Green Options

Fall is officially here! It’s cool and blustery, and we’ve got cozy fabrics on our minds. What better way to welcome in the lovely changing leaves and chilly weather than with some beautiful recycled felt? Feltwerker, a Chicago fiber artist, offers beautiful recycled wool felt scraps that you can incorporate into your Fall and winter projects!

“Artists and crafters have always been recyclers, but for many, it has not only become a thrifty choice, it has become a moral imperative. 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse contains a cutting edge collection of the most inventive work being made with re-used, upcycled, and already existing materials. The work in this book ranges from clever and humble personal accessories to unique and important large-scale works of art, including paper art, fashion, jewelry, housewares, interiors, and installations.”

Got a collection of reusable shopping bags? Same here… but I’ll freely admit that sometimes I forget them, or decide to stop to pick things up when I don’t have them with me. You’re probably in the same boat: despite your best efforts to reduce your use of plastic shopping bags, you’ve still got a stash of them somewhere…

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.

I met Brooke Bennett of So She Sews at the Indie Craft Experience last weekend and fell instantly in love with her designs.

Like a lot of crafters, Brooke grew up in a handmade household. Her mom even ran a crafty business in the 80’s selling handmade “hair poofs.” Mom’s craftiness didn’t stop there! She also made a lot of Brooke’s clothes, including “this crazy pair of poofy overalls” out of old curtains.

Now, Brooke makes clothes, accessories and housewares constructed out of repurposed materials, like vintage fabric and linens, for her own crafty business. She sees vintage and found materials as a way to avoid “contributing to the raw textile industries which aren’t always fair to their workers overseas.”

I’m also totally digging her clutches and pouches made from fused plastic bags that would have been headed for the trash bin. I couldn’t even tell that it was plastic at first glance!

Brooke says she draws her inspiration mainly from the materials she finds and her “love of indie style.” She takes some of her cues from “international street fashion blogs like hel-looks.com.” Put it all together and you get beautiful, unique pieces like this teal and black dress that I’m coveting:

Rather than toss all those catalogs and offers into the recycle bin, you may as well take advantage of the free craft supplies!

Despite our best efforts to stop marketers from sending us junk mail, the stuff still seems to find its way into our mailbox. We use some of it for things like grocery lists and keeping score when playing Scrabble, but what to do with the rest? Here are some project ideas and junk mail art inspiration.

Rhonda wants you to get your upcycle on for fun and profit!

Her Etsy shop, The Junk Stop is full of awesome recycled goodies, and now Rhonda is hosting a contest to get us upcycling, too. It’s easy to enter, and I can’t wait to see finished projects start rolling in over on the Recycled Craft Challenge Flickr pool. The winner gets a $20 gift certificate to The Junk Stop! Here’s how you enter:

The Hello Craft Summit of Awesome was this past weekend, and it was fantastical! The Summit included workshops, demonstrations, and talks about all aspects of crafting and crafty business from planning a show to greening your process. I spoke on the Crafting a Green Craft panel with the amazing Liz Grotyohann and Jeff Fein-Worton of Cosa Verde and Jamie Chan and Blas Herrera from Urban Fauna Studio.

[Green Crafting Panel at the Summit of Awesome. Photo by Christy Petterson]

Inspiration
Liz and Jeff kicked things off with some green crafty eye candy. I was particularly struck by a soap-making company that they talked about: Ethically Engineered. The Chicago soap-maker produces 100% organic vegan soaps using solar-powered equipment. Even their packaging is recycled and biodegradable!

Amazing, right? That’s the sort of crafty practice that I feel like most green crafters are working to achieve. Not everyone is quite to this point yet, but don’t despair! One of the themes that ran through all of the talks on this panel was the idea that you shouldn’t let the fact that you can’t do it all stop you from lowering your crafty impact wherever you can.

What do you get when a musician and a textile company get together? It looks like what you get is a plan to bring recycled fabric into the mainstream!

Music producer, singer-songwriter, and rapper Pharrell Williams is teaming up with the New York-based textile firm Bionic Yarn to work on a new fabric made from recycled plastic. Williams started out as a hip hop artist, writing lyrics for folks like Wreckx-N-Effects and going on to produce albums and release his own music. He’s had his own fashion lines before, co-founding Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream Footwear. Now, he’s planning to make upcycled fabric a viable option for clothing makers!

Since a recent Valentine’s Day pillow fight cost the city of San Francisco $20,000, officials have been talking about a crackdown on flash Mobs. We think this pillow party could be transformed into a craft festival the day after, recycling the wasted feathers into magical crafty creations!

Bridal feather headdresses are stunning and the ideal example of how to upcycle feathers. More ideas include:

For those of you who live in San Francisco, Clary Sage Organics is having a Mr. Larkin trunk show this weekend!

Mr. Larkin combines organic whimsy gypsy girl draping with careful architectural pattern-making.  The line features eco embellishments and upcycled vintage beads and charms from the 30’s and 50’s..

Read on for more details ~

Turning trash into treasure is at the heart of Crafting a Green World. A green crafter sees beauty in scrap heaps, recycle bins, and objects on the side of the road. Julie talked just yesterday about making sure you know exactly what you’re working with before you start your project. Even after you’re sure you aren’t about to take a blowtorch to a rare piece of vintage vinyl or antique Colonial silver, sometimes you still need a little inspiration. Here’s a little art assemblage eye candy to get you going!