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!

A personalized collage is a great gift for family or maybe your best pal! Hero Arts has a great video tutorial on making beautiful collages. We’ve got the video and tips for turning this into a green craft project after the cut!

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I found this used battery near the ocean in Pacifica, right across from our friend Rick’s Salada Beach Cafe. It has since been safely recycled, and kept from polluting our waterways.

Our oceans are already turning into acid. We have to start today to try to make things better. Keeping one more toxic battery or piece of plastic out of our oceans, collectively, will make a difference. Once you start looking, you may be really surprised just how many “disposable” batteries litter our streets and sewers. Next time you see one, pick it up; what you do matters.

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Time: Wed, Oct 21, pm @ 2pm

Where: SF City Hall, Room 416

Rain barrels made from recycled food grade containers for water conservation.

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We’ve talked about the awesomeness of crafting with fabric scraps before, but not everyone has a shamefully stuffed scrap bin like the one in my craft room. If you’re not a hoarder of fabric scraps but still want to get your craft on, don’t fret! Etsy seller Scrap Ecochic has you covered!

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How sweet are these fresh, vintage fabrics from Rope?

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Icebreaker’s Bodyfit

Have you ever wanted to meet the sheep that was shorn for your clothes?  Just enter the “baa code” on your label into the Icebreaker website to meet where your sheep lives.

With most of the things you buy, you’re told little or nothing about how they’re made. Icebreaker is different.

We have a deep commitment to animal welfare, the welfare of the people who work with us, and the environment. And we have nothing to hide.

Your unique Baacode will let you see the living conditions of the high country sheep that produced the merino fibre in your Icebreaker garment, meet the farmers who are custodians of this astonishing landscape, and follow every step of the supply chain. We’re sure you’ll find the experience as inspiring as we do. Enjoy your journey back to the source.

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Got a closet full of clothes that just need a little love? Or maybe you’re thrifting-obsessed and just need some motivation to turn your finds into something really special! Either way, Wardrobe Refashion might be just the thing you need!

So what is Wardrobe Refashion?

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August is National Inventors Month and in celebration of this imaginative occasion, Altoids has partnered with HowStuffWorks.com to honor creative citizens they call “Tinnovators.” These inventors have found ingenious uses for their Altoids tins once the mints are gone.

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Some areas (*gasp*) don’t provide curbside recycling for plastics.  Please check Earth911 for places to recycle items your area doesn’t pick up curbside.  We are blessed and have mixed curbside recycling for nearly all our everyday items.  Please recycle your plastic jugs after use, industrious areas like New Jersey have used milk jugs to make a bridge.  Who knows what other uses will come of plastic recycling.

Here are some crafty ways we can reuse plastic milk jugs and divert them from the landfill.

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When the Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced that it was deaccessioning part of its textile collection, artist Robert Fontenot was on the scene. He hit up three separate auctions and acquired 50 pieces, almost half of the items the museum was getting rid of. The resulting work is sometimes arty, sometimes functional, and all beautiful! He embroiders the accession number into each finished piece.

The project is still a work in progress, and I just love this quote from his artist’s statement: “Although each item has not yet been used, each item can have a use.” Yes! I think that can apply to materials in a much larger sense, and his work is a fantastic reminder that old pieces can take on a whole new life with just a little bit of love.

Want to get your upcycle on? Thrift stores and even the back of your closet are full of textiles that can take on a whole new life! Here are a few ideas to get you going:

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GreenTalk Radio host Sean Daily talks tips for parents in buying, exchanging, and reusing goods using web-based communities with blogger Carmen Staicer of Zwaggle.com.

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Some of these projects involve taking the tins apart, while others use the entire thing to create something fun and new. There are project ideas for a bunch of different skill levels, so don’t fret if you’ve never done any metal crafting before!

Ready to get reusing? Me, too!

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Scrap, which their pamphlet calls “a creative reuse center and workshop space” came about in 1976, way before recycling and Green became trendy, as a resource for artists and teachers. Scrap also set out to promote environmental awareness and creative reuse.

