Chica and Jo: In Their Own Words April 6, 2009

The other day, I discovered the amazing arts and craft blog, Chica and Jo. This fun, creative blog offers tips and projects for all the do it yourselfers out there. Some of their recent posts include tips on making homemade gelato, making your own office supplies and even how to make a card from an old Barbie dress.
The most exciting thing is that right now, in honor of Earth day, they are hosting a green craft contest. Chica and Jo have written a lot of posts on being greenin the past. And as you can see from the interview below, they love trying to think of new ways to use things that would otherwise be thrown or given away. They have issued a challenge to their readers: ”Submit your best recycling projects to our contest.” Just email them (contest@chicaandjo.com) a picture of your finished project or a link to it. They have exciting prizes for the best projects from some of their sponsors.
To find out more about these talented and fun women, read the “In Their Own Words” interview below.
Introduce yourself.
We are family-oriented, fun-loving women who enjoy life to the fullest. Part of what allows us to do that is our creative minds and our clever solutions to everyday problems. Some of these solutions are quick and easy and help us save time. Sometimes they are affordable alternatives that save us money. Sometimes we come up with neat ways to track and organize things in our lives, so that we can focus on the important things. Then there are the times where we do outlandish things simply because we can and we want to. But no matter what the purpose, the outcome is always clever and our friends can’t stop talking about it.
Tell us about why you started your blog.
We started our blog because of our friends. Every time we did something really neat for an event or around the house, they wanted to know how to do it themselves. This made us think that more people might like to be inspired by our projects. We consider ourselves “Renaissance Women”, we like to dabble in just about every medium we can find. It’s fun to try out a new craft and then pick what you really like and really hone the skill. We enjoy taking old things that we would otherwise trash and turning them into fun and useful objects.
Tell us about what inspires you.
We are inspired by our every day lives. We like to look at common things in our environment and figure out how to make them spectacular, more organized, more fun or just plain useful. We are a great team because we each have different strengths to our creativity. This melding of two similar but distinct minds inspires almost all of our projects. Even if one of us does something alone, we can guarantee you that the other one had some creative thought involved in the process.
Tell us about your favorite green craft project.
Our favorite green project that we have done involved turning two old bridesmaid dresses into slipcovers for a table and chairs (http://www.chicaandjo.com/2009/01/08/upcycle-bridesmaid-dresses-into-chair-covers-and-tablecloth/). We used every last scrap of those dresses, including the linings to make matching napkins, and the result was beautiful and useful. Everyone keeps bridesmaid dresses in the closet but no one actually wears them again. We wanted to find a way to use these gorgeous fabrics instead of letting them take up space in our closet. We couldn’t be more pleased with the result.
What is one green thing you do on a regular basis?
Chica is a huge recycler and her husband experiments with bio-diesel. Jo quickly embraced the reusable shopping bagidea and now uses them exclusively. Chica even figured out a pattern for us to make our own: http://www.chicaandjo.com/2008/03/21/make-your-own-reusable-shopping-bags/. We believe that by making small changes in our own lives, we can help foster larger changes in our environment. Lead by example is our green motto.
What is your best tip for green living?
Never throw anything away without first thinking of another life for it. It’s surprising how many items you can craft into something useful. We also try to make do with what we already have on hand before we go out to buy something. Often, with just a little effort, you can transform items you already have to suit the purpose you need. Just think outside the box the next time you go to toss a broken book shelf or even an empty pickle jar.
- Possible links of interest to your readers:
- Green posts: http://www.chicaandjo.com/category/green/
- Craft Green contest: http://www.chicaandjo.com/2009/03/23/contest-for-earth-day/
- Our store: http://www.chicaandjo.com/ourstore/
- Our home page: http://www.chicaandjo.com/
- Subscribe to our feed: http://www.chicaandjo.com/subscribe-to-chica-and-jo/
Checkout these inspiring women to discover all types of projects to light your creative fire.
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