Reduce, reuse, recycle

As the last day for shipping parcels overseas approaches I find I can turn my mind to things other than Etsy and can start to prepare for my own Christmas celebrations.

I am determined to have as eco friendly a Christmas as possible this year, and I am not going to go and buy lots of glitzy wrapping paper that isn't even accepted in the recycling bins.

So this is my take on environmentally friendly wrapping paper.

First get your self some 100% recycled ordinary brown paper - the sort that is used for wrapping parcels that you want to send through the post. If you are a thrifty kind of soul you probably already have a stash lurking away in the back of a cupboard.

I chose to iron mine first as is was rather creased, but you could equally well embrace the creases by wetting it slightly, crumpling it gently into a ball and then opening out(again, very gently) and leaving to dry. This paper has incredible wet strength and the final result from your "wet crumpling" will be a texture rather like old leather.

Next you simply take a festive rubber stamp  (I chose a Merry Christmas word stamp) and simply stamp all over you paper using an air drying ink pad. Cut a co-ordinating tag from a scrap of card and tie the parcel up with some yarn, ribbon or whatever you have to hand. The flower I had in my ex-demo stash, but if I didn't have that I would have just used a paper punch to create some, or perhaps if I had time, knitted some - it really doesn't matter. To my mind the colour co-ordination of the stamping, tag and embellishment makes this gift wrapping just as stylish as the mass produced items that you buy in the shops, and it is earth friendly, hand crafted and unique too.

On my organic soapbox

This morning started so well.

I woke too early, as usual, and did a few rows of knitting in bed until such time as I could justifiably risk waking the rest of the household - knitting with organic cotton, of course.

I went down to enjoy my usual breakfast of organic Weetabix, topped with organic dried fruits and nuts and on most days a few organically grown raspberries from my garden. I took the newspaper from the letter box and there and then - mid mouthful - my nice day stopped. The front page article purported that there is no nutritional benefit from organic foods!

I was, I am, incensed. The article admits the report is only one of several and another one contradicting this evidence is soon likely to follow, and it admits that good quality data to back up any study is hard to come by, but haven't they all totally missed the point. It's not what is in the organic fruit, dairy produce, cotton etc that we buy it for, it's what's left out!

Personally I don't want to eat food with chemicals in it and I extend that reasoning to my crafting.

I have written about the effects of chemicals on the production of crafting materials on my website http://www.julietaylor.com/

The website, I'm afraid is no longer updated as it is so much quicker to show you what I'm working on in this blog, but the article will stay there for the foreseeable future.

However, if you just want a short taster, the reason I was knitting with organic cotton this morning is this:

"Cotton production is one of the world’s most chemically intensive agricultural processes. It covers just 2.5% of the earth’s agricultural land but uses approximately 22.5% of the world’s insecticides and 10% of the world’s pesticides. Its production damages wildlife, contributes to climate change and contaminates water supplies.
20,000 people die each year from pesticide poisoning, many in cotton production. Another 3 million suffer side-effects from the pesticide residues including cancer, birth defects, respiratory problems, infertility and sterility. A single teaspoon of Aldicarb, the second most used pesticide in cotton production, on the skin can kill an adult. Two thirds of cotton is grown in developing countries where the people are least able to get medical to treat the side effects."

So please, next time you are buying yarn, consider buying organic.