Recycled Gifts & Non-Toxic Materials

If you are conscious of the environment, whether you are a professional craftsman or a hobbyist, or simply enjoying making arts and crafts for your children from time to time, you may have pondered over the different ways and means to do environment-friendly activities.  Arts and crafts could be critical to the environment if not regulated properly, as there are toxic chemicals found in the varnishes, paints, glues, and other materials used in making them, together with all the possible trash it may generate in the process.

It is important to be careful in keeping your trash to the minimum, as it contributes to the degradation of the environment.  With the coming of holidays and special occasions, people prepare to make hand-crafted greeting cards, presents, arts and crafts, and it is recommended to follow several pointers on how to approach your arts and crafts projects attuned to the environment.

Make it a point to utilize recyclable, non-toxic, and renewable materials for your projects.  For obvious environmental reasons, confine yourself to using recycled paper and pencils, and other environment-friendly materials such as bamboo paintbrushes, environment-safe adhesives, and hemp notebooks.  Take note that it is best to check for the ACMI seal of approval for safe paints that are non-toxic and contains no harmful chemicals.

You can also convert previously junk items into wonderful arts and crafts.  The next time you ponder over a small project to undertake, try and make a list of items you need by first checking around your house, or from a bargain store, or even on the Internet at Freecycle.com.  You can convert, for instance, an old cotton or linen bedsheet into an artist’s canvas.

Then you can order surplus picture frames from bargain stores and simply buy your coloring oil pastels from the art store.  You will be surprised that just from your own storage closet, you can derive different items, most of which are not in use, and convert them into worthwhile arts and crafts projects.

Another environment-friendly move is to make your own paintbrushes.  Using a wooden twig, a few human hairs, and rubber band, you can craft your own handmade paintbrush.  Besides, you can use plant-base pigments to experiment on your art colors for use in your projects.

Keep your paper and fabric scraps instead of discarding them.  A lot of papers and organic fabrics, like wool, linen, silk, and cotton can be converted to other forms.  You and your children can create collage style art using scraps of art paper.  Bigger and higher quality fabric scraps can be recycled to form bed sheets and similar items, with the smaller fabrics being used as stuffing for pillows and soft toys for children.

When you are done with your painting sessions, make sure to wash your hands free of oil paints using environment-friendly and toxic-free hand soap instead of dangerous solvents like thinner.  The soap is safe and will not damage your paintbrushes, and it could even wash off the oils better than the usual toxic solvents like thinner.  Some painters even use the kitchen vegetable oils to clean their paintbrushes and similar materials.