10 DIYers Giving Back

If you’ve visited Seattle or even the Seattle airport recently, you can’t miss signs for Glassybaby. The popular glass votives are hand blown with vibrant colors and patterns and have quite the fan following in the Pacific Northwest. More than 80 glassblowers in the company hot shops in Seattle and Berkeley handblow each votive in a 24-hour creation process. Each color and design means something as the design represents and benefits different charities or causes. To date, the company has donated more than six million dollars to animal, environment and health causes. Both Seattle and Berkeley locations host glassblowing experiences where you can make your own Glassybaby and learn about the glassblowing process.

Unicef's online market is a great place to shop for homewares, with more than 8,000 handmade items around the world. All items give back to global artisans and you can see which countries benefit from each item. They have a huge selection of traditional celadon jade pottery handmade by artisans in Thailand. "I hope more people will understand and appreciate the art of Celadon ceramic." said Unicef artist Duagkamoi Srisukri. "Each piece that I make has many stories to tell."

These days sitting down to handwrite a letter seems obsolete but Jacob Cramer knew a simple letter could make a difference. He founded Love for the Elderly in 2013 when he was still in high school. Today the organization has multiple programs including Letters of Love, a handwriting program to bring smiles to seniors, and Senior Buddies, a pen-pal relationship between youth and nursing home residents.

If you’ve ever been to a shelter, you know how sad it looks. Those cold, blank walls and metal bars are depressing to us but the environment can also be scary to shelter animals. The Snuggles Project was founded to give shelter animals extra love and make shelter cages look more homey by making animal blankets. These blanket snuggles help calm frightened dogs and cats and can help animals get adopted more quickly. The organization connects DIYers by encouraging Snuggler meetups and the website offers tons of blanket patterns with sew and no-sew options.