My Mathematical Mind

A treasury I made last night featuring a few EcoEtsy sellers, among others, made the front page today! Here's a screen shot of it:

For Your Eco Papa!

If you have one of those geeky and/or earth-loving fathers, he might really dig these clip boards made from recycled circuit boards!



These were craftily and consciously created by DebbyAremDesigns!

Orange You Recycled?

Yes, in fact this beautiful floral fabric pin is made of a recycled t-shirt!



Marang97 has many such creations in her beautiful Etsy store!

Made from several layers of a recycled t-shirt. These are great little personal accents! A wonderful accessory to any outfit, coat, bag, pillow or where ever you may need a little more attention!

Great for a wedding or prom corsage, hat pin, curtain accent, on a dog's collar, sweater, hair tie or anywhere else you may think ~ be creative!!

It's Wedding Season. NO, IT'S DUCK SEASON!

But for real, it's wedding season. And if you're looking for a neat gift or keepsake for someone who is tying the knot, consider this cloth calendar, with their wedding date circled via embroidery!



This calendar, made by chakrapennywhistle, is cut from a vintage tea towel. The day of the week may not match up, but for a true earth-lover, that may not matter! For you crafty types, you could then append the patch to any number of gift items, to give them a customized significance!

One of the latest rages on Etsy that I've noticed in recent weeks is the steampunk look. And I must say, I can see why it's caught on.



The above cuff links by dustDesignCo are made from recycled vintage watches, and give you that late 18th century Industrial Revolution meets sci-fi fantasy feel.

Conscious Knitting

If you're a knitter or crocheter and you care about the future of our planet, it may have crossed your mind more than once where a lot of your yarns come from, and how they are made. Go into any Michael's craft store and browse around in the yarn section, checking the labels of random brands and you'll find that 99% of the yarns being sold have some sort of synthetic fiber in them. Even the yarns made of 100% wool or cotton can seem a bit iffy because of the practices used to create them. This tends to bug me, more and more especially ever since I've found that there are eco-friendly alternatives out there!

Today I'd like to feature one of those alternatives, a store on Etsy called Crafty Yarn. I've used this store for a few months now, and have bought a plethora of recycled yarns from her, which I have found to be not only weight-lifting on my conscience, but a pleasantly diverse and unique variety of yarn types that I could never have bought from a chain box store to begin with!


This is yarn recycled (unraveled) from a gently used, high quality sweater. This is a really special yarn - it's unusual to find silk in such a thick weight, and the color is awesome.

There's plenty more of these one-of-a-kind yarns in her shop to check out! And what a great way to make for some guilt-free fiber crafting!

Count the Ways You Buy Green

JesseDanger sells some magnificent handmade jewelry and other metalwork creations! For instance, these Lemongrass shadow earrings are made from recycled silver:



Aside from the product itself being recycled, Jesse takes some other environmentally friendly steps to make buying from him a happily green one...

5% of all profits go to Earthworks, a nonprofit organization that regulates fair trade mining worldwide. Each piece comes packaged in a signed and sealed box using 100% recycled and sustainable materials.

Reusable Baggies

Kootsac makes some very colorful, not to mention useful nylon bags that are great for purchasing bulk foods, as an alternative to plastic bags. And I should know, I bought a few from her! They're washable and reusable, which is very convenient, not to mention great for the earth!



Here is some information about these bags, straight from the source:

WHY NOT USE A NATURAL FIBRE LIKE COTTON?
I am a textile artist and designer and only work with natural fibres, so that was my first thought too. Cotton is too heavy and things like flour leak through the weave. Uncoated ripstop nylon is lightweight, doesn't leak and is water resistant.

WHY IS THERE NO DRAWSTRING?
It was important to keep the weight down. When you buy bulk food you are paying by weight. These bags weigh the same as a plastic bag. Just use a twist tie. Many stores require that you put a bin number on the twist tie anyway.

WILL THEY BE ACCEPTED IN A GROCERY STORE?
All the natural food stores I've used them in have been really excited to see an alternative to plastic and have been very supportive. I can't speak for other stores but I can say that there is a movement towards banning the bag in many parts of the world.

CAN I STORE MY FOOD IN THEM?
In the same way as I try not to store food in plastic I would not store my food in these bags. I put the food in a glass storage container when I get home from the grocery store. Plastic leaches chemicals into your food. Ripstop nylon is not an organic material so I would treat it the same way as plastic, although it is an uncoated nylon.

Twist and Shout!