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What I like about this book:  It’s produced sustainably.  This fun story carries the message of reuse, which is the ultimate in recycling.  In the story, a box becomes a princess castle and an old blue towel becomes a superhero cape.  This delightful story entertains youngsters while giving them ideas for playtime and teaching a valuable lesson.

Our house is over-run with books because I fully believe in the value of reading.  I also believe that owning books (and reading them together) is vital to a child’s development.  (Disclaimer- Yes we do borrow a lot of books.  We also frequently purchase secondhand books).  If you are looking for a way to shed a few books (to make room for more, of course) or you want to start a service project with your children, check out EnviroMom’s suggestion for reusing old books.

If you own a few books which are beyond repair, here are some tips for reusing much of the book (remember to recycle whatever cannot be reused).

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We love a good mix tape remix around here. Heck, some of us even knit with used cassettes. Seamstresses, don’t you fret! You can get in on the recycled cassette action, too…

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Miami’s Metrozoo is recycling 1,400 pounds of elephant poop, 750 pounds of rhino dung, and 500 pounds of giraffe excrement per day.

In an innovative effort to save landfill space and reduce the zoo’s ecological footprint, the organic waste is used as fertilizer, and also to “decorate the zoo grounds.” In addition to the “big producers” - elephants, rhinos, and giraffes - other herbivores are regularly making their own contributions.

Metrozoo’s horticultural supervisor, Tom Trump, said that to recycle and reuse whatever they could “made sense.” Since starting the recycling project last year, the park has saved over $20,000.

Miami Metrozoo is home to over 1,000 animals, representing over 400 species - 48 of which are endangered species.

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiswango/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Plants don’t ever care if they have a run in their stockings.

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You know we love a good glass bottle craft around these parts! We’ve featured a few awesome crafters who reuse glass bottles in their work. Of course, you won’t be surprised that we loved Re-Nests’ round up of great glass bottle craft ideas!

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So what do you do with them? You definitely want to keep them out of the waste stream, so obvious uses, like lining trash cans or otherwise using them for waste disposal, aren’t the best choices. You’ve got other options, though… and, as you’ll see, your choices for responsible disposal are expanding.

How to Reuse Plastic Bags

If you’re not going to pick up the dog poop with them, or line the bathroom trash can, how can you put those plastic bags to (re)use? Turns out there are quite a few upcycling options…

• Make a sweater… or a scarf: You crafty types can turn those bags into yarn… and then knit, crochet or weave with it.
• Fuse them into “cloth”: Got an iron and some old paper? You can make cloth-like crafting material out of your bags, also.
• Protect and store food: Making a trip to the farmer’s market? Put a few of those plastic bags inside your reusable one to separate and protect the food you buy. You can also use them for storage once you get your produce and baked goods home.

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1. They are not inferior in quality to new Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) products. (In fact, in 1997, the US EPA stated that remanufactured products are “as good as new.”)
2. Using a remanufactured or any cartridge other than that of the OEM will not in fact void the printer equipment warranty. (Not that manufacturers didn’t try.  They did but the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 specifically states that a warranty may not be voided because of the use of aftermarket products.)
3. Buying them will typically save you money and selling spent cartridges will typically make you money.

(This information comes courtesy of Ecogreenoffice.com whose primer about the truth about remanufactered print cartridges contains lots of additional information.)

There are two sides to greening your ink and toner purchases: The Buy and the Sell.

The Sell. The act of selling ink and toner cartridges is one of the easiest ways to make money and be green at the same time. On the revenue side, cartridges are valuable (some are worth as much as $22). If cash isn’t what your looking for, retailers such Office Max, Office Depot and Staples have rewards programs that give up to $3 in store credit for each eligible cartridge and have drop boxes in stores. (Office Max also has a postage-paid shipping program for those who recycle high volumes of cartridges—up to 300 a month). In any event, selling spent cartridges is easy and sometimes even lucrative.

The Buy. Want to know the impact of all those cartridges you’re using? The folks at SB Office Supplies, an online office supply retailer with an extensive green catalog, have a nifty Remanufactured Cartridge Savings Calculator that tells how much oil is saved and how many cartridges stay out of land fills when you buy remanufactured cartridges.

Convinced? They are basically two routes to go.

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