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Archive: Green
April 23, 2009
Mana Bernandes' Jewelry
Rio de Janeiro-based artist Mana Bernandes has a knack for elevating everyday objects to elegance with her jewelry. Pictured above is Clasp, a gorgeous necklace made of bobby pins, fit for a green goddess. Check out more of her innovative work at Munique and on her site. (Her toothpick and pearl necklace is featured on page 54 of CRAFT Volume 09.)
Posted by Goli Mohammadi |
Apr 23, 2009 11:00 AM
Green, Jewelry |
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April 22, 2009
Crafty Chica 24 Hours of Earth Day Projects
Crafty Chica, Kathy Cano-Murillo, is posting an Earth Day-inspired project an hour for the 24 hours of Earth Day. It's still early, and she's already got cool projects like cigar box birdhouses and a fabric pillow ring. Be sure to check back in with her all day long for all the projects!
Posted by Rachel Hobson |
Apr 22, 2009 07:00 AM
Green |
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April 21, 2009
Flashback: Hydroponic Veggie Garden
Back in CRAFT Volume 09, the multi-talented Brookelynn Morris opened our eyes to the wonders of growing a garden hydroponically. Brookeylnn shares instructions for a simple and compact system, perfect for the urban gardener. The introduction to this DIY explains the benefits of a hydro system:
"Why hydro instead of soil? Growing hydroponically has tons of advantages. It actually saves water! This project uses the same 5 gallons of water over and over again for a whole week. If you were watering into dirt, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to collect and recirculate the water.
Hydro also saves space. In a typical soil garden, the lettuce plant will only grow as big as the 4" pot will let it. With hydroponics, the roots of the plants will actually grow right out of the pot, allowing the plant get as big as it likes. Or at least as big as it can before you eat it!"
Brookelynn teaches us the basics of the setup, then gets us going starting a tray of yumminess from seed. We learn how to mix the growing media as well as the nutrients to feed the plants. The whole system takes up such little space that you no longer need a sizable property to grow your own flourishing garden. Water is the key!
In honor of Earth Day, we're sharing this project with you in our Digital Edition, so you can get started setting up your own hydro veggie garden. And to pick up CRAFT Volume 09, head on over to the Maker Shed. This Green Craft issue features resources for the eco-crafter, Michelle Kaufmann's elegant herb dryer, furoshiki fabric folding, great ideas for recycling cereal boxes, a vintage book stash box, a mosaic table project, precious metal clay jewelry, a primer on using Google Sketchup, and so much more.
Posted by Goli Mohammadi |
Apr 21, 2009 05:00 PM
Gardening, Green |
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Recycled Hurricane Cover
Patricia of A Little Hut shares this fantastic project for covering a glass hurricane. Can you figure out what common household product she used to create the design? I couldn't! Go check out her post for all the details.
Posted by Rachel Hobson |
Apr 21, 2009 03:00 PM
Green, Paper Crafts |
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April 17, 2009
Checkin' In: PDX Crafter Sister Diane Gilleland
Sister Diane is a fabulously crafty girl who not only continuously comes up with a variety of creative projects, but she embodies the DIY spirit with her positive attitude and willingness to share ideas with others. She has shared a number of great project with us on the pages of CRAFT, as well as on our site. Back in CRAFT Volume 04, Diane showed us how to make shimmering embossed greeting cards using aluminum foil:
Then, in Volume 08, Diane represented for her hometown of Portland and gave us an insider crafty view of the city with her Travel Crafty feature, which even included a super cool tutorial on how to use Google Maps to map out the city's hot spots. In Volume 09, Diane shared another custom card tutorial with us, showing readers how to machine sew, heat emboss, and embroider paper. In our last issue, Volume 10, Diane taught us how to make homemade flavored bitters, a key ingredient in tasty drinks. In her example, she used dried cherries and spices--yum!
We checked in with this crafty girl to see what she's been into recently and this is what she wrote:
"As usual, I'm doing about 15 things at once! I blog weekly for CraftStylish, which has lately involved creating a lot of interesting recycled projects, like recycled cardboard baskets and decoupaged shoes."
