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Do you like to make things? Do you tinker with glue guns and fabric scraps? Do you know what Mod Podge is? Great! You’ve come to the right place!

I love to show you how to make things that are fun and eco-friendly. I love upcycling things from items that have seen better days to brand new functional items.

So whether you are a seasoned seamstress or glue gun aficionado, you’ll have fun!

Let’s get crafting!

xo,
Karen

Tutorial: Skin Brightening Kiwi Mask

Some white stuff is falling today. It’s not a blizzard but its enough to make the snow plow guys to come through my streets several times throughout the day. I think they were bored this winter and were probably more excited about the snow than my daughter! But truth be told – We NEED snow in the winter to nourish the earth. Warm winters are never good for the planet [...]

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Day 22: 24 Days of Green Christmas Crafts – Recycled Paper Bows

I’m sure you’ve had this happened to you before. It’s almost midnight on Christmas Eve and you are tired and cranky because you were all over the world looking for that toy that your child has been wishing for. You finally find it in the last toy store, buy it, and you figured, you can wrap it yourself when you get home. The cookies and milk are waiting for Santa [...]

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Day 19: 24 Days of Green Christmas Crafts – Paper Snow Flakes

Christmas is less than a week away folks. If you bought gifts, are you done with wrapping them yet? Look at this pretty paper snow flake you can make out of any scrap paper. Isn’t this a great way to decorate your gifts? Howaboutorange has neat tutorials on making snowflakes like this and other more intricate ones that can be used as gift wrapping decoration or to just hang and [...]

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Day 16: 24 Days of Green Christmas Crafts – Ruffled T-Shirt Scarf

As the weather gets colder, scarf is “a must” accessory for me. While I love cowls, it’s just as easy to throw on a scarf and run out the door. I need to protect my neck from the chill, otherwise, I am not a happy camper in the cold. And since I made a t-shirt hat yesterday, I decided to use up the white t-shirt remnants to make a scarf. [...]

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Day 15: 24 Days of Green Christmas Crafts – T-Shirt Hat

Do we love upcycling t-shirts or what? We made t-shirt fabric yarn, a memory quilt and a Christmas tree skirt. Today, we are going to make a hat. And why not? We have plenty of t-shirts and the soft well worn t-shirts make great fabric for a cozy hat as a gift….especially, if you are using his/her favorite shirt to make his/her favorite hat! And, its easy peasy! How to Make [...]

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Day 14: 24 Days of Green Christmas – Edible Gift Ideas

Before I talk about my favorite type of gifts to receive, give – food – I have to tell you about an interesting phenomenon that’s been happening on my blog for about ten days…..no, it’s not the “24 Days of Green Christmas Crafts”…although it is a phenomenal series! Beginning of December, Fox News published an article titled, “7 foods you should never eat” from Prevention magazine – an article I posted [...]

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Day 13: 24 Days of Green Christmas Crafts – Paper Leaf Wreath

Remember the poinsettia wreath made out of toilet paper tubes on the Day 1 of this series? Even since I saw the wreath, I have been fiddling around with my collection of toilet paper tubes to make something out of them. At first, I thought I can make some words out of them and insert christmas lights in the holes to light them up, like a billboard. But the tubes [...]

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Day 12: 24 Days of Green Christmas Crafts – Gift Card Holder Ornament

WOW! We’ve made it half way through “24 Days of Green Christmas Crafts”! Time flies when you are having fun! I can’t believe it’s 12 days before Christmas already. Can you? I hope you are having a blast making these crafts as I am. And thanks for spreading the word about this series. We are getting some nice visitors and I am so glad you are helping to promote green [...]

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Day 11: 24 Days of Green Christmas Crafts – Hoopster Snowman

Ever since I saw Betz White’s Hoopie the Snowman, I knew I was going to make it some day. But I don’t felt wool so I had to think of another way to dress this little guy. Then, I realized that I had a bag – ok, a basket – full of old t-shirts; some whole and some remnants from the T-Shirt Memory Quilt I made. I figured, there are [...]

