Hand-Made

Earth-Friendly Crafting, Then and Now. by Jessica PigzaApril 22, 2010

If you like to make stuff, chances are that when Earth Day arrives each year "green" handicrafts come to mind. Perhaps you make new items from materials that others would consider wornout or trash; or maybe you seek out all-natural materials for your crafts. If crafting of this kind interests you, you might want to look back in time at how crafters from decades past approached "green" crafting.

Here are some vintage books from the Library worth browsing both for entertainment and information:

Low-cost crafts for everyone. by H. Atwood Reynolds.: This 1939 title is heavy on the use of nature materials; it has entire chapters devoted to nut craft, branch craft, and shell craft--and more--including how to make a vase out of a soup bone.
Easy Crafts by Ellsworth Jaeger. Written by the Buffalo Science Museum's curator of education in 1947, this has classic naturecraft projects that you might have seen at summer camps of the forties and beyond.
Decorating with seed mosaics, chipped glass, and plant materials by Eleanor Van Rensselaer. Just like the title of this 1960 book says, this provides ideas for using dried plants and seeds in home decor. Some of the ideas made me shudder.
Fun with Next to Nothing: handicraft projects for boys and girls, written and illustrated by Wesley F. Arnold and Wayne C. Cardy. This children's book from 1962 shows you how to repurpose old cardboard boxes to make ships, trains, stages, and more.
Adventures in scrap craft, written and illustrated by Michael Carlton Dank. This 1946 go-to source on trashcraft, written by a shop teacher from Brooklyn, offers a wealth of good and odd ideas for re-using tin, paper, leather, cloth, felt.

And if you're looking for more modern approaches to crafting with an eye to today's sensibilities, here are some suggestions:

What are your favorite earth-friendly crafts?

View all posts by Jessica Pigza

Comments

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Earth-friendly crafting

Submitted by (not verified) on April 22, 2010 - 2:40pm

Although it is very interesting to review "nature" crafts of the past, such crafts are not necessarily "earth friendly". Much damage has been done by collectors of natural items such as sea shells, once so common and popular for crafting or use as is in homes. More useful are the works that point to fun ways to recycle modern "waste" or surplus materials into artistic and/or new usable objects. Also, it would be great to be pointed to works that review the history of collecting natural materials for crafting (for fun or profit) and the impact such practices have had and why (not to place blame, but to provide learning).

You're right--what we consider nature-friendly is different.

Submitted by Jessica Pigza on April 24, 2010 - 10:37am

What were once considered nature-embracing crafts, simply because they used natural materials, have in fact had harmful results for plant and animal life in some circumstances. It's an awareness or sensitivity that does not have a place in these earlier craft books at all, and in some ways this isn't a surprise I suppose. Concerning histories of collecting nature, there are some interesting histories of natural history collections that I've seen, and I'll work on pulling together some ideas to post here soon. Thanks for your comment!

Hand-Made

Earth-Friendly Crafting, Then and Now. by Jessica PigzaApril 22, 2010

Comments

Earth-friendly crafting

You're right--what we consider nature-friendly is different.

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