April is Stash Busting Month

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, a few of us crafties decided to pull together and do something to celebrate! Did you know that we spend $4.2 billion per year on art supplies (!) (pdf) and many of them are toxic and harmful to the environment. Instead of buying new, let’s pledge to make April a Craft Destash Month! Together, we can have a really big impact on the environment and on our own wallets.

For the entire month of the April, let’s pledge not to buy any new craft materials, tools or supplies for the April Stash Bust!

Many of us have ginormous stashes with many fun and creative projects waiting to be born. So, we also pledge to make at least one project from our stash using only what we have on hand. For motivation and to show how you can use and repurpose what you already have, we’ll have a round up of exciting destash tutorials and crafter interviews from:

And to encourage you to do the same we will be hosting an April Stash Bust contest!

To enter, take the Stash Bust pledge to not buy any new materials, tools or supplies for the month of April. Place the awesome April Stash Bust badge (created by Liz at cosa verde) on your website or blog (found here). Create a project from your stash using only what you have on hand. Submit your finished project detailing the stash materials you used with a link to your finished project by Earth Day, April 22nd to the April Stash Bust Flickr Group. A team of crack judges (to be announced later) will review the projects and choose a winner.

So what could you win?!

A lucky creative type will receive:

“Alabama Stitch Book” by Natalie Chanin from Swap-bot.com
A one year showcase on cosa verde for your repurposed & eco-friendly crafts
A one year membership from Hello Craft
A cup glove kit from Glue and Glitter
A mini box set of volume 2 of Craft Leftovers zine (issues 1-4) from Craft Leftovers
A Modeling Chocolate kit from Dollarstorecrafts.com

But wait there’s more!

Enter the Super Secret Stashbusting Challenge: 10 lucky crafters will be chosen to craft with a super secret envelope of goodies from dollarstorecrafts.com [click here to apply by April 5th]

Or if you can’t whittle your stash down as much as you’d like, why not trade it for a new stash? Enter the April Stash Bust craft supply swap at Swap-bot.

And to get you even more excited here’s and Eco-artist interview with Rebicyclist over at cosa verde

With so many amazing options to get you going and clean out your stash AND help the environment, how do you plan on participating?