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Day 10: 24 Days of Green Christmas Crafts – Christmas Stockings

What’s Christmas without stockings, right? We used to put little gifts for 12 days leading up to Christmas when the kids were young. They’d run down to check the stockings every morning, as if it’s Christmas morning. And I’ll be honest, the kids never noticed the stockings for their beauty. They just shoved their short arms and reached down to see what were in them. But sadly, now that they [...]

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Day 8: 24 Days of Green Christmas Crafts – Fish Terrarium

What is better than giving someone a living organism as a gift? Give this awesome terrarium for anyone who knows how to shake a salt shaker. That’s really all it takes to take care of this little neat guy. There is no maintenance and you don’t need to walk it or groom it. Ok, you’ll need to change the water when it gets dirty but that’s it! One of my [...]

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Day 7: 24 Days of Green Christmas Crafts – Burlap Ornament

Wow. It’s been one week since we started the “24 Days of Green Christmas” series already. Are you tired yet? I hope not. I’m just getting warmed up! So, let’s continue with crafting, shall we? For today’s craft, I want to share a post I wrote for Crafting a Green World back in October. These shabby chic ornaments used up leftover burlap after making trays and baskets so I was [...]

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Day 6: 24 Days of Green Christmas Crafts – Pants Bowl

Today’s tutorial involves one of my favorite upcycling methods – making yarn out of clothes. Remember my tutorial on how to make fabric yarn out of T-Shirts? Sonya of Kanlestrand makes yarn out of pants to make this adorable fabric bowl. All you need is an old – yes, that means OLD, not your son’s favorite worn out baggy pants, thinking, he won’t notice it’s missing. Uh-huh. He’s onto you. [...]

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Day 5: 24 Days of Green Christmas Crafts – Felted Poinsettia Brooch

We have a winner for the cute little clutch from La Alicia’s shop! Commenter #2, Cynthia, won the cute clutch! Yay! CONGRATULATIONS!!! Now, Felted Poinsettia Brooch Tutorial… I have this amazingly talented friend who lives up in the “Arctic“. I call it “Arctic” because when it snows in the winter – actually, I think it already snowed up there before Thanksgiving – it S…N…O…W…S… boat loads! Not like this gentle [...]

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Day 4: 24 Days of Green Christmas Crafs – Table Runner

I created a Flickr group called, “Green Christmas Crafting“ so that you can share your Christmas craft tutorials from December 1st to December 24th every year! Yay! this will be an annual event! I will upload mine if you upload yours. Eeek….that didn’t sound good. Anyway, please share your recent Christmas craft tutorials and maybe I’ll feature them here, with your permission, of course. On with today’s Day #4 tutorial…. [...]

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Day 3: 24 Days of Green Christmas Crafts – T-Shirt Christmas Tree Skirt

Making T-Shirt quilts is a great ways to use up old t-shirts. Not only that, it’s a great way to preserve sentimental memories and keep us closer to our past a little longer. I posted this tree skirt tutorial on Crafting a Green World when I used to write for the site and I thought I’d post it here, just in case, you missed it. The cool thing about this [...]

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Day 2: 24 Days of Green Christmas Crafts – Using Up Paper

http://youtu.be/pb72LFW0KPI

Using up recyclable paper, like magazines, catalogues, Christmas wrapping paper, and Christmas cards are not only fun but very practical. Let’s check out how these creative crafters are recycling paper into functional goodies. Simple Matchboxes These matchboxes are so cute for wrapping jewelry or even gift cards. All you need are some paper, knife, and glue! Who needs to buy gift boxes? You can see the instruction on Mary Zoom. [...]

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Day 1: 24 Days of Green Christmas Crafts – Wreath, Garland, and More to Come

This is it! Today is the official start of ecokaren’s “24 days of Green Crafting for Christmas” Countdown. Everyday from today (GULP!), I will post green holiday crafting tips and ideas or recipes until Christmas. Some will be my originals and some will be a round up of ideas that I think you’ll enjoy. I know. I’m crazy. I might pass out by Day 14 but I have ambitious goals. [...]

