Eco-Friendly Craft Materials

Everyone loves crafts don’t they? They don’t? Well this article is for the people who do, and there’s a lot of us. Children in particular love being creative and it’s something you should encourage. Not only does it keep them occupied but it helps them to improve motor skills, critical thinking and their self-confidence. There are hundreds of arts and crafts projects you can try no matter your age. There are also thousands of craft materials and craft supplies to choose from. If, like me, you want to be a bit more environmentally friendly then you’re in luck, because I’ve found some of the best eco-friendly craft materials you can buy or make yourself.

For a lot of the craft materials mentioned it might not have occurred to you that they weren’t eco-friendly, unless they’re obviously made of plastic. So I’ve included a bit of information to explain why some of the most popular craft materials are not so great for the environment. Fortunately there are more and more eco-friendly alternatives available. With a lot of people becoming more eco-conscious more companies should get on board and provide even more alternatives in the not too distant future.

Homemade Craft Materials. If you want to go that step further, there are plenty of craft materials that you can make yourself rather than buying them. And making them will be just as much fun for your children as using them.

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Eco-Friendly Craft Materials For Kids and Adults

Paint Brushes

I’m going to start with a very tricky one ethically. If you’re trying to live a plastic free life then you’ll find loads of options for paint brushes. Many paint brushes, the good ones, have wooden handles and as long as you buy ones made with sustainable wood it’s easy to find ones that you could consider eco-friendly. However, it’s the bristles of these paint brushes that are the problem.

It might not bother you that the bristles are made of hogs hair, sable or goats fur, but for those of us who think animal welfare is just as important as avoiding plastic there are no good options here. If you want to avoid using fur (and the fur trade is notoriously awful) then you’re probably going to have to buy synthetic bristles.

These paint brushes seem like a relatively good compromise. They’re made from Bamboo, but they do have synthetic fibres for the brush, at least they’re vegan.

• Bamboo Paint Brushes (set of 10)

What are the alternatives? If we’re talking about doing art projects with children then finger painting is so much more fun anyway! You can also use other materials to apply paint to paper. For example you can use sponges or cotton wool balls for interesting effects. You could also dip some string into the paint to add lines or more interesting effects. Get creative!

Paint

There are quite a few good eco-friendly paints available. These tend to be made using natural materials and are much less likely to be packaged in plastic.

• Handmade Oil Paint – Various colours, handmade with linseed oil, sustainable, waste free.
• Natural Earth Paint – 6 colours, made with natural mineral pigments. 3 years and up. For wood, stone and paper.
• Chalk Paint – 51 colours of all natural, chalk and mineral paint. Good for painting wood, furniture and particularly nursery furniture.

‘Wax’ Crayons

Here’s an item that it would never have crossed my mind wasn’t eco-friendly, but most crayons are made from paraffin wax (paraffin comes from petroleum).

You have 2 options for eco-friendly crayons, beeswax and soy, both of which are biodegradable. For something a little different why not buy some soy crayon rocks?

• Beeswax crayons
• Soy crayons
• Soy crayon rocks

Pencil Crayons / Coloured Pencils

Pencil Crayons / coloured pencils – look like pencils but use the same or similar materials to the ‘wax’ crayons mentioned above. The more expensive ones you buy the better the variety of colours and better quality the wood is, generally. When you’re looking to buy coloured pencils try to go for paraffin free ones.

“The core of a colored pencil is made up of wax or oil, pigments, and various agents used to bind everything together. The wood casing is similar to that of a regular writing pencil.

Artist-grade colored pencils generally offer higher quality pigments, more distinct color varieties, and cores which are less prone to breaking. They are also more likely to use higher quality wood like aromatic cedar for casings.” – Quora

A great option is to buy pencils that you can plant!

• Plantable Pencils (2 graphite, 6 coloured pencils and a colouring book). Made from FSC wood.

Play Dough

There are quite a few companies that claim to sell eco-friendly play dough but when you do a bit more digging you find that the colourings they use might not be as good for the environment, or your little one, as you may think.

Make your own eco-friendly play dough

I strongly recommend making your own play dough. At least you know for sure what’s going into it. It’s not difficult to make and your children will probably have a lot of fun making it themselves. Check out this homemade play dough recipe which uses just flour, water, salt, oil and food colouring. The only thing that could be considered a problem is the food colouring.

Food colourings often contain parabens (not good), so why not go down the natural route and make your own? Eco-friendly food colouring alternatives can be made from spices or fruit and vegetables. Raspberries, beetroot, red cabbage, turmeric and even avocado’s can all be used. The colour might not be as vivid as shop bought food colourings, but play around to see what colours you can create.

Puffy Paint

This is a new one for me. Doing some additional research for this article I came across ‘homemade microwave puffy paint‘. Maybe this is new to me because I’ve never owned a microwave? Anyway, this looks like a lot of fun for kids. It’s made using 1 cup of flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of salt, water to make it into a pancake like consistency and food colouring (see above for how to make your own food colourings).

