If you want to have a totally handmade holiday, now is the time to get started. Over the next couple of months, we’ll be posting about recycled gifts and giftwrap you can make yourself and great handmade finds for sale!

When my pal Jes from Cupcake Punk posted about making her own apple butter, I just new this was the perfect holiday food gift! We’re all about mason jars full of tasty treats around the holidays, and you know we’re into canning around here, so this seemed just perfect! Not only is apple butter a crowd pleaser, but since apples are in season right now, you can probably find local ones pretty easily!

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I have two little kids, though, and a loving partner. There’s no WAY I’m giving up the glory of Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, and heck, I’ll do my part on Father’s Day, too. And it is nice to have a sanctioned event handy to remind us to honor and celebrate our loved ones, to demonstrate our gratitude and appreciation of them. Especially when we’re honoring mothers. As in me.

Everyone in my family knows, though, that I only like gifts that are 1) handmade, 2) food (especially if it’s also homemade), 3) camera stuff, or 4) craft supplies. And nobody hardly ever gets me camera stuff.

So here’s a list of five nifty, crafty, handmade gifts that you can make in plenty of time for Mother’s Day. Just in case, you know, you don’t have a good camera store near you:

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A Fair Trade craft fair will likely include the following components:

1. craft makers and handmade artisans who utilize eco-conscious materials and practices, and, where relevant, Fair Trade and Equal Exchange principles.

2. third-party or larger vendors selling only Fair Trade or Equal Exchange products.

3. food vendors offering local and artisanal products or imported Fair Trade or Equal Exchange products.

Or, you can make your own Fair Trade craft fair by visiting any traditional holiday craft fair and only buying items that fit within a worldwide eco-friendly and Fair Trade ethic.

If you do, be sure to tell the vendors you bought from why they got your love!

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The weather is getting colder, and we have a handmade holiday on our minds! Handmade gifts have heart, are better for the environment, and, if you opt to buy, it supports independent artists! Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be posting about recycled gifts you can make yourself and great handmade finds for sale.

A mason jar full of cookie mix is a pretty traditional handmade Christmas gift. This project gives the idea a green face lift using a delicious vegan cookie recipe. Cutting back on eggs and dairy can help folks lower their carbon footprints by avoiding these animal products. The recipe in this project is based on my favorite chocolate chip cookies: Happy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies. These things are foolproof, and no one ever suspects that they’re vegan. It’s a great way to help folks see that vegan baking can have delicious results!

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All that will change this year. With four tacky wool sweaters and an easy-peasy stocking pattern, I sewed up a houseful of awesome, unique, sturdy and sophisticated stockings for the girls to…um, yeah, my mom? She always tells them to just set their stockings by the front door. So Santa can see them as soon as he walks in, you know?

Sigh. Come follow along with me, anyway, and make some stockings of your own.

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The weather is getting colder, and we have a handmade holiday on our minds! Handmade gifts have heart, are better for the environment, and, if you opt to buy, it supports independent artists! Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be posting about recycled gifts you can make yourself and great handmade finds for sale.

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Gluing junk to cardboard with the kids the other day, however, I had a flash of inspiration: that stuff in the kitchen? That smells good? That I don’t cook with on account of I don’t know how to cook? It could make my house smell less redneck!

Come on–get some glue, some cardboard, and some smelly stuff you don’t know how to cook with from your kitchen, and your house can smell less redneck, too! We’ll make an ornament out of dried herbs or seeds that can scent your house and look festive from now until spring.

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The weather is getting colder, and we have a handmade holiday on our minds! Handmade gifts have heart, are better for the environment, and, if you opt to buy, it supports independent artists! Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be posting about recycled gifts you can make yourself and great handmade finds for sale.

So you’re getting those handmade gifts together, and you’re wondering about green gift-wrap ideas! A pretty basket or other reusable container gives your present a little personality while reducing waste. Fabric gift bags are easy to make and encourage the recipient to reuse the wrapping, instead of tossing it in the trash. The following tutorial is on making a bag for a bottle of wine, but you can change the dimensions to match whatever you’re giving!

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The weather is getting colder, and we have a handmade holiday on our minds! Handmade gifts have heart, are better for the environment, and, if you opt to buy, it supports independent artists! Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be posting about recycled gifts you can make yourself and great handmade finds for sale.

A bottle of wine makes a great hostess gift for holiday parties, but the wine industry is far from green. Between the fertilizer used to grow the grapes, fossil fuels to run farm equipment, bottling, and shipping processes, it takes a lot to get that wine from the vineyard to the package store. Instead, you can pick up organic grapes or berries and make your own with a custom, upcycled labels! Details after the jump!

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