"I'm Sweet, Smart & Green"

Christmas present from a friend...

Speaking of "GREEN," it seems to be a big deal to be 'green' these days.

Have you changed your habits in the face of this new wave of thinking? Perhaps recycling and such is something of a new concept for some people. For me, it's been SOP (standard operating procedure) for decades now, only I always called it 'spaceship thinking.'

Ponder if you lived on a spaceship, even a very large one.

Wouldn't you have to do things a little differently?

Would you dispose of that wrapper in the same way that you do now?

I suppose it helps to live in a community, like ours, that collects separate bins in which you put the different items. We create very, very little actual 'waste' at this time... when I had a compost heap, it was even smaller.

And when you've been at this a very long time, you start seeing the creative possibilities in practically EVERYTHING!

Here are some examples...

Body: plastic from Mel
Markings: photo 'twins' from other people's scraps & pens
Antennae: wire from my stash
All but the wire is from otherwise discarded material*


A 12x12 'Layout' ready for your photos...


A close up: all of them are strips cut from the unwanted photos from other crafters. I LOVE all the textures from these scraps! They also work very nicely in a punch.

I go to a couple of crops (crop=a gathering of crafters) per month and many of the other folks generate various scraps from cropping photos, cutting papers, and other things.

If I see that they have pitched them, and they are still dry (not covered in actual debris like food) I ask to have them.

This does a couple of things right away...

Saved!
It keeps these things out of a landfill. Yes, my particular contribution may be small (over the decades it has added up no doubt!).

Endless Supply!
It has the added benefit of alerting others to my particular process and consequently, I get a whole bunch of great scraps now and they are freely given.

Maybe Even Inspirational
I like to think that I may be leading by example...so many people have remarked on how amazing it is to get something from such scraps. They bring me theirs and maybe, just maybe, they will create something from something that might have otherwise been discarded unnecessarily.

I'm certainly inspired by the scraps from others!

I've been at it so long, I can even see ways to create things with the packaging that almost ALWAYS gets thrown away:


The Packaging - had Lil Davis buttons in between the layers

I thought it might make a good double 'shaker box' with the two layers...

Testing the Layers

The Finished Product:

Front


& Back

What are you doing with your discarded items? Are they ending up being recycled some way or do they go to the landfill? Can you put some of them to good use instead?

Pam Hoffman


*The completed 'butterfly' was sent to the Holocaust Museum Houston, for The Butterfly Project