I’ve been thinking about upcycling and recycling projects in honor of  Earth Day.

Mother Earth doll designed and woven by Noreen Crone-Findlay (copyright)

Green and eco projects are always a good idea.

I wanted to celebrate Earth day by coming up with some fun ‘eco-upcycling’ projects that would be quick, easy and oh so friendly to the Earth.

I’ve made a few notes about a couple of them, and will be sharing them this week.

Today, a very very easy one  popped into my mind.

I was rummaging through a drawer and

I found a bit of  inkle weaving that had been left over from another project.

I thought… hmmm…. this would make a great bookmark!

Bookmarks are great.

They are a fun way to experiment with needlework techniques and take ideas for trial runs.  You can make a small sample or a swatch and then modify it a little and use it to keep your place when you’re reading…. that’s great… multi-tasking!

Besides… I can never have enough bookmarks. I often mark several places in the same book, so a spare bookmark is always welcome.

And… another thing…. bookmarks make great little gifts. You can pop them in an envelope and mail them of to a friend to make them feel extra appreciated. Yup…. bookmarks are fine things!

Anyhow. Back to this particular bit of upcycling.

I liked the idea of using this scrap of inkle weaving as a bookmark -

But, it needed something….. hmmmm…

Then, I noticed the corner of an out of date business card.

Aha! I could use the pic off the business card to ‘top’ the bookmark!

photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

I grabbed a pair of scissors and some extra thick glue.

photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

I snipped the pic off the business card, then cut a back the same size, and glued them to the weaving.

Voila! an instant upcycled bookmark!

photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

Hmmm… the cut out is kind of wonky…. so

I thought…. let’s try this again!

This time, I used a fragment of tatting that I had tossed in the drawer after ’sampling’ some crochet cotton to see if it would be okay for tatting.

And, I decided to use a punch to cut out the shapes from the business cards to make the cutout top more regular:

photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

I added a small tassel to the end of the tatting and then glued it all together:

photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

There… I like that better… using a punch to cut out the pic for the top of the bookmark makes it cleaner. I’m happy with it….

Hurrah for upcycling!

What if you don’t have old business cards? Cut or punch out a front and matching back from a photograph or use a postage stamp or even a bit of a pic from junk mail!

What if you don’t have a scrap of weaving or lace? Use a bit of ribbon, or spool knitting, or part of a broken tape measure….

what  do you have ? Upcycle it!

Terri posted a wonderful entry about Earth Day on Salt Spring Island: Earth Day Weaving

and mentioned to her mom about all the ‘R’ words that I used to use in the environmental puppet shows that I wrote, built and performed for 20 years or so….

A few of the ‘R’ words that I used to pitch like mad in the puppet shows:

Re-think: Has to be the most important as we Re-consider how we treat our beautiful blue planet.

Re - use

Re claim

Restore

Re-create

Repair

Renew

Reduce

and of course: Recycle

And, there are other earth-keeping words that begin with the letter ‘C’ (ROTFLOL…. it’s starting to sound like Sesame Street!)

Compost

CREATIVITY

Caring

Compassion

Connection

Committment

Contentment

and ‘G’:

Greening

Gardening

Grace

Graciousness

And the letter ‘e’:

Einstein

Environment

Excitement

And, ‘I’:

Inspiration

Intelligence

Integrity

and ‘h’

for HOPE and HOME and HERE and HOW?

How many other words and concepts of stewardship can you add to this list? I’ll start the list with:

‘ACTION’ because my mother always said:

‘Actions speak louder than words’.

So… let the earthkeeping begin!

PS: Yes, I wove the Earth puppet, and the ‘R’ puppet was made with reclaimed stuff.

Terri Bibby, Saori Master, added these words in a comment and I thought that they were so important that I didn’t want anyone to miss them:

“S” - sustain, sustainability, support, stewardship, stand (as in stand for what you believe in), stop & start - many uses for these, share, Saori (Yay! - using up all the bits & pieces, and of course the creativity from your list)

and I add: SEE to the list of important ’s’ words

and sisterhood, and family and kinship…

Mercy! We have had a 4 day long blizzard.  We’re just emerging from it now (fingers crossed!).

It’s been the coldest, fiercest, longest April storm that has ever been recorded here.  Global weirding…….

We were snowed in yesterday… and the tractor cratered, so it needed to be re-invigorated, in the middle of the storm….

