crafts and waste...

[beansmama]

I hope this is the right spot to put this!

I was just reorganizing our art room and realised that most of the stuff we have in made from china...and i really don't know how to recycle most of it (pipe cleaners...foam sheets, etc).

We pretty much got most of our supplies from thrift stores - so in a way we did help the recycling process...but we do a lot of crafts!

DD is 3.5 and i'm homeschooling her. We try to do a craft 4-5 times a week. And call me a horrible parent...but i DON'T keep all her crafts/paintings/drawings, lol! I try to pick out the special ones and put them in a box. The rest of them...well, what can be recycled is, and the rest is just tossed.

I'd like to start doing more natural crafts with items from nature...but what?? I mean, it's going to take me a while to go through our current supplies - but do any of you mamas just use recyclable and recycled materials for your crafts??

If there craft life w/o pipe cleaners and smelly foam sheets??

I *did* start collecting some items like neat twigs/sticks, small feathers...but what else?

How do i make my crafting more eco-friendly? TIA!

[rere]

I found books at the library for making eco friendly crafts with kids.

You can make paper from your junk mail.
Bird feeders with pine cones peanut butter and bird seed.
Use old clothes to sew from.

[SleeplessMommy]

Plastic felt is made from soda bottles, mostly. Wool felt can be composted, as can natural fiber fabrics. I think there is lots to do with yarn, also.

[rere]

You can use your old newspaper to paint on and then recycle.
Use your old magazines and catalogs to do collages instead of buying stickers.

I'll keep thinking...

[HipGal]

You could get into scrapbooking. Usually it takes quite a bit of time just to finish a couple pages. Then you can save the products in a scrapbook.

I agree with sewing with thrift store fabric/clothing. Maybe focus on making things that will be used? Like toys or gifts? For example, you could decorate wooden frames and give them to relatives with a family photo inside. Or paint a painting and put that inside! Two crafts in one.

Or you could work on projects you could give to charities - like making blankets for project linus, etc.

Maybe wreathmaking with the natural materials?