Where does the compassion come in? Veganism is all about compassion: choosing a cruelty-free lifestyle and supporting animal rights. I think that compassion extends beyond what we choose to eat, wear, and craft with, though. It’s about being compassionate to other people and to ourselves. Did you accidentally make a purse only to realize later that it has shell buttons? Don’t beat yourself up! You’ve learned something, and you did your best....
“Our organically grown naturally dyed yarn is colored with plant dyes and due to their organic nature some shade variation will simply add to the yarn’s unique inherent beauty,” says the Rowan website. Along with the release of the eight-shade color palate, Rowan has released a pattern brochure with 18 designs just for their PureLife yarn (10 for women, 4 for men, 4 for girls). The bulk of Rowan’s pattern for their organic yarn are sweaters with beautiful yet basic details, but don’t let that limit your imagination....
We love glass jars around here! They’re durable (unless you drop them), versatile, and with a little bit of love, you can turn them into all sorts of fun things. I’ve been brainstorming glass jar projects for the upcoming mason jar craft competition here in Atlanta, and I’m loving all of the awesome crafty ways that folks are reusing glass jars. Of course, there are lots of glass jar options besides mason jars....
11 Upcycled Garden Decorations 1. bowling ball gazing ball. If you don’t want to buy new glass marbles for this project, use broken tile and grout to make it a mosaic ball instead. 2. brick plant markers. These plant markers are so lovely that you won’t believe how simple they are to make! 3. cinder block mosaic. I can’t be the only one who has random cinder blocks, right? I mean, where do they all come from?...
Add some homemade love to the holidays! As we prepare to gather together this month, there are tons of fun things that we can do to make Thanksgiving even more festive. Kids will love having a craft project to distract them from all of the excitement, and the personal touches that you can only find in homemade decorations will let all your guests know that they’re special. And as a bonus, whether it’s kids’ crafts to decorations to tablescapes, this list of beautiful Thanksgiving crafts all include natural materials: 1....
Are you sick of the junk mail stuffed into your postbox? If you can’t get the flow of junk to stop, try out some of these junk mail crafts! In the U.S. alone, we sacrifice over 100 million trees every single year for crappy junk mail. Any catalog you didn’t sign up for, credit card offer you didn’t ask to receive, every book of coupons you’ll never use qualifies as junk mail....
Light switch covers and outlet plates probably aren’t the first–or tenth!–thing that you think of when you contemplate your next big room makeover. But they are one of the million little choices that can make a big impact on not just your room’s overall look, but the eco-friendly (or not!) path that you took to get there. When considering the global waste stream, the most eco-friendly choice will almost always be to keep what you already own… even if that thing is made from plastic, and even if it doesn’t match anything in your newly-remodeled room....
Sharks are the coolest. I mean, you know that, right? Even with their role as the villain in, like, every ocean-related blockbuster other than Titanic, they are 100% the coolest, most amazing, most beautiful ocean animals. If you ever let me pin you down at a cocktail party, I can bore you with plenty of shark facts to prove this well-studied opinion. I’m happy to pull up the 14 living orders of Chondrichthyans on my phone so we can browse their tree of life together....
AND, because I’m a procrastinator, I actually compiled the entire thing the night before I needed to mail it. It was all of the internet’s free Halloween printables to the rescue! Yes, you CAN utilize printables in an eco-friendly manner. Here’s our longer post detailing how to solve the printables dilemma, but the two most important points are low-impact ink and reclaimed or recycled paper. Add to that a plan for disposing of your printer at the end of its life, and you’re good to print all the printables that your heart desires!...
Mother’s Day is May 14! Get a jump on your mother’s special day with these eco-friendly, DIY Mother’s Day gifts: 1. altered Altoid tin. This would make an excellent travel notepad for a purse or backpack. 2. bath salts. Homemade bath salts aren’t a great gift for me, because they just remind me that I have to clean the bathtub, but maybe there are mothers out there somewhere who aren’t haunted by the dirty bathtub....
