DIY: Coffee Sleeve Greeting Cards

Whenever I buy a coffee from any coffee shop I always try my best to avoid taking with me a coffee sleeve.  Now, I appreciate that they are just looking out for our well being - caution, it's hot! - but after years of baking and working with my hands I have personally developed an immunity to extreme hot and cold feeling in my hands. Besides that, coffee sleeves just seem so wasteful to me, I mean really, am I that dainty that I can't hold my coffee cup without the extra cardboard sleeve?

Anyway, for the odd time when I do forget to leave the coffee sleeve behind I always make sure to recycle it ... until now! My niece - the brilliant little tween that she is - suggested that we make greeting cards out of coffee sleeves.  So that's what we did with the sleeves we collected from our Starbucks visit.

Here are the steps ...

All you need is a variety of craft paper, some glue, scissors, and a little creativity to come up with a cute folded greeting card.  I added some sequence to the border on this card for a nice accent.  The great thing about these cards, besides the fact that you are reusing and up-cycling, is that you can design them for anybody and for any occasion.

Green Tip 20: Skip the Stick and the Coffee Cup

SKIP THE COFFEE STIR STICK or STRAW

In North America, 138 billion straws and stir sticks are thrown away each year!  You don't have to start drinking your coffee black for the environment sake but if you can, add your sugar and/or milk/cream first before pouring the coffee.  If you buy to-go ask the Barista to do this for you or ask for a metal spoon ... why not, never hurts to at least ask.

Try stir stick alternatives or keep a metal spoon in your bag or office desk.

Reminder: When buying coffee to go, don't forget your travel mug.

Green Tip 6: A Better Way "To Go"

I am definitely guilty of this on way too many occasions, so I have made a huge effort lately to always bring my travel mug to any coffee shop when I order to go.  These days you can find some very pretty travel mugs like these:

Hand painted travel mugs by Yevgenia

Another great tip, one we rarely think about I think, is overusing napkins or plastic utensils when we order to-go.  These things are way to easy to grab but are such a huge waste especially when you have metal utensils at home that you can easily carry with you in your bag or keep at the office.

The bigger culprit I think are the paper napkins!  They get picked up, used or even unused and thrown away faster then you can blink an eye, it's unfortunate really.

Try this instead ...

USE ONE LESS PAPER NAPKIN

During an average year, an American uses approximately 2,200 napkins—around six each day. If everyone in the U.S. used one less napkin a day, more than a billion pounds of napkins could be saved from landfills each year.

Other create options:

• keep a couple of clothe towels or napkins in your bag to use and reuse; all it takes is a good wash or rinse and it is good again for next use.
• Eat in! It's always the healthiest way to go anyway and cleaning up after will be less wasteful.
• Slow down! Eating is not a race, take your time eating and chances are you'll make less mess and need less clean up after

Any other ideas? Would love to hear them, please leave a comment, question or post idea - would love to hear from you!