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5 Upcycled Wine Bottle Ideas

We are not wine connoisseurs and we don’t pretend to be. We once opened one of our friend’s French wines before its ‘time’ because we believed it was a total waste of ‘time’ to wait. Literally. Of course, we were totally wrong. They never let us touch their wine collection after that. So, we let our friends do the honors in ordering wine when we go out. But we do [...]

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How to Make Dishwashing Liquid with Castile Soap

As you might have guessed, I’m on a Castile Soap kick lately. I use it in my Dishwasher Detergent that makes my glass squeaky spotless clean and my wonderfully scrubby Soft Scrub. I think my upstate friend would be very jealous at how spotless my glasses come out. She has hard water and she says she has to use detergents with phosphate to make her glasses spotless. I wonder if [...]

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Non-Toxic and Cheap Dishwasher Detergent

OK, the party is over. This middle aged, pampered, prima donna has to get back to doing the dishes after celebrating her 50th birthday. (And THANK YOU for all your birthday wishes. My “Fifty things to Remember” post received over 1100 page views! I feel so loved. ♥) And after my “AR” finished cooking – yes, he grilled this awesome Asian Citrus Salmon on my birthday and even brought home [...]

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Halloween DIY #1: Solar Jack – O – Lantern

According to the National Retail Federation, Americans will blow $7 billion dollars this Halloween. Is that nuts or what? That could be GDP of a small country. That could lower our own federal deficit a little. I never liked Halloween because it’s so wasteful but this figure blows my mind! I mean, this type of spending will stimulate the economy alright but, most of the goods come from overseas, probably [...]

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How to Upcycle Dresses to Skirts

Fall is here and I’m turning my closet upside down again. Why does change of seasons seem to happen so quickly after you turn 40? It feels like I just switched my seasonal clothes yesterday! Getting old sucks, I tell ya. I haven’t bought any new wardrobe lately and I was itching for something new when I saw a few of my… ahem… twenty-something year old dresses hanging lifelessly in [...]

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Sugar Scrub vs. Sea Salt Scrub

My heels have been cracking lately and it’s not even winter yet. Does your feet look like the Sahara desert like mine? Or are you the weekly Mani-Pedi type and they look like the baby’s bottom? Obviously, I’m not that type and my heels are the tell-tale sign of my highly pampered life. *Cough Cough* When a chapped piece of skin caught my husband’s leg under the sheets and he [...]

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Natural Soft Scrub That WORKS and SAFE!

Some of you know how much I h.a.t.e. ironing. I’d scrub your bath tub if you’d iron my clothes. Seriously. Some people get happy seeing nicely ironed shirts, but me? I can’t stand (literally) doing the same thing over and over again for an hour or longer….just so that our clothes look…not wrinkled. (I though casual wrinkled look was in? When did that fad go out?) Anyway, put me in [...]

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eco-friendly, reusable, solar jack-o-lantern and weekend round up

“Halloween is more than a month away so why the Jack-O-Lantern?”, says the Accidental Recycler, as he opens the door for me while I bring it in from the backyard after it dried. Being a green craft blog writer, I have to come up with stories well in advance. So last Sunday, while I took the day off and unplugged, I made a Jack-O-Lantern that uses solar lamp. No candle [...]

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How to Applique and Weekend Round Up

I have a short tutorial to tell you about. With leftover fabric from the quilt I made for a friend’s daughter last week, I made her a pillow. It’s a pillow that she can snuggle up with on the floor when she hangs out with her friends in her dorm room; a pillow she can lean against while studying for exams; a pillow she can cry on if things get [...]

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Lace Necklace and Weekend Round Up

Remember I told you last week that I was making a quilt for a friend’s daughter who’s going off to college this Fall? I finished the quilt and the tutorial is posted on Crafting a Green World (see below for the link). And boy, was she surprised when she saw it. She said, “Wow. This is cool!” and “So, that’s where my purple shirt was!” The best part was seeing [...]

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How to make a fabric box with burlap

I love fabric boxes. They are easy to make and so functional. They are prettier than the plastic ones (and it’s plastic) and will last longer than the cardboard boxes. And they are versatile since you can decorate them or leave them plain and rustic like this one. Here is my tutorial on how to make a fabric box originally posted on Crafting a Green World. This is using a [...]