You mix up the ingredients then cutting a corner off a ziplock bag you can squirt the paint onto your paper. Once you’ve finished painting pop it into the microwave for 35 – 40 seconds and you can watch the paint puffing up! Personally I wouldn’t be using ziplock bags and would look into more environmentally friendly alternatives but apart from that, this is a really fun activity for children.

Glue

PVA glue is the most popular glue found in schools around the world, but is PVA glue eco-friendly? It is biodegradable but…

“PVA is nontoxic to humans however it does release toxic fumes if burned. PVA glue is a synthetic polymer manufactured from products generated by the petrochemical industry.” – Sustainable Graphic Design

You can easily buy eco-friendly glue that’s just as good as PVA glue, but when you look at the ingredients you’ll see that it’s very easy to make yourself.

Make your own eco-friendly glue

There are several different recipes for homemade glue that you can try out for various different craft projects. The simplest glue recipe uses just 2 ingredients – flour and water!

• Mix flour and water until you have a pancake batter like consistency.
• Make sure you mix it until smooth.
• Pour it into a saucepan on a medium heat.
• Stir until the mixture comes to the boil.
• Wait for the glue to cool before using it.

Glitter

Ah glitter, loved by children, hated by parents. The reason glitter isn’t environmentally friendly is because it’s more than likely made of plastic, meaning you have a little pot of micro-plastics which are not only going to haunt you at home for years to come but some of those little bits of plastic are likely to be washed off sticky children and go straight into the drain.

There have been calls for glitter to be banned completely, and I can see why… But let’s not deny that glitter is a lot of fun. If you or your children can’t live without it then there are lots of companies who make eco-friendly glitter.

“Bio glitter, made from cellulose film derived from sustainable eucalyptus trees, is vegan-friendly and breaks down in water or soil in relatively short order.”

• Eco-Friendly Glitter – Biodegradable, non-toxic, vegan. Comes in a variety of colours and can be used for face, body, nails and arts and crafts projects.

Coloured Card / Paper / Crepe Paper

Yesterday I went looking for some coloured paper and card. A pretty simple thing to buy you’d think. But if you don’t want your paper to be wrapped in single use plastic you’re going to have a hard time. You will occasionally find single sheets of wrapping paper or large pieces of card being sold without plastic, but buying each sheet individually could end up being a bit costly. I didn’t see any crepe paper for sale in the shops that didn’t come in plastic.

You should be looking for recycled paper / card anyway and none of what I saw in the shops was recycled. Time for an online search! Just make sure to look for natural dyes.

• Coloured Paper – 100gsm, pack of 50 sheets, 10 different colours. 100% recycled paper. Currently waiting to hear back from them about whether they come in cellophane wrapping.
• Coloured Card – 180gsm, pack of 100 sheets, 5 different colours. 100% recycled paper. Again waiting to hear about plastic wrapping.
• Tissue Paper – 20 sheets of various colours.

Paper Straws

Paper straws can be used in a variety of different craft projects. They may not be quite as sturdy as the plastic variety but at least they aren’t as harmful to wildlife and the environment. Find a pack of straws that comes in a cardboard box rather than a plastic bag and you’re good to go. You’ll find a variety of colours and patterns available like these rather nice ‘Disposable, Recyclable and Sustainable’ red stripe paper straws.

Yarn

Your definition of eco-friendly yarn will depend on your own opinion about using anything synthetic or anything which might have come from an animal.

If you’re making something that’s unlikely to be washed, for example something to hang on the wall, then using recycled synthetic fibres is perfectly eco-friendly. If it will need to be washed then plastic micro-fibres could be released during the wash cycle, so this is something to keep in mind.

Even more eco-friendly is recycled cotton yarn. Personally I don’t have a problem with recycled wool either, although some vegans would object. You can even buy paper yarn which is perfect for the strictest of vegans! Or why not try something completely different and use 100% banana silk, which is a by-product of banana plants (it’s a fibre made from the stalk which would otherwise go to waste).

• 100% Recycled Acrylic Yarn
• Recycled Cotton Yarn
• Paper Yarn
• Natural Raffia Yarn
• 100% Hemp Yarn
• 100% Banana Silk Yarn

Bits and Bobs from around the house

Before buying anything new make sure you use up what you already have around the home. Never throw away the cardboard tube from a toilet roll, they can be used for so many really cool craft projects for children. Don’t throw away any leftover bits of fabric or wool either, save them up to be used in a craft project, or donate them to a local school who might be able to use them. You might have some old Christmas or birthday wrapping paper lying around or a collection of buttons you don’t know what to do with. Using your imagination you can use almost anything as a craft material.

Got a birthday coming up? Use some of your eco-friendly craft materials and a bit of imagination to make some eco-friendly alternatives to balloons.

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