While I’m on a roll about Halloween eco-crafts…

A few moths ago, I attended a Seattle Greendrinks anniversary party. One of the hosts was a company called Alchemy Goods – they make bags and accessories out of re-purposed seat belts and bicycle inner tubes. At this event, Alchemy Goods had some materials out for us to play with, including strips of the tubes…. This is what I created: an eco-spider, perfect for Halloween!

Even if you don’t have a creative bone in your body, this craft is for you:

Take 4 strips of no-longer-usable bicycle inner tube, tie in a knot and add googly eyes if you want to. Use as Halloween dECOr, instead of candy for trick-or-treaters, as gifts or prizes, etc.

Don’t have old bicycle tubes at your disposal? Contact your local bike shop. Chances are, they’ll be happy to pass them along to you.

Have you seen those shows where an interior designer takes a room worth tens of thousands and re-creates it for pennies? Or those magazine articles that show couture fashion on one side of the page and then a shopping mall purchased replica on the other? What about the talk shows that take a frumpy stay-at-home-mom and turn her into a hip, hot mama with the snip of a stylist’s scissors and a good eyebrow wax?

You can give your Halloween crafts a great green makeover without the pain of waxing, or even the hassle of locating a frugal, actress-turn interior designer to give you some advice.

The secret to going green with your crafts is easy: use a little imagination and some eco-friendly materials.

Have you found a fantastic craft on www.familyfun.com but it requires the use of 100% un-Earth friendly stuff? No problem, ask yourself this:

• What can I replace the un-Earth friendly materials with?
• What materials can I go without?
• What can I re-use, re-cycle and/ or re-purpose later?

For example, let’s take this craft: Halloween Lollipop Ghost Invitations, from HGTV’s file of great holiday crafts.

Their materials list includes:

white and black felt
white card stock
double-stick tape
white pipe cleaners
red ribbon
craft glue
What to use instead:

• White and black fabric (old sheet, towel, shirt, etc.) OR felt made from wool (non-petroleum based)
• Recycled, reused, re-purposed, FSC or tree-free card stock or similar
• Cellulose tape (folded backwards)
• (Pipe cleaner not necessary)
• Re-purposed or re-used ribbon (who says it has to be red?) or raffia
• EcoGlue

Of course this craft also calls for a lollipop. However, it is such a cute invite, that we think it can go without.  Instead, use pencils, used (but washed) Popsicle sticks, or even sticks from your yard.

Remember, the final result doesn’t have to look exactly the same. In fact, your green craft will no doubt be even better…

We can’t wait to see what you come up with – send us your photos!

Here are some more crafting resources to whet you Green Halloween crafting palate:

• http://craftingagreenworld.com/
• http://www.freekidscrafts.com/halloween_crafts-t55.html
• http://www.allfreecrafts.com/halloween/bat.shtml
• http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/cr_occasions_halloween/0,1788,HGTV_3274,00.html

Have fun!

We had a great weekend at the Green Edmonds Festival! Not only was the weather perfect, but the vibe was great too – and we met so many wonderful visitors and vendors. Can’t wait for next year.

At the event, we had with us a display board of treat and treasure “alternatives” to conventional Halloween candy. As always, children and adults were excited to see some of the ideas we suggested and everyone wanted to know where they could be found.

While many Green Halloween suggested items are sold in natural food and/or craft stores, some require forethought or preparation, which is the subject of this post: now is the time to think about what you are going to hand out to your neighborhood trick-or-treaters. Waiting until the last minute means that you’ll pay more for products you may not feel so good about.

If you plan ahead, you can:

Make “treasures” that are low or no-cost, such as jokes, puzzles or fortunes (how about printing a bunch on recycled paper, cutting into strips and rolling up into little tubes secured with some orange and black wool yarn). Origami pumpkins might also be fun.

Save money by finding sales. For example, Sjaaks bite sized chocolate is organic, fair trade, shade grown and is sold in large or small tubs. If you order now there is still time to allow for shipping and you can save 15% by using the coupon code: GreenHalloween15. You may want to consider ordering with friends and neighbors – this way you can split the shipping and save even more.

Customize your goodies. How about ordering come temporary tattoos that say, “Happy Hallogreen from the Smith Family!” (of course, you’d want to enter your own name). Soy crayons, recycled content spinning tops, and recycled whistles are just some of the other fun treasures that can be ordered through Weisenbach Printing at www.recycledproducts.com.

For a list of dozens of healthy, healthy-er and eco-wise treats and treasures click here.

To see our featured products (from companies contributing a portion of their sales to Treeswing, our host organization), click here.

Items in photo:

• Recycled content stickers
• Soy crayons
• Organic, fair trade, herbal tea in kid-friendly flavor
• Clif Bar mini
• Larabar mini
• GleeGum mini
• Organic agave stick
• Repurposed confetti
• Organic chocolate

Stop by our kids page and check out our current contests as well as our “winners circle” featuring results from challenges such as the ChicoBag trick-or-treat design contest.

Current contests include our CODE Apparel t-shirt design contest. The chosen design will be printed on ethically sourced, organic t-shirts and some will even be hidden around the country only to br found through Geocaching! It’s a Green Halloween-Contest-Treasure Hunt.

Starting on October 1st, your child can also sumbit photos displaying his or her pumpkin-carving talents. This contest is hosted by Crayons Beverages, our national sponsor. The artist behind the chosen photo will win a Razor scooter and Crayons Beverages for a year!

There are also lots of contests featured elsewhere online. This one will feature photos of your handmade costume creations.

Send us your photos as well! We’d love to see ‘em.

I’m SO excited to share that we’re in the new (October) issue of KIWI magazine.

Check out page 18 for a full page article on Green Halloween, written by Seattle-based author, Shanon Lyon.

Not only that, our book, Celebrate Green! is also featured on page 24! In the book we discuss how we grew our website with these resell SEO companies we’ve been working wth.

And although we can’t take credit for these adorable crafts, I think you’ll fall in love with the idea on page 42 for a Halloween toy: “Frankenrumi” and with the Pumpkin Bird feeder, page 12.

Enjoy!

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