Fifty Things to Upcycle Into Something Amazing – Part Two
Parts 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 Number Eleven: Bottle Cap Mini-Candles Not only is this upcycled bottle cap candle DIY a great way to use up the extra wax left over after you’ve burned down a candle, but it’s also the ideal way to find a use for all of those pesky bottle caps that get left after somebody drinks a beer. In our family, we have one member [...]
Fifty Things to Upcycle Into Something Amazing – Part Three
Parts 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 Number Twenty One: An Old Frame Into an Earring Holder Caveat: This craft refers to a holder for pierced ear earrings only! But if you have an old photo fame laying around (and chances are that you have at least one) you can put some burlap (or whatever fabric you have handy that needs a home) around some cardboard, frame it and turn [...]
Fifty Things to Upcycle Into Something Amazing – Part Four
Parts 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 Number Thirty One: Coffee Filters Into Flower Puffs We’ve known people to go and buy coffee filters just to create this craft project for wedding or bridal showers, but in our case we used it when somebody inadvertently purchased the wrong coffee filters for our drip machine! Conveniently, we had a child’s birthday party coming up and were able to turn the extra [...]
Fifty Things to Upcycle Into Something Amazing – Part Five
Parts 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 Number Forty One: Socks Into a Door Draft Catcher We’ve encouraged DIY and upcycled door draft stoppers before as a great handmade holiday gift that can also help the recipient conserve energy and reduce his or her heating bill. But we fell even more in love with this idea of making your door draft stopper out of colorful and mismatched socks. Save the [...]
The Upcycled Wedding
From budget brides to people who want to minimize their impact to the planet, the upcycled wedding is one of the most positive trends we’ve seen emerge in the last several years. After all, in most cases you are having a one day event that doesn’t justify buying everything new. Sure, you could rent your décor, but you’re going to pay a premium for it and add to the overall long list of [...]
Honeymoons and Eco-Travel: Love the Planet Like You Love Each Other
As much fun as a wedding can be, for the happy couple the greater fun can actually be the honeymoon that happens afterwards. After all, all of the stress, financial commitment and planning associated with the wedding is finally over. And, unlike all or most of the events associated with the wedding, it’s finally just the two of you getting some much needed time alone. Add in that you’re in either a relaxing [...]
How the Marketing Machine Turns on After You Announce an Engagement
Your beloved asked the much longed for question and now you are engaged! You can’t wait for your big day when you say “I do” … and retailers, service providers and venues can’t wait to take your money so that you can turn your big day into your ultimate dream day. You may not notice it right away because you have wedding on the brain anyway, but suddenly every ad you see online [...]
Wedding Consumerism vs. Wedding Tradition
Weddings. As we’ve been discussing for most of the month, in the current era they are intractably married (pun intended) to consumerism. But much of that consumerism is marketed as simply being an important part of wedding tradition. There was certainly a point at which wedding tradition turned to consumer opportunity, but don’t mistake the consumer messaging for the heart of the actual wedding tradition. Today, we’re taking a look at the often [...]
The Etiquette of Skipping the Registry
So far this month, we’ve advised people who are about to get married to reconsider their choice to use a gift registry both in order to be more eco-friendly and in order to try to get out from under the thumb of the consumer marketing machine. But what if you’re on the other side of the equation? What if you are a guest attending a wedding (or other type of event) that has [...]
10 Eco-Friendly Wedding Alternatives
Since earlier in the month we devoted a lot of time to tallying up the ways to figure the carbon footprint of a wedding, today we thought we’d be more helpful and give you some alternatives to big, costly, over-the-top weddings that will help you be more kind to the planet. It’s not necessarily that less is more, it’s that a well thought-out wedding that focuses on all the truly important people, values [...]
