Waste Not, Want Lot! A BESTeam Feature

I'm a firm believer in and supporter of upcycling,recycling, and reusing, so it's no surprise that I love the concept behind my featured shop today - UpcycleRecycleReuse - on Etsy. While one of my pet peeves is bloggers who simply copy information from a shop's announcement or profile, I'm going to forgive myself today (and I hope you will too!) for copying this from Eleni's announcement... because she expresses the goals of her shop so much better than I could!

"The goal of this shop is to prevent wasting potentially useful materials by making use of existing ones. This reduces the consumption of new raw materials when creating new products. Reducing the use of new raw materials can result in a reduction of energy usage, air pollution, water pollution and even greenhouse gas emissions. This Shop embraces Reuse and Upcycling converting waste materials into new materials or products of better quality or a higher environmental value." 

While I know that many people truly believe that the world's resources are unlimited - or at least not in danger of being depleted in the next few hundred years, I believe that just because we have the resources doesn't mean we should abuse the resources, and I admire Eleni's efforts to make use out of items that so many people would simply toss in the trash. Instead of filling our landfills with mountains of wasted recyclables, we need to learn from people like Eleni, and find ways to reuse the resources we've already tapped into - and maybe we can extend our planet's resources for thousands of years instead of hundreds, and at a savings to ourselves, our planet, and our future generations!

Looking through Eleni's shop, I came up with my title for today's post because of by offering things that others might want a lot, Eleni helps to waste not!  Here are a few of my favorites :)

These lovely gift tags are perfect for gifts, as mini invitations, or scrapbook embellishments...and they're purple! (oh yeah...purple...)

Embellish your packages or pictures with them, make party decorations, give them to your kids or grandkids to make those wonderful homemade gifts, or include them in your own craftiness. Whatever you do with them, you'll know that these versatile paperboard stars will come in handy, and you'll be doing your part to make use of post-consumer waste. I could think of so many ways to use these!

Plain, solid colored wrapping paper is so much cheaper than the patterned prints, but how to dress a package up? Include a handwritten note or that additional gift card in one of Eleni's great handmade envelopes. My personal favorite is her Secret Garden featuring red geraniums and bird baths. Add a beautiful red bow against some plain white wrap and you'll have a package that can compete with department store wraps at a fraction of the cost!

You'll find lots of other great upcycled and recycled products just waiting for you to reuse them at UpcycleRecycleReuse - so what are you waiting for?  Head on over!  And when you're done, be sure to check out her blog and facebook pages - and be sure to follow her on twitter too! You'll find all the links below!

Shop | Blog | Facebook | Twitter

Enjoy meeting the shops of the BESTeam? Become one yourself if you have a shop on Etsy and love to blog as well. The Boosting Etsy Shops Team (BEST) is a group of Etsy sellers from around the world, representing a wide variety of crafts, products and services sold. We are team mates and we are friends, we encourage and we challenge each other to better ourselves and our businesses – and together, we are the BEST! Learn more about us or apply for membership on our team blog, our team forum, or our team page on Etsy! We'd love to have you join the fun!

xo,