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"And I also write my own blog, CraftyPod, which contains projects, craft book reviews, and assorted crafty goodness. My podcast, also called CraftyPod, is still one of my all-time favorite projects. I've been talking to people from the mainstream craft industry there lately, trying to learn about how they view our indie craft culture.
This July, my first book comes out, which is terribly exciting. Kanzashi In Bloom: 20 Fold and Sew Projects to Wear and Give offers a simplified form of a traditional Japanese fabric flower craft. I had a great time coming up with lots of projects that incorporate these flowers: jewelry, tote bags, accessories, and home decor items."
"By the end of April, I'll release my first eBook as well: Making A Great Blog: A Guide for Creative People. I hope this book will approach the subject of blogging in a way the other blogging books don't. I'll be focusing on what goes into creating interesting and valuable blog posts, and keeping this great content flowing over time. [Check out the review of Diane's eBook posted this morning by our own Rachel Hobson for more info.]
. . . and in between all that, I'm hanging out on Twitter!"
Thanks, Sister Diane! We can't wait to check out her new book. For the meantime, with summer around the corner, we thought we'd share Diane's homemade bitters in our Digital Edition. Make sure to keep up with Sister Diane on her blog and pick up any back issues of CRAFT you may not have at the Maker Shed!
Posted by Goli Mohammadi |
Apr 17, 2009 06:00 PM
Green, Paper Crafts, Recycle |
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How-To: Cardboard Laptop Case
This cardboard laptop case made by instructables user nikoto mimics an upscale designer case with a similar design and uses almost all recycled materials!
More:
Posted by Becky Stern |
Apr 17, 2009 02:00 PM
Green, Recycle |
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April 15, 2009
Tire Trugs
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Instructables user Marcos used an old tire to make these trug baskets, shown above holding flowers (but they can also hold much heavier things, like tools).
Posted by Becky Stern |
Apr 15, 2009 09:10 AM
Gardening, Green, Home Decor, Recycle |
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How-To: Decorate With Thrifted Goods
CasaSugar has a photo slideshow on 10 ways to decorate with thrifted goods, showing how you can add distinctive looks to your home in an eco way.
Posted by Natalie Zee Drieu |
Apr 15, 2009 08:00 AM
Green, Home Decor, Recycle |
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April 13, 2009
Instructables Earth Day Guide
Celebrate Earth Day (and nature month here at CRAFT) with some DIY green projects over at Instructables. Learn tips for urban gardening, how to build a composter, recycle paper, and getting a tree planted on your block in San Francisco.
Posted by Becky Stern |
Apr 13, 2009 04:00 PM
Gardening, Green, Holiday projects, Home Decor |
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April 9, 2009
How-To: Make a Nature Can
How-To: Make a Nature Can
By Megan Heep
Kids filling your pockets with nature's treasures? Or maybe you can't help but pick up rocks, shells, and pretty moss yourself. Here's what you do: make a Nature Can, using materials you probably have at home, for your kids (or you) to stylishly and conveniently carry their own collections.
Read full story
Posted by Goli Mohammadi |
Apr 9, 2009 01:00 PM
Crafting with Nature, Green, Recycle |
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April 6, 2009
How-To: Make a Worm Composting Bin
Vermicomposting: Zero Waste = A Vibrant Garden
By Wendy Tremayne
Daniel Tainow wishes to reunite fungus, bacteria, and invertebrate communities with the human communities of gardeners, eaters, and wearers of clothing. Tainow is the Compost Project Coordinator of the Queens Botanical Garden located in New York. He envisions a future in which there is no difference between the natural and the human realms. The actualization of this vision begins with compost. According to Tainow, composting natural fibers at home offers the realization that we are an important part of the cycles of life.
If you consider that everything that was once alive can be composted, it is remarkable how little actually gets composted. To name a few items: paper, human waste, hair, dryer/bellybutton lint, people, sheet rock, animals, vegetable and plant material, and natural fibers can all be returned to nutrients that revitalize the earth. This zero-waste loop can be started in about half an hour with little to no money spent.
To prepare for this project, you might go back in time and muster up the thrill you felt when animating sea monkeys from strange powders or watching Chia Pets spring to life from a splash of water. Imagine encouraging life for the perpetuation of life instead of for the thrill of manipulating it. Welcome to 21st-century thinking.
