s on you, little corks! I didn’t just find one way to turn you into something new. I found ten. Take that, bowl of corks! Maybe you’ll think twice before taunting me again.
DigNSwap.com aims to be a catalyst for online clothing, shoe, and accessory trading. You simply upload photos of stuff you want to swap, and indicate a few attributes such as size, color, brand and condition. Then, you “dig” through what others have to offer using convenient category and tag based searching. When you find something you like, you can bid on it with items in your stash. If your bid is accepted, then you ship the items to each other....
Cynthia from Birch Fabrics is a Mother to two little boys, ages two and five. When she had a tough time tracking down cute, organic fabrics to make them clothing and bedding, she decided to do something about it! Birch Fabrics was born. She says that she chose organic cotton because of her family’s health: Birch Fabrics features throwback-style prints that make you think of a 50’s or 60’s beach vacation....
We hadn’t covered this topic yet, but as it turns out I’d just been looking for the same thing and recently found a great company that sells undyed hemp and hemp blends in all manner of weights: Hemp Emporium. Hemp Emporium I’ve placed a couple of orders with Hemp Emporium, and it’s always been a pleasant experience. When I ordered a batch of swatches, they arrived quickly. The last time I ordered, the fabric I wanted was out of stock, which they let me know about right away....
Crafts Kaboose has a great how-to for Seeded paper bookmarks . They are fun and very eco-friendly but definitely for older kids or kids that have a lot of adult help. It may sound easy but crafting homemade paper isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Here’s another one from Kaboose. I adore it because it involves plants, specifically herbs. Simply take a tin can, which you probably already have, to easily transform it into a cute little herb pot....
Spring is here! It’s still not too late to start your spring garden, even from seed. Whether you’re new to gardening or an old pro, we’ve highlighted some super fun garden guides to help you start growing and deck out your garden, DIY-style. Eat Drink Better’s Garden Guides Mary Gerush over at Eat Drink Better is a gardening rockstar. She has her own mini urban farm in Texas and has been sharing her amazing growing adventures over there....
Many store bought “infused” vodkas are full of mystery sweeteners and artificial flavors. Keep all those unwanted chemicals out of your cocktail and get creative at the same time! You can even go for an organic vodka. This infusion recipe only take a few days, so if you get started today, you’ll be all set for any shindigs this weekend! Here are a basic recipe and a couple of flavor suggestions to get you going:...
Generally, this makes the positives of green crafting quite clear. When I craft with recycled materials, then I know that I’m taking positive action for the environment even if what I’m crafting with was originally some sort of resource-heavy plastic–felting around dumpster-dived plastic Easter eggs to make shaker eggs or play food for my daughters, perhaps, or incorporating costume jewelry into a new piece. The ethics of crafting even with natural materials, however, are trickier, because you have to consider not just the nature of your material, but also its provenance....
We’ve created, through the ingenuity of our greatest scientists, a concoction of chemicals so stable that they will never bio-degrade. This material is a nearly ever-lasting and extremely flexible substance yet it’s been turned into one of the most disposable items our society so carelessly casts aside. Plastic has become so abundantly worthless that we’ve thrown away enough to create an ever growing island twice the size of Texas out of it; floating, as it is, in the middle of the Pacific ocean....
And if you know a kid who IS a sensory seeker? Hoo-boy, do you have a job for yourself putting all kinds of different sensations in front of that kid! Whether you’re trying to meet a specific sensory requirement, or just because it’s new and different and fun, sand dough is an interesting alternative to traditional play dough. It cooks up nearly identically, molds nearly as well, and has a wonderful sandy feel that’s intriguingly dissimilar to the smooth, soft, light play dough that most kids are familiar with....
