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You want your kid to love math. You want your kid to be good at math. The junk that you could buy to make this happen is unbelievable. Computer games, plastic counters, fake money–FAKE MONEY, people! Seriously, you want to buy plastic pennies? Here’s a buck; let me show you how easy it is to come up with 100 real pennies. If you want your kid to love and be good at math, but you’re not interested in unleashing more plastic pennies onto the world–or you just don’t want to spend your hard-earned money on junk like plastic pennies–then you’ll love these great ideas for math games, projects, and activities, all made from natural and recycled materials....

“This bouquet is so beautiful!” you said. “I’m going to dry all these flowers!” you said! Awesome! … Now what? I had to panic search a billion dried flower crafts when my ten-year-old came up to me last week with a full flower press and an eager face. I am never not multi-tasking, though, so I saved all my most favorite ideas to share with you! (Note: I want to make ALL of these, so if you make something from this list, feel free to make two and send me one....

If you’re hyper-vigilant about eating only locally-grown, organic foods, do you care about the passage of food safety laws for factory-made canned goods? If you homeschool your children, do you care about who sits on your local school board? If your primary work is homemaking, do you care about Social Security? Author Emily Matchar, in her book Homeward Bound: Why Women are Embracing the New Domesticity, figures that you probably don’t care about any of those things, and that sucks....

1. Fabric Scrap Banner Bunting is one of my favorite projects to make with scrap fabric. It’s lovely hung in your spring garden or around your home. You can even make pretty, themed bunting to decorate for holidays and special occasions. Here’s a quickie tutorial for making your own bunting from scrap fabric. Next » Fabric Doillies

Painting art blocks is the latest thing that we’ve been doing with our building blocks. We’ve created everything from abstracts to architectural components, from features of earth and sky to active scenes of life, all to add interest to my children’s already interesting block play. Painting your own building blocks is another surprisingly simple project that’s also full of impact- my favorite kind of project. Here’s how to do it: You will need:...

Shenzhen-based performance artist Brother Nut decided that Beijing smog had potential as an artistic medium. So he spent one hundred days in the capital city literally collecting polluted air. He bought an industrial-strength vacuum, and walked around Beijing with it running, collecting airborne dust. He took this dust, mixed it with red clay, and made a brick. Performance artists usually don’t get to the A list, but, apparently Brother Nut (who’s real name is Wang Renzheng) has made quite a name for himself in the Chinese capital....

Just last week we were talking about your scrap bin as a fabulous, free fabric resource. Today, I ran across yet another amazing project for those little scraps: Miss Prickly’s Patchy Belt! I just love the color combination she chose. This project would be great for those pesky long and skinny scraps. I never know what to do with those! You can head on over to her site, My Inner Old Lady, for the deets, including a fabulous tutorial complete with helpful photos....

Kids can easily decorate them with stickers, scraps of old wrapping paper, cutouts from old greeting cards, foam shapes or anything on hand in the craft box. The boxes can be decorated in so many ways and are the perfect size for gift cards. Stuff the box full of tissue and slide the gift card in, that way the receiver still gets to open a gift not just a card....

The German company, Westfalen Fabrics has a very long tradition of producing organic fabric. Westfalen organic fabrics are compliant with Oeko-tex Standard 100. They are free from formaldehyde, synthetic dyes and PH neutral to the skin. For other colorful organic and sustainable fabrics see: Organic Cotton by Harmony Art Umbrella Prints Mod Green Pod [Images courtesy of Yvonne, Bunte Fabrics LLC]

Okay, I DID find just one more cardboard record album cover craft to make with my scraps–reusable DIY chalkboard gift tags! These reusable DIY chalkboard gift tags came together in just minutes, from the scraps leftover from making my latest batch of album cover bookmarks. I’ll be pretty excited to have them already in hand when the gift-giving season really starts rolling, and since they have a chalkboard side, we can use them over and over again....

You might think of drapes as those heavy velvet beasts that hide the windows in your grandma’s parlor, gathering dust and waiting for Scarlet O’Hara to come along and upcycle them into a dress. Drapes, however, do more than just look pretty (if you just want something to look pretty, you want curtains!). Drapes are lined, usually with a specifically light-blocking fabric, but any tightly-woven fabric will do in a pinch....

Got an old chair that could really use some love or a bench that would be perfect if only the cushion weren’t covered in a horrible, dated fabric? Don’t despair! We’ve got some DIY furniture projects to help you transform that damage or outdated piece into something you’ll love. Whether you need to fix up a piece you’ve had for years or you found something at the thrift store with great bones but a few fatal flaws, revamping furniture is a gratifying experience....

Etsy has a great assortment of eco-friendly Halloween finds. If you’re planning a party, putting up decorations or just looking for fun green Halloween decor, you’ll find cute, handmade and eco-friendly goodies galore. If you’re planning a kid friendly party, these eco-friendly postcardsprinted on heavy duty recycled cardstock by MonkeyMindDesign09 would make great invitations. Need Halloween treat bags? Upcyled Planet Creations make these cute Halloween treat bags out of recycled paper and leftover craft scraps....

Committed to ethically responsible practices for the health and well being of people and the planet, Indika Organics also tries to educate people to the impact that they and others have when making consumer choices. In the production of their fabrics they use plant and vegetable dyes as well as low impact dyes, talking the talk and walking the walk. They offer several collections of organic fabrics. The Environmental Sheeting Collection is 100% organic fabric and ranges from bold to minimal patterns....

Cameron prints on two types of fabrics: a cotton/linen blend printed with environmentally friendly inks, and a new hemp/organic cotton blend. The cotton/linen blend isn’t as green as we usually look for in the Fabulous Fabrics series, but Cameron is definitely making efforts to green her fabrics and we respect that. It isn’t always easy or possible to green everything overnight! Kirin & Co sells fabric by the metre as well as in fabric packs....

My little daughter is a self-styled princess, sure, but she’s more of a fairy tale princess, a Princess and the Pea princess. Her contexts for Cinderella and Snow White are completely different, and she doesn’t know who Belle and Jasmine are at all. I do, however, love myself some Family Fun magazine. It’s part of the great Disney war machine, and I was not pleased when each issue began to include an entire page of Disney worship, but the magazine itself is just my speed–quirky, thematically appropriate, cheap craft projects and hands-on activities for active children....

1. Bean Bags Bean bags are a staple toy every kid should have. They’re great for playing games or just tossing around. All you need are some felt and fabric scraps and some beans. Whimsy Love gives us a great tutorial for a simple bean bag with a reverse applique design. It would be great to make a set of the 26 letters using this reverse applique technique and develop a spelling/letters game with your kids....

The possibilities are endless when it comes to applying these techniques to recycled paper. Aging paper can be a fun and simple project to add a beautiful aged look to your work. Which method is your favorite? I would love to see your aged paper and what techniques you used! Feel free to leave links to your projects in the comments.

FreeSewing.org is an open-source platform for user-created made-to-measure sewing patterns. I’ve worked with user-created sites before and I love them (I still miss you every day, Craftster!), but the open-source part was new to me, and it took a while to get used to it. I’m still just a baby with the open-source stuff, but just the 1% I understand has revolutionized my sewing! After you create a free account for FreeSewing....

Folks in Betsy’s department at Goldsmiths College in London where she earned her M.A. in Sociology called her “the girl who knits.” Her dissertation was on knitting, DIY culture and community development. She was frustrated with the lack of outlets for activism and turned to her knitting to make a difference, coining the term craftivism in 2000. She launched craftivism.com in 2003. The site includes an extensive definition of craftivism along with Betsy’s personal blog....