As makers of things, we know that life is as interesting as our interest in it. And recycling at home offers a fascinating and educational view of the process of transformation from waste to life. According to Tainow, "Composting immediately reduces household waste by 25% to 50%" and "triggers a chain of events: the reduction of carbon emissions from petroleum-burning trucks and their delivery of heat-trapping waste that produces methane and water-contaminating leachate to landfills." If you have a food-growing garden, homegrown compost will also reduce your exposure to toxins through chemical fertilizers that are used on much of the food we buy in stores. But perhaps the greatest gain is the experience of reconnecting with the natural world. Welcome home.
Once started, your compost equips you to be the bringer of life as you gift your harvest to anyone with a potted plant or garden. Compost cookies (compost rolled and compressed into cookie shapes and dried) make wonderful DIY gifts. If you've ever enjoyed guerrilla gardening (tossing balls of seeds and earth into vacant plots of land) you might consider guerrilla composting too.
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Posted by Goli Mohammadi |
Apr 6, 2009 01:00 PM
Green, Home Decor |
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April 4, 2009
Tyvek Fabric by the Yard
Philly design firm Mio is producing tyvek fabric that you can now buy! Get Loop by the Yard for only $13 a yard. Plus, how's this for being green? Send back your scraps to get them recycled! There's lots more photos to check out on the Mio site.
From the site:
Each order ships with a prepaid envelope for shipping scraps or the actual project (when no longer wanted or needed) back to MIO for recycling. Designed as a FREE product take-back system, Loop is made from Tyvek®, a spun bonded high-density polyethylene non-woven. This material has been actively collected and recycled for decades and now MIO will be employing this existing recycling infrastructure to complete and test a closed recycling loop. Each yard of Loop can be cut, sewn, wrinkled, folded, pierced, hung or hemmed like a textile. It is durable, breathable and waterproof, making it ideal for a variety of do-it-yourself indoor and outdoor projects.
[ via A Dress A Day ]
Posted by Natalie Zee Drieu |
Apr 4, 2009 08:00 AM
Fabric, Green, Recycle |
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April 3, 2009
How-To: Make Plant Markers From Vinyl Blinds
Crafting a Green World has a great quickie tutorial on using vinyl blinds as markers for plants.
Posted by Rachel Hobson |
Apr 3, 2009 03:00 PM
Gardening, Green |
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April 1, 2009
How-To: Crafting with VHS Tapes
The always-innovative Diane Gilleland has a great tutorial up on CraftSylish on how to craft with VHS tapes. She makes bookends, loomed flowers, a macrame bracelet, and offers a bunch of other creative ideas. I've been wanting to get into using cassette and VHS tape to craft, and this is a great springboard.
Posted by Goli Mohammadi |
Apr 1, 2009 11:00 AM
Green |
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March 19, 2009
Inhabitat's Spring Greening DIY Design Contest
Inhabitat is having a contest! Better hurry, the deadline is March 27th:
With spring right around the corner, many of us are getting ready for an epic marathon of spring cleaning, and we here at Inhabitat want to encourage creative reuse and cut down on waste with our first ever Spring Greening DIY Design Contest. We all have a few derelict furnishings, defunct appliances, and otherwise unused items collecting dust in the closet - rather than tossing these items in the trash we want to see them re-furbished, re-purposed, and re-thought into functional pieces of DIY design. We're going to be running an online voting contest to showcase the best projects, and will be awarding a grand prize gift certificate of $200 at the Inhabitat Shop to the winner!
Posted by Becky Stern |
Mar 19, 2009 02:00 PM
Contests, Green, Home Decor |
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March 11, 2009
Stain Removal Tips
A few years ago, I wrote a stain removal article for our sibling publication, MAKE magazine, and I thought I'd re-post it here with some updated tricks in the spirit of Mending Month!