Seriously, do a little dance for these beautiful twisted bracelets, made of recycled telephone wires in an eye-popping array of colors!


Creator: CourtneyWatson

For Your Woman Times

Consider switching to cloth menstrual pads!



Why make the switch to cloth pads? ModestMaiden lists a number of convincing reasons for crossing over to the green side:

• save money, since they can be used again and again
  
• feel good knowing you aren't adding to the landfills
  
• they're so soft, and they feel much better against the skin!
  
• celebrate being a woman! :)
  

Cork is Pretty Cool!

Ottoman is a shop that sells, among other things, pendants made from wood burned cork:



Some interesting facts about cork that Ottoman shares in this item's listing...

Cork is a renewable resource that is harvested from the Cork Oak (Quercus suber) approximately every 10 years after which a new cork layer regrows; therefore, the trees are not cut down. The cork industry also supports thousands of individuals as the cork is harvested by hand. Cork forests also provide homes to endangered species and endemic plants.

2Revert or Not 2Revert...

2Revert all the way! Any shop that sells beautiful jewelry made from recycled skateboards has my vote!

Vintage Never Looked so Fresh!

Rikrak makes some wicked fine goodies out of vintage fabrics.

My personal favorite from her shop, which is filled with similar vibrant pieces, is this gleefully green quilted card cozy!

Eco-Friendly, for Your Mom...

Mother's Day is fast approaching! If you haven't gotten your dear mum anything fabulous yet to show your love for and appreciation of her, you might consider some of these Mother's Day picks from the Eco Etsy street team...

If your mother is the type who appreciates a beautiful bouquet of flowers, give her a dozen that will last a lifetime!


[Vintage Button Bouquet by lilfishstudios]

A techie mommy might dig a cute pair of earrings made from recycled circuit board!


[by DebbyAremDesigns]

Any earth-loving mother would be thrilled to receive this springy purse and matching pocket made of a used felted sweater, and lined with colorful vintage blouse:


[by woolywooly]

For the mom that loves to shop, and hates the excess plastic bags that build up in her closet as a result, give her the gift of recycled shirt tote bags!!


[by zJayne]

If you have a mommy-to-be in your life, and you wanna show her how fabulous she looks when she's pregnant, this is the perfect gift for her!


[by cloud9designstudio]

For a full listing of Eco Etsy handmade goodies, click here!

Keep in mind too, that if you buy locally, which is more eco-friendly in itself, you're more likely to get it in time for Mother's Day! Etsy has a fun shop local feature you can use for this purpose. Lucky for you, EcoEtsy is a global street team (sounds like an oxymoron), so your chances of finding a seller close to you are pretty good!

Eco Etsy - A street team that cares!

Just wanted to give a shout out to the EcoEtsy Street team! We're a team of crafters and artists (yes, myself included) who do our best to reduce, reuse and recycle when it comes to what we create and how we ship it out to those who buy it.

Please check out our website, which I have been working on! There's still a lot to be done with it, so bookmark it and visit it again and again! It's a great resource for eco-friendly handmade goods that you can buy for yourself and as gifts, as well as a great resource for plenty of environment-related website materials...

The Best Kind of Feedback

Is feedback you can see!



A huge thanks to Viventity for so artfully displaying how superior crocheted dish cloths are to those funky old throw-away sponges!

Hey, What's Up

Hi blogger! I'm Kate! I love crafting, peoples' handmade goodies, animals, the environment, and my friends and family, among other things. I've chosen to combine a few of these passions into an eco-licious blog here, where I will feature all of the eco-friendly crafty goodies I find in life, on the web, and in my own imagination.

I'm an Etsy seller. My shops are EcoKate.Etsy.com and ShutterKate.etsy.com. I just recently opened my EcoKate shop, and have put a lot more focus on it as of late. For this shop, I've come up with an entirely old concept, dish cloths, and created my own style and patterns for knitting and crocheting them. Here are examples of my dish cloths:





I love to mess with cloth color combinations, and how to model them for pictures in my shop. While most of these cloths are made from new yarn, I consider them very eco-friendly because they are meant to be used as a replacement for throw-away sponges and paper towels, significantly reducing the amount of throw-away consumption we as a culture have sadly accepted as the norm.

I promise all of my posts won't be about the stuff I make, as much as I'm in love with myself...

Anyhow, I leave you with my favorite song of the moment to enjoy when you get a free moment... Be sure to bookmark me and come back to check out all the eco-fabulous goodies I find in the near future!