Cloth napkins I recently made

Envelope I made from a paper grocery bag

Over the past year, I have done a pretty good job reducing the use of plastic in my day-to-day life. There are a few areas I need to work on, like the use of plastic produce bags at the grocery stores and farmers markets, but overall, I’ve done better than I have in years past.

For 2010, I decided to make an effort to cut back on the amount of paper I use .  I am usually mindful of my paper usage when it comes to eliminating unnecessary magazine and catalog subscriptions, junk mail, grocery stores bags, and reducing office and shipping paper. My use of miscellaneous paper products like napkins and facial tissue can be excessive at times, though I only buy 100% recycled paper products.  In an effort to reduce the amount of paper I use, I started using cloth napkins at the dinner table and handkerchiefs instead of facial tissue. I normally only use cloth napkins when I have guests, but whats stopping me from using them everyday?  Thankfully, I haven’t purchased a roll of paper towels in months, so that’s also a good start!

Have you made an effort to reduce the amount of paper and/or plastic in your life? Do you have any other ideas aside from what I mentioned?

Paper n Stitch|Crafting a Green World

Crafting a Green World – DIY for Environmentalists
Crafting a Green World is a network of bloggers, artists, crafters and designers that teaches us a wide variety of environmentally friendly do it yourself  design and art projects.  You will find a wide variety of projects such as jewelry, home decor, accessories, stationery, baby supplies and so much more. All projects utilizes eco-friendly and  chemical free supplies and rehashes all types of materials such as glass, newspaper, fabric from old clothes, buttons, shipping peanuts, junk mail, CDs and more.  Whatever it is, you can be sure someone has or will make something useful and artistic out of it on Crafting a Green World.   Some of my favorite projects includes Recycle Grocery Bags Into Eco Packaging and just about everything in the home and garden section.

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Eco-Rainbow

Previous post in this series: Eco Fashion: What is it? and Eco Fashion: Do it Yourself – Organic fabric

Knitting is a fun pastime for me that doesn’t take up much time.  Its great while waiting in line, riding public transportation or just sitting in a park. Its portable, quiet, doesn’t require machines, and if you mess up, you can always unravel the yarn and start over!

For me, the most simple item of clothing to make is a scarf.  Check out my previous post on holiday gift ideas for instructions on how to knit.

Eco Friendly Yarn Resources

Ecobutterfly Organics carries organic and fair trade cotton yarn in in a variety of colors and sizes. They also have fun notions such as recycled glass beads and purse handles made from recycled wood.

O~Wool “The Vermont Organic Fiber Company is the leading wholesale supplier of yarns and fabrics made with certified organic wool.”  Sustainable agricultural processing  in the creation of organic wool both for hand knitting and commercial use is this company’s speciality.  Though they do not offer their products online, they have a link where you can find retail stores that does.

Eco-Cotton Blend by RedHeart Redheart yarn has a new blend of recycled cotton yarn made from T-shirt remnants.

Second Time Cotton by Knit One, Crochet Too Second Time Cotton yarn is made from a blend of cotton and acrylic fabric scraps from the garment industry.

Tierra Wools located in a small village in New Mexico, is a  spinning and hand dying and hand weaving workshop and retail store.

Ceallach Dyes This eco-friendly yarn manufacturer uses solar power to heat set the dyes used to color the yarn.

The Yarn Tree offers organic merlino wool yarn.

Lion Brand Yarn is great for your basic organic cotton yarn.  The yarn is not dyed so its available in four naturally occurring shades.

Blonde Chicken Boutique Tara, owner of Blonde Chicken Boutique hand dyes and spins local wool to make yarn in the coolest shades.  Check out her Etsy shop!

Happy knitting!

Harmony Art

Previous post in this series: Eco Fashion: What is it?

Just as there’s a wide variety of finished clothing made from organic fabrics, you can also find the raw materials to make it yourself.

Organic and sustainable fabric resources

Green Depot offers organic, hemp and other fabrics in a array of colors, prints and textures.

Harmony Art has certified organic cotton sourced from India. On her site, Harmony shares her reasons for sourcing and importing from India. “How come some of your fabrics are imported from India?”

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Photo credit: Lolly Knit

We all know that organic food/produce is healthier for the body and earth, but depending on where you live and you own personal financial situation, the cost can be overwhelming.  Of course a solution to this problem is to grow your own food.  To the avid gardener, this is a no brainier. But if you have a black thumb (like me) and/or very little space to garden, this could be a real challenge.

Low Impact Living has this really great article on how to start an organic garden. How to Tuesday: Organic Gardening 101 This post is pretty much an “Organic Gardening 101″ course.

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Photo credit: Deb Roy

Last year, I set a goal to never bring home disposable grocery store bags again. We had collected so many paper bags, we were running out of places to store them in our kitchen armoire.  Thankfully, most stores around here no longer offer plastic.

So far we have about 15 reusable bags split between the two of us at home, in the car, etc.  We either got them from places like Whole Foods for just $2 each or free from industry trade shows. Two dollars is decent, but I have seen some cost as much as $40 (granted, they are nicer).

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Photo credit: harakiri

Previous posts in this series touched on homemade gifts and giving a limited amount of gifts to help reduce or eliminate the stress, pressure and financial burden of the holiday season.

How about NO gifts?
Having a no gift policy may seem like a downer for some people, but it can be a welcomed change. There is no pressure to shop for the “perfect” gift, you don’t have to have a Christmas gift budget, no standing in line at the retail stores and post offices, and no clutter from useless gifts. Another policy could be gifts for the kids only.

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