Searching around your home can lead you to discover many things you can convert into crafts.  Reusing items which you may otherwise discard can also be acceptable to the environment.  Things like buttons, cans, magazines, shoe boxes, tissue boxes, and cereal boxes can be utilized in making worthwhile projects of arts and crafts.

A good example of a recycled project would be converting a cereal box into a file or magazine clipper perhaps.  You need to first cut off the top portion of the box, and then cutting off the narrow side of the cereal box to simulate a file or folder holder.  You should cut about 4 to 5 inches down from below the box.  After you have simulated the shape of a magazine clipper, you can then either decorate it or paint it to enhance its appearance.  You can paste art paper or beautiful stickers all around it, and with the finished product, you can organize your magazines, files, and important papers in it.

The humble looking tissue box, when it gets empty already, can be turned into a sort of small plastic bag container.  You can first decorate it as you would like, then enlarge the hole a little bit in order to accommodate loads of plastic bags that you use from time to time.  You can store this converted plastic bag container in convenient locations in your kitchen, utility room, or garage, so that you can easily reach for the plastic bags you need conveniently.

Old magazines can be reused as decorative paper beads by using its colorful pages.  You can mix different magazines so as to create a multitude of colors.  You need to use toothpicks or similar objects in order to roll the strips of paper around.  Cut strips of the magazine pages in thin and thick pieces while avoiding cutting very thick strips, so that it can be rolled by the toothpick.  Use the toothpick to roll the strips and forming tubular beads.  You can have the option to make a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors for these beads.

After making the magazine strips into beads, you then glue the tips of the beads together to your desired shape or design.  When the glue has dried up, you can then apply clear nail polish to the finished product in order to make it more glossy and sturdy.  After everything has dried up, you can now string the beads together using either a stretch line, or beading cord.  You can decorate almost any part of your house with these beads, and can even accentuate your furnishings and fixtures.

Keep your busted light bulbs in a safe place instead of throwing them right away.  You can also use these old light bulbs for decoration and ornamentation.  You can clean them with alcohol and apply a coat of white paint perhaps, and convert them into useful and pretty decorations like Santa Claus, elves, snowmen, and other winter characters and figurines.  You can string them altogether and beautify your Christmas tree.

So, always remember to think twice or thrice before throwing or discarding items left and right.  There is always the high probability that you can use the items first thought to be discarded and convert them into useful, beautiful, and practical decorations and ornamentations that, aside from enhancing your household, also help reduce the amount of trash generated and could definitely help contributing towards a greener Earth to live in.

Recycling Arts And Crafts

There are a lot of ways to combine arts and crafts with recycling that can occupy your time and still afford you the recreation and chance to come up with some gifts for special occasions.

The more prominent of these recycling projects is to decoupage.  This is a unique craft to undertake and the materials needed to do this project are simple and easy to acquire.  You will only need several old and colorful magazines, a pair of scissors, white glue, and an object to decorate.  You can choose any specific object to decorate, like vases, lamps, small furniture, and even headboards.

As soon as you have gathered the materials needed, you can commence with your decoupage project by flipping the pages of your old magazines.  Look for attractive and colorful pages in your magazine to cut into pieces for decoration.  Remember that this craft can be done according to your whim, and there is no wrong procedure when doing this project.

Some people may prefer to cut out images of persons, while others would prefer commercial and advertisement presentations.  The concept of decoupage is to cover an object to decorate with layers of cut outs of the magazines in a random and colorful collage presentation.

After you have collected loads of cut-outs of different images and shapes, then you can start decorating your chosen object layer by layer, and this is the part where your ideas and creativity can become limitless.  You can choose to layer the initial stages of your decoration with colorful shades of magazine cut-outs, and then top them off with real images and cut-outs of flowers, birds, or any specific images to finalize your decoupage project.

After gathering your cut-outs of colored pages and images, you can apply a base coat of white glue over the object to be decorated and post the cut-outs layer by layer, while coating each layer with the white glue.  When the glue coating has dried and your decoupage is in place, you can finalize your craft by applying a coat of clear glossy paint to add sheen and at the same time hold a protective coating to your project.

Another reusable item is the humble, old shoe box.  It can be made into gift boxes’ which you can give to your children’s classmates and even teachers.  You can do a decoupage with this and put in the layers of magazine cut-outs to your desired density and decoration.  The gift boxes can be a decorative container that can hold different mementos and memorabilia of a person, like concert tickets, movie or ballgame tickets, birthday and other greeting cards, and similar stuff which a person wants to keep as remembrance of a special event or occasion.

These gift boxes can be opened by its owner from time to time, especially during lonely moments, and can reminisce happy and fond memories in his life from the different memorabilia that are contained in the said gift boxes.  These gift boxes can be so practical and beautiful that it can impress people from practically all walks of life and be proud to own a gift box or two.  What is gratifying about these gift boxes is that you are able to create these wonderful crafts at very minimal costs owing to using mostly recyclable materials.

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.

A Declaration of The Green Arts Movement

Slowly but surely, a new green arts movement is taking shape in the last several years.  The world is witness to the arts and crafts era which also took place in the 1930s, and similar to our forebears, we are making functional art, or turning everyday items into lasting artistic objects that are home-made and reasonably priced.