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How to Make a Fabric Box From a Broken Bag

I had this broken zippered bag for a long time. I would have fixed the zipper if I loved the bag but the strap was too thin and it was too long for the size of the tote. I carried the darn thing for a while without closing it but then, I got tired of always pulling the falling strap up. So the bag just sat in my closet, holding [...]

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Non-Toxic Way To Clean Stainless Steel Pans

All my pots and pans are stainless steel. I ditched all the non-stick Teflon pans years ago because of PFOA – pertluorooctanoic acid – a solvent used to make Teflon coated pans that are toxic to our health. I’ll admit; it took months of getting used to stainless steel pans because, as you can imagine, everything sticks to the pan if I’m not careful. But time to time, I get [...]

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Foam Soap Tutorial

Do you ever wonder how to use up all of that little bit of soap that’s left on the bottom of the soap dispenser or a refillable soap containers? Like this one? It looks empty, doesn’t it? But don’t let the outside color fool you. There’s enough soap inside to make at least another bottle of soap! Here is how. You’ll Need: Foam Soap Pump – I use old ones [...]

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Floor Savers; Reusable Chair Leg Pads

I have hardwood floors and ceramic tiles on the first floor of my house. I used to use disposable felt pads to put under the legs so that the floor doesn’t get scratched. But more than that, so that I don’t get goosebumps and hair raising from hearing the screeching noise every time someone drags the chair on the floor. Scrrrrr-eeeee-chhhhh. Eeeeek. Goosebumps. Chills. Then one day, my Mom brought [...]

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How to Make a Coupon Wallet from Reusable Grocery Bag Without Sewing

You know those reusable grocery bags you’ve been “abusing” ever since you got them? C’mon. Be honest. I know you’ve pushed them to the limit. You’ve over stuffed them with groceries, hauled library books, and even your kids have used them to carry, ‘God-knows-what’ in them. My kids have used them to lug the entire year’s worth of books to school in September and carry everything from their lockers back [...]

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How to Make Photo Ornaments with Glass Jar Lids

I love making special Christmas ornaments. The best kinds of ornaments are not the crystal ones from Waterford or fine china from Lenox. To me, the ones that my kids made while in Pre-School or elementary schools are the best ones. There is a contortionist snowman made out of pipe cleaners with crooked googly eyes, toothless smiling face on a fade construction paper glued with colorful macaroni, warped and glittered-to- [...]

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How to Upcycle a Glass Jar into a Soap Dispenser

I use one soap dispenser in my kitchen. I use non-toxic plant based dish liquid soap so I figured, if it’s good enough for my dishes, it’s good enough for my hands, right? So I only use one type of soap in my kitchen in one soap dispenser. Less clutter so I’m good. But the soap dispenser I was using was too small and I was refilling the thing every [...]

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What to do with Old Fitted Sheets: Part 2

Some of my friends left comments on facebook after reading my last post, “What to do with old fitted sheets“. Some recommended donating old sheets to local shelters or to a vet. I donate blankets and old towels to a local animal shelter but I would be embarrassed to donate some of my ‘vintage’, old worn out ones. If they are not so worn out, may be. But trust me, [...]

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What to do with old fitted sheets

I just cleaned out my linen closet and came up with a few old fitted sheets with worn out elastic, faded colors or prints, and some that are just tired looking. I think many of them are considered ‘vintage’ by some standards. Since I didn’t want to throw them out but can’t donate them (who would want to use someone else’s old sheets?) or can’t make anything that I can [...]

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How to recycle t-shirts to make a memory quilt

This will be a short tutorial as there really isn’t too much involved in making a memory t-shirt quilt. I mean, what’s to explain? Cut up old t-shirt fronts and sew them together, right? Wrong. There are some helpful things I learned along the way that I wanted to share just in case you want to try making this great gift for a college bound son (like in my case) [...]

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How to make a simple fabric flower

I posted a tutorial for a multi-layered fabric flower tutorial last year and it became one of the most viewed tutorials. In fact, Emily’s Little World posted a link to the tutorial on her blog and I was really thrilled to share it. But for this upcycled denim skirt bag that I donated to a recent PTA meeting, where I spoke about being green and saving money, I wanted to [...]