These eco-friendly Halloween crafts, however, have NONE of that nonsense. You’ll love how awesome and unique your Halloween decorations are, and the environment will thank you for not adding one more sweatshopped plastic piece of junk to the landfill in November. Check out this list of my own favorite eco-friendly Halloween crafts, and get inspired! Upcycled sugar skull candle holder. I used empty Crystal Head vodka bottles (hiccup!) for this project, but your thrift store or local Freecycle might have other options for skull-shaped glass bottles....
In case you’re not feeling super inspired, here’s a roundup of upcycled bunny crafts for Easter to get you going. 5 Bunny Crafts for Easter Make Recycled Bunny Ears This bunny ear project from Threadbanger calls for faux fur, but they’d be just as cute made from reclaimed or organic fabric. Download the bunny hood pattern over at Threadbanger! Big Head Felt Bunny This simple, felt bunny would make a perfect basket stuffer....
Pumpkin Coach: MUCH easier than a typical Jack-o-lantern, this pumpkin coach from Frugally Blonde is also much fancier! The wheels are made from bent wire, and although the coach doesn’t have to be painted silver, it would certainly be a lovely canvas for all your spare beads and baubles and glitter, because when you’re talking about royal coaches, then the fancier, the better. Hammer-and-Nails Jack-o-Lantern: A terrific activity for preschoolers, pumpkin pounding involves giving a kid a hammer, some nails, and a pumpkin....
The Ready To Go Blank Canvas Book is a great craft project that can be used to create memories, gifts and more. My problem is that I have a blank canvas in front of me and I can’t decide what to do with it. Do you ever get caught up in the purity of a pristine piece of blank paper? That’s kinda how I feel right now. I am daunted by the options for this beautiful blank book....
So the challenge again, is to do your best to not purchase any new craft supplies for the month, and only use what you have. Show off your stash busting skills by putting your awesome creations in the Stash Busting Flickr pool. Each week of April, we’ll highlight a project or two, so be sure to include the materials you used from your stash. For even more stash busting fun and inspiration, sign up for Swap-bot’s April Stash Bust Swap!...
I’ve tried crochet and knitting, but nothing quite does it for me like macramé. The obsession began at age 9 with embroidery floss friendship bracelets. During my teenage years in the 90’s, hippie hemp jewelry was all the rage, and I found myself once again knotting away at lengths of string safety pinned to my pants. The practice became a victim of trend, and fell out of favor as the modern craft movement emerged....
I’m all about baby steps and not beating yourself up about what you’re not doing. Living an eco-friendly lifestyle is all about the choices you make. I think you should give yourself high fives for what you are doing, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea to look at your choices and see where you can improve things, right? Right! I’m going to talk a little bit about my own business, and where I’m doing well and where I am still sorting things out in the green department....
A handful of sand, the choicest of clam shells, rocks worn smooth by the waves, as much driftwood as your trunk will hold- any of these free natural objects make for timeless, treasured souvenirs. But how can you record something just as precious, but just the opposite of timeless? How can you take home and treasure something as ephemeral as a footprint in the sand, or the smallness of your child’s hand the day that she first saw the Atlantic Ocean?...
You can fix that. Learning to repair your clothing is a great step to take in making your life more eco-friendly–every knee you patch is a new pair of pants that you don’t have to buy. There are many right ways to go about patching your pants: Just mend it. If what you’ve got is a rip, not a hole, then follow the correct steps to mend the ripped pants and forget a patch!...
Wood-burned building blocks! Kid-made weapons! A quote painted on a wall!! But enough about me. Let’s talk about YOU. Based on Crafting a Green World’s super scientifical Site Stats, here (in descending order) are your favorite posts of the year. Here’s our best of 2015! 10. Mother’s Day Crafts: Make a “Jar of Love” for Mom The nice thing about this Jar of Love is that it isn’t really just a Mother’s Day–or Father’s Day!...