You can see the products of the green artists being sold on the streets and public markets of Atlanta, San Francisco, and New York.  From solar clocks processed from recycled wine reservoirs to dresses made from reused umbrellas, these things were up for grabs in these places.  Recession Art is what it was termed, lifting from the Depression Art that was in the 1930s.

The green artists consider the scarce luxurious arts catering only to the few rich people as already a disappearing trend.  They discover that the almost 100-year dominion of ideal art, with emphasis on the application techniques, artistry, and social relevance, is already on the downfall.  The campaign arising from the creative thought of Duchamp now dwells in the assembly lines of Koons and Hirst crafting Michael Jackson porcelain sculptures free from the artist’s domain.  The generation of today considers these endeavors decayed already for many years.

From the embers of the not so distant past, the present generation of art enthusiasts is capturing a vibrant ambience giving life to the budding green arts movement.  The green artists seek to go beyond the boundaries between modern art and the crafts, forming portions on the ideas and concepts of modernism, like politics, action, and methods, and endearing themselves to the renewable, natural and recyclable materials.

The artists are of the position that green art must be intentionally collective and shared with the people.  Their masterpieces and art works are not confined to their work stations, but rather must be an interactive endeavor between the green artist, the art work, and the society represented by the people.  The green art that is produced is not an inanimate product, but a connecting piece of art that elicits interaction, deliberations, concepts, innovative manners of looking and contemplating, of socializing and connecting with people.

To sustain social connectivity, the green artists market their products only in the streets, parks, and other public places, where they give virtual lives to their art works.  They give stories with their crafts for people to bring home and relish.  The arts and crafts are defined by the origins of the recycled materials, carrying discussions with their patrons, constantly communicating and interacting both at home and in the work place.  The green artists share their art and their own lives to the basic community, aiming the objective of soothing modern day illnesses like fear, loneliness and depression.

The art produced by green artists is attuned to the people.  They do not sacrifice preserving the Earth over earning money.  They only market those produced by their own toil.  The green artists do not let their work be mass-produced by factories and manufacturing plants simply to satisfy demand.  Their art is people-oriented, created through intercommunication with the general public and co-artisans.  Over the years of study, the green artists discovered that aesthetics arise from cooperation and not selfish individualism.

The green artists declare to have an identity of their own.  They do not ascribe to the ambitious generation of riches from marketing their masterpieces, but they confine themselves with the pursuit of environment-friendly endeavors, and ultimately, they consider it a plateau of accomplishment as a green artist.

These artisans also see themselves as not merely a group of artists.  They see themselves as part of nurturing organization and enlightening genre that cultivate or create what they market.  They are natural farmers, chefs, and bee raisers; they are poets, creative writers, and musicians; environmentalists and sociologists; they are artists in the wide ranging meaning of the word.  The green artists are simply committed to the longing of making the world a better place to live.

The Coming of Environmental Art

Environmental art is a relatively new movement in the world of art, which delves on the fusion of different fields like tourism, fashion, sculpture, gardening, architecture and urban design.  This art is free flowing and not bounded by limitations, and is only conceived with the blending of art and the different fields together.

During the 1960s, a group of artists congregated to fight the excessive commercialism of art.  The artists then setup their art works and crafts in public parks and gardens.  The idea of taking out the art work from the studio and other confined work stations became a fad.  These days, a lot of environmental artists are reusing a wide array of materials to produce and come up with arts and crafts that are friendly to the environment, practicing what they preach.

A well-known artist by the name of McKenzie has become a popular icon of serious and meaningful efforts to come up with environment-friendly endeavors.  She develops her craft by using materials that are natural and organic.  Her painting pigments are also derived from organic and toxic-free sources and her paintings are held using sustainable wood for framing.

What is more admirable is the fact that McKenzie even donates a good portion of her earnings to environmental causes.  Even her support group of printers and framing specialists also donate some of their income to worthy organizations dealing with the environment.

The world of fashion was also influenced as environmental art expanded into different fields and endeavors.  Green clothing or recyclable fashion trends sprouted here and there and there was no stopping it being displayed by Hollywood stars like Angelina Jolie, Heidi Klum, and Gwen Stefani.  The women even began to sport bags made from candy wrappers, newspapers, city maps, labels, and food containers.

With more and more stars getting involved in this environmental fashion trend, the fashion designers are looking beyond their previously normal and usual fashion sense and going beyond and exploring different realms that are all attuned to nature and the environment.  Today, customers not only look at the sizes and colors of their fashion preferences, but they even concern themselves with the products being environmentally acquainted.

The environmental issues now being brought to awareness are spreading at a fast rate and clothing that are made with natural materials now proliferate the market.  Organic fiber like cotton is friendly to nature and the plant itself protects the earth from erosion.  Hemp is another fabric that has been with us for centuries together with other natural fabrics that are used to make different clothing.

Those who are fashion-conscious need not worry about the environment-friendly fashion, as they are backed up and vouched for by the popular fashion designers.  The famous designers like Versace, Ralph Lauren, and Calvin Klein, are all receptive to the trend and have given and offered their valuable contributions in the field of environmental art.