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How to join fabric yarns

You saw how easy it is to make fabric yarns yesterday. But what if you have fabric yarns that are too short to make anything? You can join the pieces to make longer yarns, of course. This is a silly simple method of joining them without tying. I cut these strips wide and I’m using two different colors to illustrate the method better here. 1. Take two strips of yarns [...]

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How to make fabric yarns

You know one of my 2010 resolutions was to simplify my life. I finally cleaned out the closets and drawers and came up with four piles. 1) keep 2) dump 3) donate 4) re-purpose Ahhhh…it feels so good to de-clutter. One of the things I made with t-shirts from the “re-purpose” pile was fabric yarns. I always wondered how I could make yarns out of them – continuous yarns, that [...]

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How to unclog a sink or a bathtub

My bathtub is clogged. I hate having sloshing water at my feet when I am in the shower. (Who does?) So, I tried the only natural method I know, since commercial drain cleaner has Sodium Hydroxide, which is a very caustic substance that I wouldn’t want in the house. There are various methods of using baking soda and vinegar to unclog a drain. But this method seems to work the [...]

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How to add Feedburner E-mail Subscription form

I posted about adding content titles to your posts for e-mail subscribers this week and I realized I was ahead of myself. Some of you didn’t know how to add the e-mail subscription form to your blog. There are alot of e-mail management companies that you can use – some are free and some are not. I like feedburner for the simple e-mail subscription feature. It’s up to you how [...]

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How to add content titles to blog feeds

I wanted to see what my blog feeds look like in your mail boxes so I signed up for my own blog to see how they looked. This is how they looked when I checked. See how the title is the same and there is no content title for the posts? When they are delivered this way, I can’t tell what the posts are about. Gah~ It turns out, I’m [...]

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What to do with socks without their partners

I put this tutorial for my Eco Etsy Team’s blog a couple of weeks ago and received rave reviews so I thought I’d post it here for those of you who are not a team member. If you are the one who does the laundry in your house, you know the age old mystery – what happened to the other sock? You are sure you put both socks in the [...]

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How to make a fabric flower

A fan on facebook asked me how she could make this brooch and I thought I’d post a simple tutorial so that you can use up your fabric scraps in a eco-fashionable way. I saw some beautiful flower brooches, hair clips, headbands and fabric necklaces on Etsy and I, too, wondered how to make these flowers. I couldn’t find any tutorial so I experimented a few different ways and found [...]

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How to add a facebook button on blogspot

I looked everywhere to see if I can add a simple facebook button on my blog. But I couldn’t find it. Facebook has a feature where I can add a badge on my blog but it also has update information below it and I didn’t want that. It was too big. I just wanted a simple blue rectangle button that says “facebook” on it. Well, I finally figured out how [...]

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Ecogeneration’s Furoshiki Tutorial Part 2.

2) Machine Sewn Silk Furoshiki To make this silk furoshiki, I had to buy silk scraps because I didn’t have any in my collection. But still, I bought an inexpensive pack of scraps and not a whole yard from a wonderful etsy seller, Purseapalooza. The problem of buying scraps is that you don’t know if you are going to get a large enough piece for your project. But, it didn’t [...]

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Ecogeneration’s How To Make Furoshiki Tutorial: Part 1.

Hand quilted furoshiki I wonder how we became to be such a wasteful society? I know…that’s deep and we can have an all out pow-wow conversation about it. But I want to talk specifically about something so wasteful, something so not necessary. Wrapping paper. Who invented wrapping paper? I mean, it really is meant to solely “cover” the thing that you want to give to someone, just so that it [...]

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See my soapdish tutorial on EcoEtsy’s team blog!

You’ll love this. Eco Etsy’s blog featured my soap dish tutorial! How cool is that? It explains why I decided to make this soap dish for myself but also to show you how easy it is to make it. We can upcycle anything we want and these non-recyclable plastics are perfect for making this soap dish. Why waste and add plastic to our landfills when we can use them? Isn’t [...]

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