Green Options

These earrings, made from recycled bottle caps, are cute and give you a chance to tell others about the cause. Says the artist:

My designs hope to spread positive messages not only in the image design, but with the interaction you will have with others when you wear them. More importantly, they are a small donation to Mother Earth by helping conserve her resources.

You can find tons of designs on [...]

This creative artist is hot, IT, green, and canny! Jewelry designer Victoria Spleet-Lenz doesn’t mass produce. In fact, she individually hand-crafts every item with recycled aluminum pop and juice cans. Each piece is exclusive, elegant and unique.

This is a guest post by Becky Haas, who is an amateur crafter/environmentalist who also tries to make a living as a professional musician. You can also find her at the craft blog Sew and So.

I have a confession to make…I’m addicted to music. I guess it comes naturally, since that’s what I spend a lot of my time doing. So I always love it when I stumble across a craft project that uses music-related materials, like Kelly Rand’s recent article on things to do with old cassette tapes.

By this point, I don’t have too many old tapes lying around, but what I do have is a lot of CDs–most of which I still listen to. But we all have those CDs that are too scratched up to play properly, or came free in the mail with unwanted software, or have those songs that seriously tempt you to throw the disc out the window if you hear them just one more time, if it wouldn’t be considered littering. So here’s a couple of ideas for things to do with them.

My first thought was jewelry, and it turns out that it’s pretty easy to transform an old CD into that. Here’s what you need for a very basic set of earrings and a necklace:

–Don’t forget! Carnival of Green Crafts is fast approaching. Send in your submissions now.–

Out of all the items found in my recycle bin, glass bottles are the ones that puzzle me the most. I know that we can make plastic beer rings into beautiful silver necklaces and the bottle caps into pendants and pincushions but what about the bottle itself?

Glass is one of those crafts that is very elusive to me. First there is the process of creating it which involves very high temperatures, taking hot molten glass and using tools that, by necessity, keep you at a far distance. Second, there is a certain aesthetic that glass caries that just isn’t my cup of tea.

I am definitely intrigued by the process of glass making and have spent much time interrogating friends that have taken glass blowing workshops. I am oddly fascinated by it, even if I’m not attracted to it aesthetically. Juliet got me thinking with John Bassett’s glass sculptures but I wanted more. That is why I was pleased as punch to come across a group of Etsy sellers that recycle empty glass bottles and turn them into a variety of wonderful and quirky objects.

With all the media attention on "blood diamonds" and unsustainable metals, a more natural option has become necessary. Wood jewelry has been popular for many years, but as clear-cutting takes the spotlight, these options can hardly be labeled as sustainable.

The Palma Collection, based out of La Jolla, California, is pioneering a new, versatile option for green accessories - tagua nuts. The "fruit" of a particular breed

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