At The School of Making and Alabama Chanin, sustainability is a top priority. We strive to be a zero-waste company and leave the smallest environmental footprint possible. Recently, our team has been working behind the scenes to elevate our DIY offerings and take larger strides toward a more environmentally friendly future.

Today, we introduce new and improved packaging for The School of Making products that greatly cut down on the use of and need for plastic in our studio—and in your home. We’ve talked before about the scraps that come from our Building 14 facility and production studio, and we’re continually looking for new and innovative ways to use them. New thread packaging and bags for DIY kits, the Indigo Dye Kit, and our updated Essential Sewing Kit have been created by using leftover scraps from garments and home goods.

Plastic has been replaced elsewhere by more sustainable options such as glass and recycled paper. Beads, sequins, and our newly added Armor Beads are now available in glass Weck jars for easy storage and display in your home studio. Needles now come in three varieties—Sewing, Beading, and Embroidery—and ship to you in a reusable glass vial. Also, incorporated into our new packaging program are recycled pillow boxes made regionally in Nashville. These pillow boxes have multiple uses—providing protection to small glass vials and packaging a few different products—cutting down on our need to keep excess materials on hand.

Our team has put a lot of thought and care into choosing more sustainable options and providing our customers with an elevated selection of notions and tools.