Green Options

One of my favorite things about working with all kinds of vintage papers is the way in which a unique paper can completely change a project for the better.

For instance, you could make a serviceable bookmark out of any piece of cardstock, but that’s all that you’d have in the end–a serviceable bookmark. But make this same bookmark out of the cover from your favorite (though now sadly scratched) vinyl record, or the box that your favorite cereal or pizza comes in, and you’ve got a personal, original, graphically outstanding bookmark.

And it’s still serviceable.

It’s an old-school way of creating an image, perhaps reminiscent of junior high science projects on one of those lucky days when you got to hold class outside.

Or maybe it reminds you of your undergrad years, spending hours in the darkroom in the basement of the union, a hobby that you gave up a few years later when you got pregnant and the idea of the chemicals started to skeev you out.

Or does it remind you of how you totally want to learn to do gocco or screen printing, but it seems kind of hard and requires more equipment thn you have the money for?

Well rejoice, friends, because this project requires only special paper and the sun, and it can make some surprisingly sophisticated prints. Here’s how:

So far I’ve only done crafty green reviews of books, everything from Weekend Sewing to the Crafty Chica. But, and perhaps this is only because our public library is AWESOME and lets me check out feature DVDs and all the new computer games and order pretty much every single obscure crafts book that I ask them for, I also enjoy trying out the large number of crafty software programs that exist. Some of these are good, and some are crappy.

The Form Wild software series is good.

The Form Wild series is a collection of CD software, and each CD contains a collection of three-dimensional animal cut-outs. The files pull up as Adobe Acrobat Reader files, and you can save them to your computer so that you don’t have to reinsert the CD each time you want to use the files.

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:

My girls and I tend to craft with scrapbook paper often enough that I buy it when it’s on sale, but not often enough that I tend to use up all the paper that I’ve bought. Coincidentally, I also love photography, long to display my photos more around the house, and loathe store-bought photo frames–it just seems like I’ve sold, donated, given away, or thrown out enough photo frames over my lifetime for various reasons, you know?

Here’s another stash-busting project that I’ve been working hard on this week: covering recycled cardboard with pretty stash scrapbooking paper to use as wall photo frames around the house. The benefits of these photo frames are that they’re cheap, light and easy to mount without a lot of hardware, amenable to a plethora of modifications that will allow you to match your room or express your personality, and quick to make, letting you get as quickly as possible to the point of the project: getting your beautiful artwork out there on your walls.

So you’ve made yourself some kitschy Christmas record bowls, but now you have all these kitschy Christmas record album covers lying around–what to do, what to do? Sometimes I make kitschy boxes out of my album covers, but you know, my tree could really use more kitsch, as well…let’s make some ornaments!

You will need: kitschy Christmas cardboard record album covers, sturdy scissors, perhaps some nice scrapbook or wrapping paper and glue, a hole punch, and an ornament hanger