Crafting for a reason
Here’s some late night linky love. So late in fact, I didn’t finish this post until the morning!
My new favourite Etsy store is culturerevolution. Not my favourite store of all time, that’s still Jellyshoe Rebellion, who now have a Facebook Page become a Fan! Anyhoo it’s cause of this super outfit (which I’d never wear, but love anyway)
” It is made out of a recycled t-shirt and striped knit fabric saved from the scrap trash bin… Be environmentally friendly and fashionable at the same time!
Join the Revolution! Recycle, ReUse, Revolution!”
Speaking of which, when was the last time you crafters out there stopped and had a breather and thought about the processes you use to create your works of genius? Do you think about the reasons you craft? What gets you started and what keeps you making? If you’re like me and into thinking about this stuff a lot, I urge you to read “10 qualities of slow cloth” at Red Thread Studio. It just made me want to run in to my craft room and start making stuff so I could sit there and think about making stuff!
For those of you out there who like to make nice things for other people, you might want to check out a couple of posts that highlight crafting for a cause. Firstly the wonderful Mikes crew have started the Softies for Mirabel Auction. You can go start bidding on your favourite softies now and all the profits go to the Mirabel Foundation who are ACE! There’s still room for more softies. So if you want to do something for some kids who will seriously appreciate, jump over and get on board.
If softies aren’t really your thing then All Natural Me has a great list of a bunch of causes that you can craft for. I especially like the Goods for Girls idea. I’m a huge fan of reducing dependence on wasteful corporate products. So I am a huge raving fan of cloth pads.
I always thought moonpads would be yucky and surfboardy like those big horrible pads you got when you were a kid. But cloth pads are so soft and cuddly and comfy. And infinitely better for the planet. They’re easy to make too or there’s a ton of people selling them online. I recommend the Moonpads Store. Lovely product and lovely service. And you can buy seconds (which don’t really have anything wrong with them) for cheap!
And speaking of crafting for good, we can’t forget what comes before the crafting and that’s the designing. And I just found this super inspiring website that all you designers out there should be subscribing to. It’s called ’101 Things Designers Can Do To Save The Earth’. They’re up to 109, so I’m pleased they’re not limiting themselves (although there hasn’t been any posts in a little while…) There’s a ton of useful and interesting links on there and I reckon it’s definitely not just designers that will find this site useful.
Finally a bit of linky love for my own project. I’ve been busily adding more stuff to the Fabric of Resistance wiki. There’s actually a ton of pages on there now, wee! I recommend you go click on the Random Page link on the left and see some for yourself. And hopefully get inspired to add your own things. If you want to help out with a task that really needs doing, visit the community portal and look at the task list. I’m going to start doing some crafting for a cause projects next!
So there’s a ton of stuff to keep you inspired! Anyone else seen any great conscious crafty projects recently?
xox
The dirty end of town
If you looked at the front page of etsy you’d probably think it was all pretty cute and fashionable. Trendy no less.
But if you look hard enough there is some seriously cool stuff on there. Here’s some things I’d buy if I had a million dollars.
Firstly (and I can’t believe I’m saying this..) I just love this bag!
There’s other bags made out of this fabric too, but this is definitely my favourite. It’s from the wonderfully whimsical Baba Studio Prague.
Staying on the theme of bags, I’d love to go to the supermarket with this one
It’s from the communitea store and they also do it in a tshirt, although there was none in there last time I looked. And they’re really cheap. I reckon I’ll get one at some point. When the aforementioned million dollars turns up!
Next up staying on the tshirt theme is this hilarious tshirt from the Citalin store
Why change horseman in the middle of an apocalypse? Ha! Classic! Had me in stitches for ages. My partner thought I’d gone crazy.
Speaking of elections… it’s scary the amount of Obama craft out there. I’m not gonna put any on here but if you care about these things, do a tag search on Obama on etsy. It’s freaky.
I’m more impressed with this clutch
It’s made by the awesome genius at the jellyshoe rebellion store. There is so much cool stuff there, mostly thrifted and upcycled stuff too so super good for the planet as well as our souls. If I had the aforementioned million dollars I would buy EVERYTHING in this store.
Finally I adore this shirt
Emma Goldman is one of my favourite people ever (you’ve all seen the xstitch eh) and I love the piratey-ness of this one.
Its from the super cool KMStitchery Store which is your home for all your feminist hand cut stencilled recycled clothing needs! Of all the people selling on etsy this is the one person I would love to meet in real life. I reckon we’d get on like a riot!
So all of you people sitting at home thinking you wanna do something to save the planet. Next time you need to buy some new clothes or bags or whatever. Use a big of imagination and have a look and see what radical, recycling crafter you can support and buy something of them instead of from some crappy big box hell hole.
xox