Sustainable Crafts, Gifts and Projects for All Seasons

In this creative guide, Hyggestyle blogger Coombes (Craft Your Own Cosy Scandi Christmas) teaches readers how to craft with foraged and upcycled items. The pieces are designed around seasonal materials. For instance, the 150 dandelion heads needed to make dandelion honey usually blossom in late spring, and the “rustic autumn mobile” requires suspending yellow, red, and brown leaves on string from a wreath of twigs. Coombes shows how to cleverly repurpose everyday items, such as when she illustrates how to cut, fold, and roll scraps of old sweaters to resemble roses that can be assembled on a circular piece of decorated cardboard to make a “cosy rose wreath.” Other projects include lampshades for string lights, made from fabric scraps draped over water bottle segments; a picnic table constructed by putting short legs on a briefcase filled with tableware; and “sweet orange winter” lip balm created by melting soy wax, shea butter, and coconut oil together. The photo illustrations are easy to follow and Coombes provides plenty of useful tips (“Pick the rosehips on a sunny morning when they are dry,” she writes about harvesting the fruit for use in facial oil, explaining that using insufficiently dried rosehips can cause the oil to spoil). This will help crafters get in the spirit of any season. (Feb.)