Our son and daughter-in-law began their morning by slipping off the driveway…

ugh

That’s me, fighting the wind to go to the woodshed for wood for the woodburning stove in the studio. The woodshed had been all full up with wood for -next- winter. Hah! It’s gone now!

The wind has been incredible! It’s like Siberia!

Crumbs! Last week, it was summer, and we were worried that it was so dry!

Here’s my most favorite pic:

This is one of the windows in my studio. And yes, the snow is RIGHT up to the TOP of the windows.  I loved the shapes the snow made against the glass, and had to take a pic.

I got tired of not being able to see out the windows for 4 days, and was so relieved when the snow stopped an hour or so ago.  There were strange sounds and the snow suddenly slumped off the studio windows  and I can see again! Yay!

I’ve been watching the snow build up on top of the ash can outside the door of the studio:

It’s several feet tall now. And the snow up the sidewalk to the studio is hip deep in places.  Hip deep on a 6′4″ man, that is.

It has been the most eery and un-nerving Earth Day for us.

This is not right……………

Springtime feels very far away…. we are in the middle of a FOUR day BLIZZARD!

We have received feet and feet and feet of snow since yesterday…. and we’re in for 2 more days of it.

Last weekend, we had summer.  This weekend…. well…..

it’s certainly a DIFFERENT sort of an Earth Day…..

eep.

We’re big ‘greenies’.  We always carry our own cloth or crocheted grocery bags.

So, to celebrate Earth Day, I want to invite people to whip up some market bags to be oh so handy while they take care of the earth!

The handles are neat because they are made from recycled wire coat hangers.

Here’s the link for the pattern: Green Market Bag 

Terri’s going to be facilitating the weaving of a  Saori peace banner on Earth Day on Salt Spring.

And, people are going to be bringing something special to the Earth Day celebration on Salt Spring….

Check it out…. it’s VERY inspiring!

EARTH DAY SALT SPRING

Last week, we went to an eco fair, and they handed out baby trees…..  and then it snowed like crazy. Nice.
But…. We suddenly had 2 BEAUTIFUL days this weekend, so we raced outside and planted 12 brand new baby trees.

We’re a pair of dyed in the wool ‘tree-o-philes’. Every year, we plant little trees and pat the previous year’s treebabies on the head.

We’ve lived here for many years and plan on moving in slightly less than a year.  One of the first things we did when we bought this place was to plant fruit trees.

What will one of the first things that we do at our new farm?

Plant trees, of course……  Earth day= tree day  :o)

I’ve been having a wonderful time, re-fashioning, reclaiming, re-using, recycling and eco-crafting up a storm in celebration of Earth Day.

I reclaimed part of old desk drawers to make bag handles:

and I took a broken loom and turned it into wonderful ‘eco-bracelets’:

I  have lots more eco projects up my sleeve, so stay tuned!

I am making a doll for my beloved mother-in-law.
It’s a ‘memory’ doll, and I am making it in the hope of bringing comfort to Mum as she struggles with the death of her beloved daughter, Patty.

I knew from the first moment that I started sketching the doll, that I wanted to use spoolknitting for the hair. Patty was born with curly red hair, so I wanted to celebrate that.

I wanted lots of spoolknitted cord, so I decided to use my Embellish knit spoolknitting machine.

I did a test swatch and decided that it was too stiff. I really wanted to use Caron’s Simply Soft in Mango, so I figured, what the heck…. I’d just split it and zip it up………

I am lucky enough to have 2 yarn winders. I bought the first one when I was 15 years old. I bought the other one second hand. It’s really handy having 2 of them!

I clamped them both to a little table, rolled the yarn and test swatch of spoolknitting into a ball:

When splitting yarn, I have found that it’s best to work in short lengths, with the ball secured with a darning needle.

That way, the ball can spin freely.

After I split the yarn (picky picky! when you have 3 dogs and a cat and indulge in a very fiberlicious lifestyle, the yarn picks up all kinds of little blubbitses that make the splitting process quite ~questionable~ as in what the heck was I thinking?)

Um……. it’s not a speedy process, but, I am pleased with the results:

It’s quite gratifying to whir up a heap of cord right off the yarn winder:

And the Patty Memory Comfort doll has her hair….

Her heart and wings will be spoolknitted, too….

On a larger spoolie………

later………

Image source: Noreen Crone-Findlay (copyright)