5 Creative Green Ideas to Keep You Happy at Home

This stay-at-home period is a great opportunity to reflect on yourselves and make the most of your spare time. You must be hearing the phrase “nature is healing” these days. So why not use your creativity and play your role in conserving the environment by exercising “go-green” activities? It can be as simple as “reduce, reuse, recycle”, but adding a fun twist will make a positive impact on you while you stay at home. Here are some eco-friendly crafty ideas from us!

1 | Reduce - DIY Shopping Bags

We can reduce the amount of single-use plastic that we use every day by creating our own reusables. Considering the fact that nowadays we only go out to buy groceries and food, we can end up with so many plastic bags if we don’t bring something to carry our goods. Therefore, let’s make our own DIY reusable shopping bags. Customize them based on your own fashion preference so that if you wear a mask and dress casually, you can still go out in style.

You can use an old blank tote bag and decorate it with any type of fabric you have. Here, we have used batik patches cut in different sizes. The biggest size is around 15x20 cm to make as a front pouch to put your small coins in. The smaller size is around 7x25 cm, which you scrunch loosely to form small flowers. Make a few flowers and sew them together like a corsage. You can either sew or pin the corsage to the tote bag. You can even add a similar corsage to your outfit to match your new tote bag!

Crafters tip: Make some wrappers from the leftover fabric patches so that you can reduce more plastic.

2 | Reuse - DIY Mini Planters

Ending up with so many cans, jars, or plastic containers from your daily consumption? Reuse them instead of throwing them away. This is where your skills and creativity will be challenged: making something new and useful out of something old and useless. Want to know our recommendation?  Make mini planters and let the greenery bring freshness to your home. Decorate and personalize them, and put them around your house so they can make you smile every day.

Gather all your used plastic and get ready to make mini planters. If you have a 1-litre plastic bottle, just cut it in half and use the bottom part. Cut the plastic bottle in the shape of a kitty and add a pair of ears, eyes, whiskers, and a little smile. Pour water or soil to start moving your plant in. Repeat with other reusable plastic containers, but do it in a variety of designs and colourful paints.

Crafters tip: If you happen to use a thick plastic container, put a masking tape as a guide to cut your planting holes first. Draw guidelines on the masking tape to cut the area of the hole, and then cut slowly and safely into the guiding lines with a cutter. You can remove the masking tape once you’re done cutting. The masking tape will be useful to reduce the risk of slipping your cutter out of line due to the slippery plastic surface.

3 | Recycle - Pot Hangers from T-Shirts

Your 15-year-old t-shirts are still there inside your wardrobe? Refrain from thinking about throwing them out, because you can put them to good use by recycling them into something new. Assuming that you have made your own mini-planters from the above points or other pots and planters, we recommend creating pot hangers using your old t-shirts.

Prepare your scissors, t-shirts, planter jars, and your favourite greeneries. Make hangers from your old t-shirts by cutting them into a 1-inch wide ribbon, with a suitable length tailored to your needs. The objective is to make webs with knots, so you can place your pot or mini-planters in them and hang them. You will need a minimum of 4 long t-shirt strings to make the simplest web, but you can add the strings to create a dense weave of the webs. 

Crafters tip: Remember that the t-shirt string is elastic and flexible, so you need to tie the webs securely with tight knots.

4 | Replace - Swap Tissue with DIY Kitchen Cloths

Review your daily consumption habit. Do you use too much tissue to wipe your hands after cleaning it? Instead of using less tissue, why don’t you replace it all at once with DIY kitchen cloths made from your old wardrobe and towels? Creating a paper-free kitchen would contribute a lot in reducing your daily waste. Moreover, personalizing kitchen items according to your own unique style will definitely make your cooking time more fun!

You will need your old face towels and any fabric that will be perfect to refresh your kitchen space. Here, we have taken old white towels and colourful pieces of fabric from an old wardrobe. Cut the colourful fabric into 5x20 cm size and sew them near the end of your towel as a new accent. Do this for both the ends of the towel. You can get more creative and add some colourful buttons as a finishing touch. 

Crafters tip: You can also make a hand towel and add a string to the towel’s end. Then hang it by the kitchen sink to remind you to avoid drying your hand with tissues.

5 | Repair - Patch Your Broken Clothes

It might be tempting to buy some new clothes when there are holes in your old ones. However, don’t be too quick in deciding to throw your damaged clothes away. Instead of letting them go to waste, repair them and make them look even better. Buy some cool patches from an online store and sew over the holes in your clothes. You can also exercise your creative mind and make your own patches by cutting your own design, and be a DIY fashion designer while staying at home!

Prepare your damaged wardrobe and some pieces of patterned fabric that you’d love to design as a stylish patch. Sew the fabric pieces to patch the holes. For kids, you can design some little fish or other cute shapes of your choice.

Crafters tip: Draw the shape you want to design as patches with paper as a guide. Pin it to the fabric and cut the fabric accordingly.

There are so many exciting eco-friendly things to do while you stay at home. You can also make holiday plans for the future, but remember to #StayatHome today, so you can #TravelTomorrow. And until then, you can indulge in these go-green activities to add some freshness and creativity to your home. So, which one do you want to start off with?