Blogs & Ecology

Photo: Cláudia*~Assad via Flickr

Flip on the TV and you’ll see commercials suggesting every little thing under the sun is the perfect holiday gift. Turn on the radio, and you're sure to hear ‘round-the-clock Christmas carols. (I’ll admit, I’m one of those people who doesn't mind this, but maybe it’s because I’m not actually listening to a radio for more than an hour a week). Checkout any suburban neighborhood and you’ll see the lights and inflatable lawn decorations are out in full swing.

Beachcombing becomes Filiz Ateş and Christiane Alaettinoğlu--and anyone who puts on one of their driftwood brooches, necklaces, or rings.

The two artists and friends gather materials on the beaches near their home in Alanya, on Turkey's Mediterranean coast, and sell the finished products under the name Yalos Alanya, from the Greek word that locals have adopted to refer to driftwood. Their whimsical designs also include sculptures and wall decorations of fish, birds, and other animals, as well as human figures, all crafted with the same philosophy:...

Call it Etsy East: But instead of hip young American artists trying to renew the crafting tradition, the hands behind the goods for sale on the online marketplace Kadın Eliyle belong to low-income Turkish women....

Image source: Selina Rose

The idea of putting felt rugs, table runners and wallcoverings around your home might bring back images of arts and crafts projects from elementary school. But the designs coming out of Selina Rose are anything but elementary.

More Selina Rose pieces after the Jump...

:: Toast to a sustainable future using our How to Go Green: Wine and Buy Green: Organic Cabernet Sauvignon guides.

:: It's not too late! Get old school this Halloween with these three crafty ideas.

Photo credit: stitch'T

If you're inundated by T-shirts but are unwilling to part with them for sentimental reasons, consider turning them into a commemorative quilt. Sewing not quite your thing? Stitch'T is here to help.

The New York City-based outfit specializes in creating "one of a kind, handmade compositions" from your worn togs, which it can grant a second lease on life in the form of quilts, duvet covers, and pillowcases. ...

Young designers are using new materials in innovative ways and the Royal College of Art show is a good place to check them out. Yemi Anosile is fascinated with cork, one of the great ecological materials--it is a natural material that can be renewably harvested from the bark of trees. She has done extensive research on its uses and spent time in Portugal, both in Lisbon and in the Alentejo where it is produced.

Thonet chairs are the classic and quintessential french cafe chair. We have been looking at them in french films, paintings and restaurants forever. Particularly the No.14--it was created in 1862, and by 1930 almost 50 million had been sold. Le Corbusier said "Never has anything been created more elegant and better in its conception, more precise in its execution, and more excellently functional."

Image: Gandhi with spinning wheel (Margaret Bourke-White, LIFE)

It’s a fitting modern tribute in a country where every major town has either a statue or a street named after Mahatma Gandhi – the man who saw the charkha or spinning wheel as a powerful instrument for self-reliance and poverty alleviation.

A handmade pony tale holder and rag doll made of recycled fabric, available on Etsy.

There's a new trend that, quite frankly, has me excited. A growing number of people (women in particular, but by no means is this a femme-exclusive category) are making a return to cottage crafts. A fantastic resource serving these crafters is Etsy, a website designed for "all things handmade."

:: Get crafty with old, mis-matched kitchen bowls.

:: Avoid mall madness. Show the kids that cool, unique back-to-school clothes can be found at thrift stores.

:: Tour the Midwest mindfully. Eco-tour Chicago with help from our Green City Guide: Chicago.
...

It is sort of like brass baby booties; when our walls are all embedded with LEDs and lighting is part of the fabric of our house, we will be able to answer the question "grandpa, what's a lightbulb?" If we have made these lovely concrete lightbulb wall hooks.

Image source: KnitGrrl

For the crafty out there in the audience, Shannon Okey, author of more than 10 knitting books, now launches a new book for "alternative" fibers - Alt Fiber: 25 Projects For Knitting Green With Bamboo, Soy, Hemp and More. Not sure when the next time will be that we're lost in the woods and desperately needing to fashion together some semblance of a loincloth together with only a pair of knitting needles and banana fiber, but one can never tell these days.

Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved. Photo by Noah Bulgaria