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!

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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