Both absent-minded and a klutz, I have had my fair share of debilitating stains over the years, and have had to cultivate every stain tip I could get my hands on, even trying tricks from old, dusty, out-of-print books. Growing up, my dad always had the answers, often passed down from my grandmother, but calling home every time I spilled started to get ridiculous. The internet has made all this hugely easier, so now every time I run into something new, I go online and see which tips make the most sense to me. I still remember the awe of watching blackberry juice vanish as if it had never been under a stream of boiling water, or nervously dousing a splotch of olive oil with talcum powder on my favorite shirt and having it come clean in the wash the next day. Removing stains doesn't have to be hard; usually it's just a question of knowing the right chemistry.
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Posted by Arwen O'Reilly Griffith |
Mar 11, 2009 01:00 PM
Fabric, Food, Green, Home Decor, Mending |
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March 6, 2009
How-To: Strengthen and Enhance a Recycle Bin
This isn't really a mending project, but it's in the spirit of mending, and helped me teach a valuable lesson to my 13-year-old son about repair and reuse, as opposed to "throw it out and buy a new one."
It all started when I got sick of looking at the brown paper bag of recycling sitting next to the kitchen table. Besides the look, I didn't like the idea of needing to keep paper bags around to then take out and put into the recycling bin. What a waste.
I found a plastic trash receptacle I liked, and it was made out of biodegradable plastic, according to the green sticker inside it. Bonus! So our recycling bin was hip-looking, didn't take up much space, and could be used day after day. All was good in the world.
Besides taking out the recycling, my teenage son brings in firewood for our wood-burning stove. He usually takes the recycling out, then brings in an armful of wood on the way back. He tried putting the wood inside the recycling bin, which was fine, but he's a 13-year-old boy, so he can be a little rough on things. Rough, like dropping the plastic bin full of wood on the tile floor from a height of 2 feet or so.
Long story short: my precious, biodegradable, plastic recycling bin suffered a big gnarly crack along the bottom, which extended slightly up the side. What to do? Throw it away and make my son buy a new one? Go back to paper bags? How about try and repair the bin together, mother and son. Duct tape to the rescue!
Lining up the crack on the bottom was easy, and covering it on both sides, inside and out, was a great strengthener. It was a little harder to line up the crack on the side, but once we got it lined up, we went around the entire bottom edge of the bin, adding a stripe of gray to the bottom. It looked great and was much stronger, but because I'm a bit pedantic, I made us add a strip of duct tape around the top edge as well. More symmetrical and balanced, right?!
My son is actually proud of the work we did, and since it took a bit away from his leisure time, he's much more careful when bringing the wood in. Behold the amazing power of duct tape.
Posted by Shawn Connally |
Mar 6, 2009 03:30 PM
Green, Home Decor, Mending |
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March 3, 2009
Flashback: Umbrella Recycling
Mending tips are key to ecofriendliness. Prolonging the life of your belongings is certainly good for the planet. But what do you do with the item at hand if it's simply beyond repair? Enter the ubiquitous umbrella. Everyone, at some point, has had a broken umbrella. In CRAFT Volume 07, Diane Baker wrote a Recycle It DIY on giving broken umbrellas new life. She teaches us how to deconstruct an umbrella, and then how to make a backpack cover:
How to make a laptop poncho:
And how to make a drawstring bag:
She even offers tips for recycling the remainders of the umbrella! Check out this helpful DIY in our Digital Edition and then pick up your copy of CRAFT Volume 07 in the Maker Shed!
Posted by Goli Mohammadi |
Mar 3, 2009 05:00 PM
Green, Recycle, Refashion |
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How-To: Cutting Board Bird Feeder
I saw this charming cutting board bird feeder how-to a few days ago on Treehugger and just haven't been able to get the image out of my mind. It's use is obviously limited to those people who have birds as pets (or cut their bread outdoors?), but it's a fabulous idea anyway!
It could also be adapted for compost; a friend of mine has a small hole cut into her countertop that feeds directly into a bin below for veggie scraps.
Posted by Arwen O'Reilly Griffith |
Mar 3, 2009 01:00 PM
Food, Green, Home Decor, Homemade, Pets, Refashion |
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March 2, 2009
How-To: Refashion a Crochet Tunic into Shopping Tote
On Teen Vogue, fashion designer rogan gregory shows how-to recycle a crocheted tunic into an eco-chic shopping tote.
Posted by Natalie Zee Drieu |
Mar 2, 2009 11:00 AM
Green, Refashion, Sewing |
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