Create an Eco-Friendly Craft or Sewing Room

Crafters and sewers often reuse, re-purpose and recycle items in their projects. A small piece of fabric and a leftover bit of ribbon might be transformed into an evening clutch or sewn into a designer outfit for a doll. As any avid crafter or sewer knows, you never throw away an interesting item that might someday be the finishing touch on a project. You can take the same green approach to creating your hobby space that you take with your projects. In fact, you can use your creative talents to reuse, re-purpose and recycle many items for use in the craft or sewing room. Here are three ideas to get you started.

#1 Recycle the boxes that printer paper comes in. Most offices simply throw away the empty paper boxes. A few years ago I brought home several of these boxes and converted them into pattern boxes. These particular ones were just the right size. I labeled the outside of each box with the category of patterns it contained, such as home decor or dresses. The larger paper boxes make good storage containers for extra fabric, scrapbooking papers or art supplies.

#2 Reuse an old, ugly sewing machine cabinet. You can sometimes find these at thrift shops and garage sales if someone in your family doesn't have one stored away in an attic or basement. I found one at a thrift shop that had a broken sewing machine in it. I removed the machine and painted the entire piece in a gloss white. I replaced the unattractive knobs with some that I had salvaged several years before because I liked the sunflower pattern on them. I covered the hole where the old machine had been with a leftover piece of white wall paneling. My sewing machine, which had been sitting on a table, now has a home on this cabinet. My machine could not be mounted on the hardware of the cabinet. However, you could get lucky and find your sewing machine will fit the mounting hardware on the cabinet and you wouldn't have to cover the hole.

#3 Repurpose glass jars and plastic containers. Jars are obvious choices for storing buttons and beads. If you store by color, you can easily see what you have on hand for your projects. The plastic containers that cake frosting come in and promotional plastic cups make good holders for scissors, seam rippers and other small sewing tools. The plastic containers that individual portion sized puddings and fruits come in make excellent containers for small amounts of paint. Just squeeze the craft paint out of the bottle and into the container. You can also easily mix colors in these containers. The plastic trays from frozen dinners can be used as palettes when you're painting.

Some other ideas for greening your craft or sewing room include: positioning your workspace to make maximum use of natural light; choosing daylight-replicating, energy-efficient light bulbs for supplemental lighting; and painting the walls a bright color with a low VOC paint to maximize the light.