Celebrate Green Blog

by Lynn and Corey

Becky Striepe is an avid crafter. She shares her creative ideas as site director of Eat Drink Better, Crafting a Green World, and Feelgood Style, as well as on her own blog, Glue and Glitter. Just like us, she revels in taking items people normally would toss and turning them into useful and/or decorative pieces that can avoid (or at least delay), their being tossed or recycled.

1. How do you define green crafting? Is everything you use personally to craft “green,” or do you use some un-green alternatives too? If so, can you tell us which one(s) and why?

I think that green crafting can mean different things. For me, it means using reclaimed and organic materials wherever I can and avoiding animal products in my crafting. The biggest hurdle for me right now is finding healthier alternatives to glues. Strong glue - like hot glue or e6000 - is useful stuff but also full of harmful chemicals, but I haven’t found water-based glues that turn out a sturdy finished product like these do. How green is your craft if the final product isn’t durable, you know what I mean? That’s definitely something I struggle with.

2. How did you get into green crafting?

Environmental issues have always been important to me, so when I got back into crafting as an adult, choosing low-impact materials was really a no brainer.

3. Can you share one of the favorites you’ve made?

I’ve been really into crafting with junk mail lately, especially making miniature notebooks. I’ve tried so hard to stop the flow of junk mail, but it seems to always find its way to my house. At least this way it’s not headed straight to the bin, right?

Those security envelopes that show up in your mailbox with bills, bank statements, and credit card offers seem boring enough on first glance, but if you peek inside, they’re all printed with different patterns. The idea is to prevent folks from being able to read the mail through the envelope, but the side effect is that you’re basically getting pretty paper for crafting in your mailbox every day.

Here’s one of my junk mail notebooks:

Lynn Colwell and Corey Colwell-Lipson are mother and daughter and authors of Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family, and founders of Green Halloween®.