Green Options

I’ve been having so much fun with my Crafty Green Book Reviews (I didn’t realize that I had so much to say about Weekend Sewing until I started sayin it), you might be able to tell, as well, that I have been way into paper crafting lately. I have always GOT to be doing something with my hands or I am not mentally healthy, and since I forgot my Ravenclaw House Scarf project when I packed for my vacation to California, I’ve discovered that paper-folding is just about as easy to do at an in-law’s house as it is at home.

Without access to my crafts books and supplies and works-in-progress from home, I’ve become interested again in a web site I discovered a little while ago: Disaster Dioramas by Spitefuls.

Each file set contains all the components necessary to cut out and create a diorama of a given disaster—the diorama of Pompeii appeals to my Classical Studies background, while the diorama of the Titanic appeals to that Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet movie that I saw in the theater three, count them THREE times. And then I bought the two-VHS set. And I might still have that set, to pass down to my daughters, you know.

Organic Crafts: 75 Earth-Friendly Art Activities, by Kimberly Monaghan, is technically a crafting book for children, but as I played with some of the projects in it with my girls, I noticed that many of the projects had the kind of simple-looking sophistication–an effect, I’m sure, of the usage of natural materials to create the projects–that I really like to see in the projects that I, myself, do.

And so, this green crafty book review will look a little different than my review of Weekend Sewing or the Crafty Chica’s Guide to Artful Sewing. I’m starting from the presumption that many of the projects in Organic Crafts will be too simple to appeal to an adult crafting for herself, and that’s okay.

Some projects, however, are pretty awesome, and it’s those that I’m going to review.

I don’t know how or when it happened, but kids’ birthdays somehow seem to be an open invitation for non-stop excess. I consider myself an environmentalist, for instance, and yet for the past few years I’ve made a shopping trip every summer specifically for paper plates and napkins and plastic cups just for my children’s birthday party. The plates are biodegradable and the napkins are compostable, sure, and we do shrink plastic projects with the cups after we wash them, but still—yikes! And consider that just one example of the horrors that birthday party planning can wreak upon a heretofore budget-minded, eco-friendly family.

This year we’re trying for a more eco-friendly, as well as less expensive, birthday celebration. And we’re starting with the invitations—DIY, kid-created from recycled materials or from stash, and reflective of the simple and casual affair that we’re hoping to host this year.

If you’re in need of your own birthday party invitations or invitations to anything, here are some good ideas for simple, DIY invites you and your kids can create for yourselves:

A list of things that I always buy whenever I see them at any garage sale: Spirographs, Legos, comic books, vinyl record albums, Scrabble games, and salad spinners.

You can never have too many Spirographs or Legos, I craft with comic books, records, and Scrabble tiles, and you can use the lowly plastic salad spinner, however beat up or unworthy-looking of touching an actual salad, to make one of the coolest kinds of gimmick artwork around:

Spin art basically rules. Here’s how to work it:

You will need:

I looooove the Renegade craft fairs, although only Renegade Chicago is close enough to attend.

One of the great things about visiting the web sites of craft fairs, however, is the vendor list–most artists have a web presence these days, so perusing the list of vendors is one way to check out all the Renegade-worthy artists even if you can’t be there for the ambiance.

Web shops also help me decide where I want to shop in person, if I am attending a craft fair. I like fair trade, natural, and recycled work, which info is generally available at an artist’s web site, so I don’t have to feel bad about grilling a super-busy vendor in a super-busy booth on the opening day of a major craft fair.

So, nope, I wasn’t able to make it across the entire country to visit San Francisco for Renegade (although I’ll be there in about three weeks, darnit!), but here are some of my favorite vendors who were there without me:

Spending a happy Sunday afternoon digging through the bins at the Goodwill Outlet Store, I happened upon the awesomest huge alphabet blocks.

Nevermind that both my daughters are just a bit too old for alphabet blocks–in my house, we do not turn down such things as vintage blocks, painted on two sides and featuring woodcuts of a letter and something awesome that starts with that letter on the other two sides. No, my girls helped me scavenge through that huge Goodwill bin until we’d found every block we could–no W, alas, and no S, and no J, but still many awesome blocks to be had.

You know those cool illustrations in some books, that look like they’re stamped but might also have painted details, and can take up an entire page in a children’s picture book and be incredible elaborate? Those are woodcuts, and you can print them off of any old alphabet block in which the letters or illustrations are carved into the block, not just painted on, and since you’re recycling, you don’t have to worry about the ethics of crafting with wood. Here’s how:

Do you ever think I will run out of weird stuff to do to vinyl record albums? As a crafter who works primarily with recycled materials, I find vinyl records especially inspirational: they’re rigid yet can be malleable, you can incorporate the song titles and album title into your piece or not, you can cut and drill them, you can paint them, you can do things with them that I haven’t even thought about yet, and I’ve thought about it a lot.

Although my bread-and-butter is the ubiquitous record bowl, I’ve made everything from jewelry to artwork with these babies. If only I could bring to them my love of fabrics, especially the ones in those big sample books of upholstery fabric that I bought at a charity thrift store a few months ago and have been so obsessed with…

Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

I don’t have a natural affinity for interior design, so it’s taken years of work to keep finally coming closer and closer to a craft fair display that is pleasing, unique, manageable, and effective.

Two long tables with all my stuff piled on? Nobody could see anything from outside my booth, and thus didn’t bother to enter. Two big hinged display boards for vertical display? People could see them, but they were hugely heavy to haul and couldn’t actually hold much. Store-bought displays? I don’t buy new things, and I don’t pull enough profit to spend that kind of money, anyway.

And thus, over time, I’ve come to my trifecta of craft fair display requirements: 1) It must be made primarily of recycled, salvaged, or scavenged materials (just like the items I sell). 2) It must be a VERY effective display, ideally taking up little space and able to display more than one item. 3) It must be AWESOME.

My green crafting manifesto is clear about this: I craft primarily with recycled materials, and if I can’t make a recycled material work for my project, then I use primarily natural materials–cotton, hemp, wood, etc.

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.

Take wood.

Sure, Earth Day SHOULD be every day, but there’s nothing wrong with getting on board the Earth Day train on April 22. It doesn’t make you, you know, a “joiner” or anything.

And so what if we’re always supposed to be “crafting a green world?” Maybe you could craft a little greener on Earth Day. Or try something new. Or do without some awesome supply you might normally buy. Or take something weird out of your trash can and turn THAT into something awesome.

Or, since you’re already pretty green and already pretty crafty, you can just feel okay about that on Earth Day. That’s totally fine.

However, if you’re feeling extra-inspired, here are five eco-friendly projects all ready for Earth Day craftiness:

If there was such a thing as a crafty recycling Must List (What? No such thing as a crafty recycling Must List? I’m totally going to write one), vintage buttons would be at the top of that list (…and I’m going to put vintage buttons at the top when I write my list).

Not only has the entire CraftyStylish blog declared March as button month in celebration of West Coast Crafty’s new book, Button it Up, but we here at Crafting a Green World are known to love our buttons, too–check out these vintage button monogram pillows, or the felted wool weekend projects that include button-topped flowers. Flowers!

So if you finish all those up and you’re STILL craving yourself some button crafting, check out five more crafty little projects that will let you get your button on: