Greener, Cleaner Arts and Crafts
Colder winter months often mean less time outdoors and more time feeling cooped up in our homes – making it an excellent time for an art project! Arts and crafts are a great way to get inspired and create something new. This month, we wanted to share fun and earth-friendly crafts that can be enjoyed by children, families, and classrooms! Sometimes crafting can require using a lot of new materials, and messy crafts often create a lot of waste. These crafts are the perfect solution – they can be made from materials you already own, they encourage us to appreciate the beauty of nature, and some of them are even helpful in supporting our local wildlife!
Upcycled Crafts
What is upcycling? It’s taking something you already own and no longer use and turning it into something new. In doing this, the result is often more valuable and beautiful than it previously was!
Wondering if there’s something you can do with old tin cans? With this craft, you can create adorable planters and bring outdoor life into your home!
This craft turns an old milk carton into the new favorite hangout spot for birds in your yard, as well as providing these feathered friends with food in scarce winter months.
Nature Crafts
These crafts utilize natural resources as crafting materials, allowing you bring some of the beauty of nature into your home!
These bookmarks are a unique way to preserve leaves and flowers from your yard. This craft becomes not only a bookmark, but also a keepsake—and all you need are some leaves and laminating sheets!
Collect leaves from your community and make these creative lanterns! This craft can bring illumination, ambiance, and beauty to your home in cold evenings.
Wildlife Friendly Crafts
Furry or feathered friends in your yard will thank you for these crafts!
In these colder winter months, we can share our bounty with those around us – including the feathered friends in our yards and communities! The birds you see in these colder months are those that have decided to stay in the area as opposed to migrating south, and a little generosity can go a long way!
Ever had a bird fly into your window at home? You can prevent these kinds of bird injuries by creating a bird deflector for your windows and helping birds differentiate between glass and open space!
Additional Resources:
- For all of your crafting needs, we recommend shopping at the Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse, located at the intersection of Wilkinsburg, Homewood, and Point Breeze! You can find an endless variety of materials here—all of which have been previously used, recycled, or donated—for incredibly cheap!
- Have you ever asked yourself: “How do I reuse _________?” This website has infinite ideas for you! https://craftingagreenworld.com/reuse-resources/
This post was authored by Evelyn Garon, our KEYS Americorps member (SY 2019-2020).