Category Archives: For The Office

Recycled Note Of The Week: Great Job On That Thing You Did

Once a week we use this space to feature a recycled note or three from some of our favorite online sources. This week I found the perfect card to say congratulations! for pretty much any job or deed well done.

I’m thinking of sending it to the next person who tells me a really great joke.

Great Job On That Thing You Did

“Great job on that thing you did. Really super.”

Designed by Be a Decent Human Being for Sycamore Street Press.

– Letterpress printed in orange and light turquoise soy ink.
– 20% cotton paper gives a nice impression.

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Go Green for Lunch

When my husband and I moved in together in college, we were both going to school full time and working, and so we always ate at least one meal away from home each day. Eating out was getting too expensive, so we started packing our lunches each morning. That took care of a lot of the excess cost, but I was still unhappy with how much we were spending on plastic zipper baggies. I had recently become really involved with the environmental club on campus, and was examining our lifestyle for ways in which we could lessen our impact on the planet.

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Recycled Note Of The Week: Envelopalooza

Every week we use this space to feature a recycled note or three from some of our favorite online sources. This week I thought it might be fun to feature envelopes only: creative and 100% recycled (and repurposed!) alternatives to standard letter carriers you can use to transport the smallest or largest of notes.

Below are some of my favorites (And please feel free to link to your own favorites in the comments, too!):

Romeo & Juliet Envelopes

Send a little Shakespeare mail to your favourite literature buff or teacher or student or Shakespeare enthusiast or actor or playwright or really anyone who likes to read or write!

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Freecycling Into 2009

The holidays are behind us, and we’re moving into the time of year when lots of people are facing the daunting twin tasks of finding places to put all the Christmas presents and getting ready to do some serious Spring cleaning.

If you’re like me, you may even have made a New Year’s resolution that seemed like a good idea at the time, but now seems a bit daunting: “Take care of the clutter problem.”

I suspect de-cluttering is harder for those of us who hate to add things to the waste stream. The thought of putting something into a landfill that someone else might get use out of is bothersome, but how do we find someone who needs or wants our old stuff?

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Recycled Note Of The Week: Floppy Disk Notepad

The perfect size for a notepad to carry in your backpack, purse or back pocket, these recycled floppy disk notepads from It’s Our Earth totally have me embracing my inner geek.

Made from a pair of recycled 3.5″ floppy disks and filled with 80 sheets of 100% recycled acid free paper, the seller has listings for individual notepads or packs of three in various colors you can choose yourself.

Per the seller, as these are recycled floppy disks, some of them may include original labels or a hand written note made by previous owner as to the content on the disk.

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Recycled Note Of The Week: Handmade Flower Thank You Cards

Just in time for all of the post-holiday thank you cards you’ll no doubt be sending, this week’s Recycled Note O’ The Week will help you say thank you in style while using handmade recycled materials, too.

Thank you notes with flowers of handmade paper, from PulpArt:

The listing is for 5 thank you notes in a pack, and in the set featured above the seller used “calendula flower petals, angle wings (a botanical from Thailand) as well as all different colors of recycled but high-quality junk mail.”

A note from the seller on her process for making the handmade paper:

I make handmade paper the old-fashioned way, by combining recycled paper with water in a blender.

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Recycled Note Of The Week: Smock Paper

This week’s Recycled Note Of The Week was found in SmockPaper’s Etsy shop.

Meet Ellie, the sustainably letterpressed “petite card”:

This particular listing is for a set of 8 blank letterpress petite note cards with hand-lined envelopes, which the seller notes are perfect as gift tags or place cards.

Each wee note is sustainably letterpressed on bamboo paper is 2-1/2 x 3-7/16 folded.

But, wait, there’s more.

As if adorable elephants on bamboo paper isn’t great enough, SmockPaper is also a wind-powered business that donates 1% of sales to environmental causes via 1% For the Planet.

Each set of cards comes packaged from Syracuse, New York in a clear sleeve that is “petroleum-free, tree-free, and certified biodegradable by the Biodegradable Products Institute.”

If elephants don’t float your proverbial notecard boat, SmockPaper also has a website.

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Holiday How-To, Green Edition

The Holidays can be a tricky time of year to navigate while staying green and not going over-budget. Here at 5 Minutes for Going Green we’re here to help you think outside the box this gift-giving season. We want to help keep you and your family green this holiday season, while also keeping more green in your pocketbooks, too. Keep reading for our customized How-To Holiday Guide.

(Keep in mind, too, that nearly all of these How-To tips are not holiday-centric and can themselves be recycled for birthdays, anniversaries, group social events, and just day-to-day green living.)

How To…

Wrap Recycled:

  • My new favorite recycled wrapping trend that I’ve seen suggested and modeled everywhere from Etsy to Martha Stewart Living is wrapping with maps and pages from atlases and other travel-related paperie.

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Recycled Note Of The Week: Subu

This week’s Recycled Note Of The Week comes from Subu Rose, who specializes in creating unique and perfectly purse or pocket-sized notebooks from 100% recycled papers.

The covers of each notebook come from 100% cardstock made with 30% post-consumer fibers. The inside pages of the notebooks come from discarded printer paper so some of them have text and/or images on them, which I think adds to the overall charm and uniqueness of each notebook. The binding is hemp, with a button closure.

But who better to tell you about the notebooks than the seller and designer herself?

about the books: i try to use recycled materials when i can.

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Recycled Note Of The Week: Ecojot

This week’s Recycled Note Of The Week comes from Ecojot, a Canadian based environmentally friendly stationary line designed by Carolyn Gavin.

The paper comprising all Ecojot’s cards, notebooks, agendas, and file folders are created from 100% post-consumer recycled content, which means no new trees are ever used in their creation and printing process.

The three notebooks above came in a set I found at Powell’s, but there are many other colorful and eco-centric designs on Ecojot’s website. I liked these because they were simple and perfectly pocket or purse-sized, while also rocking three re-purposed mantras which make them not only great for list-making, but as a thoughtful and eco-friendly gift, too.

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