Easy DIY Gift Ideas for the Non-Crafty Green Diva

I’m not the craftiest green diva, but I have been so inspired by some of my creative friends lately. Pinterest has become a visual buffet of craft porn and I’ve been having this urge to stop everything, run to Michael’s for supplies and get creative with so much of the old stuff lying around here. This trend in upcycling virtual garbage into nifty useable items has caught on. Yes, every year for the past decade (or two), I’ve come up with something to make for holiday gifts, but there seems to be more inspiration than ever from sites like CraftingAGreenWorld, EcoKaren and GlueandGlitter – three of my favs.

But if you are like me, you get inspired, you click, and then you look at the instructions (if there are actually instructions behind that pin) and get immediately overwhelmed. So, my awesome intern, Jamie and I have done some homework and found some DIY gift ideas that seem fairly simple and have enough information to get us non-crafty green divas into the game. Our criteria was to find things that were EASY, relatively eco-friendly, low-cost, and would make great gifts. See if any of these inspire you!

Scarf Watch Band

Seriously? This one is so simple it makes me feel stupid. And if you don’t have an old watch that has a crappy band that you can take off, they are so easy to find – and cheap. And the scarf thing? C’mon if you don’t have a scarf or two that you could part with, you might have some fabric you can cut accordingly or again, go to a vintage or thrift store and get a few (with the watches perhaps) for a small handful of dollars. Visit CountryLiving.com‘s site for a mess of great green DIY gift projects, including this one.

Teacup Candles

This one is a green-diva-tested AND approved project. I happened to have a lot of random teacups, but I also found some inexpensive ones in vintage and antique shops. I made a couple of dozen of these for holiday gifts a few years back and kept the one you see in the image here for myself.

I found some good instructions for this on Martha Stewart’s site.

Ornaments Out of Salt Dough

Here’s an easy way to make some salt dough ornaments. You can get creative in finding shapes, making impressions, finding words, using pretty ribbons . . . wide open with endless possibilities here and couldn’t be much easier. In fact, you probably have all the ingredients in your pantry already! This one comes from a great site, MakeItGiveIt.

Altoid Tin Turned Biz Card Holder

This one might have sparked this entire post. Our sister site, CraftingAGreenWorld.com on the Important Media network offered this one recently. I liked it because you can customize it so easily – and of course, ‘easy’ is the key, right?

Placemats from Used Plastic Bags?

My buddy Becky Striepe is the queen of creating upcycled crafts! Who else would’ve thought of this one! This fun idea can be found with simple to follow instructions (yea!) at her wonderful site GlueAndGlitter.

for 5 more EASY DIY gift projects for the non-crafty Green Diva, go to TheGreenDivas.com

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Alice B.

5:24PM PDT on Sep 27, 2012

Thanks

September 27
send a green star

Jennifer C.

5:33PM PDT on Sep 24, 2012

Thanks.

September 24
send a green star

Rose N.

11:21PM PDT on Sep 23, 2012

Great stuff Thanks

September 23
send a green star

Jane W.

2:56PM PDT on Sep 23, 2012

thnx for this

Dominika S.

8:45AM PDT on Sep 23, 2012

Thank you, those ideas are inspiring. I may try the last one.

Cheryl I.

4:38AM PDT on Sep 23, 2012

andrew h.

4:35AM PDT on Sep 23, 2012

thanks for helping cut waste Meg

another use of plastic bags if you cant avoid using them

if safe, your local park possibly has litter in it - maybe with a green friend or two consider to plan a litter pick up in the park using the plastic bags to collect stuff for disposal or recycling).

I find it really a good feeling after doing this small clean up (even if doing it isnt pleasant,its outweighed by the benefit felt after)