Happy Earth Day!!!

Don't forget to stop back here on Sunday, April 25th for the Michelle Perkett Studio Earth Day Blog Hop!  Come check out the blogs in the hop to get some inspiration on how recycled materials can be used in your card making.  We hope to give you lots of ideas for items to use, so you can help us celebrate Earth Day everyday!

Have you ever thrown something away and later thought that would've been perfect for the project you're working on?  I constantly use recycled items like ribbons that were tied around gifts I've received, charms from parts of jewelry that have broken, vellum & other papers that I see in magazines or in junk mail, pieces or parts of toys and more.  Old clothing is a great source for buttons, pockets and lots of interesting ribbons and trims.  How about using everday household products to create your cards like stamping with bleach, create background papers with things like shaving cream that are speckled with reinkers and then pressed onto the card stock, spraying spray starch onto card stock and then sprinkle with Pearl Ex and spread with a sponge brush or maybe even using masking tape and ink pads to make paper look like leather?  These things are just a few items that can be used in our paper crafting. 

When you think of the amount of packaging that we throw away from the paper crafting products that we buy, don't we owe it to ourselves to try to use some of the packaging in our creations?  I save the acetate from packaging to make shaker cards and to stamp my scenery stamps onto to help me put all the parts together first without having to waste tons of paper.  Many people are already saving chipboard from packaging for their diecut machines.  Unfortunately, manufacturers use excess packaging to make their products looks larger so they will get noticed by us.  The next time you bring home new supplies try to think twice before you instantly toss everything into the trash.

Earth Day is a day to celebrate different ways that we can band together to make changes in the way that we normally operate.  Stop using those plastic shopping bags and bring your own reusable bags.  Turn off the water while you're brusing your teeth.  Turn the heat down or the air conditioning up a couple degrees from the temperatures that you normally choose.  Combine as many of your errands together or carpool so you can to save on gas and emissions.  Become knowledgeable about the world around us, and see if there is more you can do to help make this place a better world to live in!  Happy Earth Day everyone!

~~  Lee  ~~

BTW...Happy Birthday to my only brother, Dave, and my nephew, Danny.  Love you guys!