Category Archives: The Green Consumer

Minimizing Your Plastic Footprint: Glass Dharma Giveaway

Keeping the Earth Week fun moving right along, today as promised we have more great green products for you to win, more Earth Day tips, and bonus links to keep you clicking green all week long.

David Leonhardt, a glassblower and the founder of Glass Dharma, the original hand-made glass drinking straw, created his own line of drinking straws to “contribute one solution to the misuse of plastics in our society.”

By now I think most of us understand the over-use of the very non eco-friendly plastic material is a huge environmental problem, one with no clear solution in sight.

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Recycled Note Of The Week: Purple For Maddie

Today is little Maddie’s funeral, and in remembrance her parents have asked everyone to sport a bit of purple for the day, in memory of a beautiful little girl who left this world too soon, but left it brighter, warmer.

For this week’s Recycled Note Of The Week I wanted to sport a bit of purple, too, and so here are some lovely cards of the purple persuasion that happen to be made from recycled materials, too.

White Spring Flowers

Sweet, unique, blooming flowers wrap-around both sides of this set of 4 note-cards. Solid purple inside.
Card Size: 4.25 X 5.5
Printed on 100% recycled paper.

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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Reinvent!

In my opinion, the word “reinvent” should absolutely be added to the “R’s” of recycling- as in Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Reinvent!

Okay, I know, it is similar to reuse, but really, when I think of the word “reuse” it just implies to me that I should use the same thing repeatedly-such as cloth grocery bags. Recycle is also a similar term, but it always conjures images in my head of blue curb-side bins and pop cans. Reinvent, on the other hand, involves giving new spunk and life to an old, or apparently unusable, item to make it useful once more!

Recently I have come across some fun ideas that will hopefully inspire you to look for ways to reinvent items in your own home.

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Recycled Scarf Giveaway Winner!

The winner of the recycled scarf giveaway is commenter #2, The Green Yak!

Congratulations, and happy! Monday.

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Recycled Note Of The Week: The Craft Pantry

Every week or so we use this space to feature a recycled note or three from some of our favorite online sources. This week’s recycled note of the week comes from The Craft Pantry, a Pacific Northwest etsy shop featuring a variety of recycled goods perfect for your home or office.

Here are a few of my favorites from the shop:

Folklore Garden Cards (set of four)

Folklore Garden is designed using my own original digital drawing. A set of 4 Cards, top fold, blank inside, logo on back of card. Cards measure 4.25″ x 5.5″ & include envelopes.

I use the finest materials when making my cards.

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Cloth for Mama-Are You Crazy?

Yes, you heard me, in addition to the last few weeks talking about using cloth for your kiddos, now I want to talk about cloth for you!

Alright, before you freak out and think, “Now this woman has totally lost it!” Hear me out!

Shouldn’t the same reasons we use for cloth diapering our little ones (reducing trash, avoiding toxins, saving money, pure comfort) be the reasons we consider using cloth for ourselves during that certain time of month?

Once again, I understand the aversion and used to have the same one! I used to think, “Wow, that is just way overboard and definitely only for hard-core hippie women.”

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Recycling Yarn For Green Knitting (And A Giveaway!)

As MacKenzie touched on in her February 5th article, knitting is a great and relatively green hobby. My mom has found a way to make it even more eco-friendly –- by using recycled yarn.

Recycled yarn can be purchased, but she takes more of a do-it-yourself approach, buying sweaters at thrift stores to unravel and reconfigure. Watching my mom and sister shop for sweaters to recycle is pretty funny. They barely look at the clothes, instead walking down the row and touching a sleeve of each sweater. If a garment feels soft enough to meet their standards, they’ll stop and examine it, looking at the color, the label (if it has one), and the seams.

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Recycled Note Of The Week: Moderne Motive

Every week or so we use this space to feature a recycled note or three from some of our favorite online sources. This week’s recycled note of the week comes from Moderne Motive, a shop that specializes in eco-friendly stationary and other fun paper goods.

I was instantly drawn to this shop because of the clean and lovey-dovey designs, and here’s where I show you my three favorites from the shop:

Psst, I love you…

– listing is for 1 card/envelope
– measures approximately 4.25” (W) x 5.5” (H) folded
– printed on 100lb FSC certified 100% PCW cover stock in cool white*
– partnered with a 80lb FSC certified 100% PCW envelope (A2) in cool white*

Krafty Hellos


From the seller:

This card set is perfect for everyday use.

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A Step Beyond Cloth Diapers

Over the past few weeks I have been doing a little rundown on what modern cloth diapering really looks like, and a few comments have been made with curiosity about how early my son potty trained. If you don’t recall from earlier posts, by 16 months he learned to pretty much exclusively go poo on the potty and by just over two-years-old he was fully potty trained (aside from nights).

Now, I must admit, these early results were prompted not only by our cloth diapering (which I do believe helped tremendously) but also by our elimination communication efforts.

So, what exactly is elimination communication (EC), you ask?

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Around The Greenosphere: Weekly Link Roundup

Here are some of our favorite posts from around the greenosphere this week, to help start your weekend a bit greener.

Monday Inhabitat announced that MIO will be releasing a new green outdoor line for Target, set to be available in stores April 12th. The product assortment includes eight outdoor items made from recycled and renewable materials including a watering can, trowel, cultivator, weeder, mini herb garden, solar lights, hammock and composter ranging in price from $7.99 – $99.99.

Tuesday Dot Earth ran an informative article on climate change and its immediate and long term effects on polar bears.

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