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In the green market, the interior design world is about healthy settings with visual appeal. The goal is to create rooms for physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual benefits. That means avoiding things like VOCs, chemicals, and clutter.
You can see that earth and human-friendly designers and decorators are increasingly riding the green wave. And we now know that natural wool, hemp, silk, seagrass, bamboo, cork, and other organic fibers are here for us. Ancient craft techniques are reviving and some know how to blend it all so well into the present. Recycling is one method that seems to create new artistic magic.
One such conscious professional creator is Marla Henderson. She identifies herself as more an artist/producer of interiors than a traditional designer. Marla frequently works with artisans to develop unique spaces. Her course of life leads us to the Babik rug collection she offers today.
One of my fondest childhood memories was playing with a brand new refrigerator box with our neighbors in the front yard. This large box was a space ship, a school bus, a house, etc. Parents know that kids love boxes, and sometimes these corrugated containers are more interesting than the toys they contain on birthdays and holidays. Kidsonroof has combined children’s love of cardboard boxes with dramatic play to create the MobileHome.
The MobileHome is made from recycled cardboard, is biodegradable, five percent of profits are donated to UNICEF, and is made in China. It has eight secret rooms and is easy to take with you to the park, on vacation, or around the house. My children immediately integrated their other toys, including their children’s yoga mat, into dramatic play with our MobileHome.
By Deb Hiett •
June 24, 2008
Eco-Friendly, Biodegradable Tableware from Let’s Go Green
Picnic in green style this summer with eco-friendly biodegradable plates & bowls, and compostable utensils and cups from Let’s Go Green. Made from sugarcane fibers, these bowls and plates are 100% biodegradable, but sturdy enough for your sloppiest Joes. Their 16- and 20-oz. plastic cups are made from corn, and their PSM (plastic starch material), compost-certified utensils will naturally decompose back to organic elements. Let’s Go Green also offers 100% recycled lunch and dinner napkins, recycled without chlorine bleaching.
Save big when you buy their Picnic Sampler, which includes 50 each of knives, forks, spoons, and 9″ plates — all for only $19.99.
Let’s Go Green has dozens of wonderful products for every room in your home. In fact, a great housewarming gift is one of their Green Home Starter Kits….
From A to Z and across the globe are earth-friendly status bags for every imaginable purpose. I start with Alchemy Goods where founder Eli Reich combined his green lifestyle with a misfortune in Seattle. His stolen messenger bag story inspired him to become an accessory designer who combines bicycle inner tubes, car seat belts, and billboard vinyl.
The company was honored to display their messenger bag beginning May 15th at the Sustainable Fashion Symposium in The Design Museum of University of California at Davis, which runs until July 13th, 2008. So exciting that a blog was created just for the event.
I’ve been told that artistic Seattleites in the Emerald City are famed for introducing grunge music, and that the craze made unkempt appearances a trend. This cool unisex bag can style you either way; vogue or grunge!
By Skye Kilaen •
June 10, 2008
This week in Fabulous Fabrics, I’m venturing a little outside the normal to include a recycled fabric product that’s halfway between fabric and paper. On Kim Kight’s yummy fabric blog True Up, I saw this recycled paper/fabric hybrid from a company called Soolip. It’s a wallpaper weight paper made out of “recycled cotton rag that comes from unused off cuts of clothing from India’s garment district.” Kim speculates that it might be good for sewing projects as well as the gift wrap that Soolip suggests.
You can see all of the patterns here - but make sure you notice there’s a page two, navigation is in the upper right. Most of them come in additional colorways and you have to click through to see them. Each sheet is about 22×30, and they sell for $6 or you can get 3 sheets of the same pattern for $12.
By Skye Kilaen •
June 5, 2008
Ah, the journal. I have about 5.2 billion of them scattered throughout the house, much to the annoyance of some other people who live here and don’t understand that when I ask for “the green one,” I mean that green one and not that green one. I have a journal for notes on films, a journal that reminds me what to look for when thrift shopping, and a couple of journals with notes from conferences I’ve attended in the past couple of years. Journals are so lovely.
Kelly has written about Ex Libris journals and Night Owl Paper Good journals, and Tara tipped us off about her friend Nicole’s recycled wallpaper journals from Freshly Blended Press. I took a spin through Etsy to see what other upcycled, recycled, and handmade journals I could discover…
Holy cow, it’s insane over there!
I had to narrow it down to journals that use recycled, found, or scrap paper inside as well as recycled material in the covers, because otherwise my brain was overloading. I didn’t even scratch the surface, but here are some of my favorites:
Editor’s note: This week, our friends at Life Goggles take a look at a very cool (and very green) accessory: the Mighty Wallet. If you’re looking for an alternative to leather or other less-green materials, and want something that can go right into the recycling bin after its useful life is over, this product is definitely worth checking out. This post was originally published on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008.
The Mighty Wallet is another alternative to using a leather wallet.
Made from a single sheet of Tyvek paper (like that’s used for express envelopes) it containing 25% post consumer content (water and milk containers) and is 100% recyclable (grade 2). The wallet is also apparently virtually indestructible. It’s certainly tear-resistant as I couldn’t tear it with my bare hands (looks like my phone book tearing days are over), and it’s water resistant too. It’s incredibly thin and light, but has lots of slots to put cards in and the wallet will expand just like an stuffed envelope.
Editor’s note: This week, our friends at Life Goggles make another find: Couronne Co glassware. The company’s decorative items (vases, jars, bottles, etc.) are all beautiful, affordable and sustainable: they’re made from recycled glass. This post was originally published on May 14, 2008.
Couronne Co make glass bottles, vases, jars, bowls and candle holders from recycled glass. I was sent some fantastic products, a gerbera bud vase, a blue glass ball vase and a diamond red bottle.
Their website explains that Couronne prides itself on a vast selection of glassware and home décor products that are both eco-friendly and affordable. They recognize the importance of recycling glass, because it not only conserves the environment but it also saves energy. The process required to produce glass is quite simple as it is composed of sand, soda, lime and a lot of heat. The obvious benefits of recycling glass is to reuse and save our natural resources, but the most important benefit of recycled glass is that it requires considerably less energy than that which is needed to melt raw materials.
Or perhaps more importantly, what is your wallet made of? How is it made? By whom is it made?
Well, if it’s a Jimi, then rest easy. Not only is your wallet made of recycled and recyclable material, it is also made sweat shop free in the US by a company that gives 1% to the Planet. Jimi, the “wallet for people who hate wallets” comes from a socially responsible company with [...]
By Skye Kilaen •
May 8, 2008
Autumn recently posted The Eco-Crafters List of Demands, asking green crafters what they would like to see stocked in the craft store of their dreams. Katherine Cota of Spindle Bell had quite a few suggestions:
My ideal craft shop would have EVERYTHING! I love it all. I would especially love a great supply of pretty recycled papers and unique recycled beads. Non-toxic glues/adhesives, glass etching solution, paints. Unique synthetic yarns AND more stylish (affordable) knitting needles/crochet hooks.
Katherine also mentioned that she had stopped shopping at mainstream craft stores, but had concerns about the independent online retailers as well. How do you know their business practices are any better?
I can definitely sympathize with Katherine. In my fantasies, I can walk down the street and shop at a grocery store where everything is organic and either local or fair trade. Anything I see that I want, I can have without worrying if I’m doing something bad to the planet or people. Put a craft store next to that grocery store and I would be in heaven.
While we wait, though, I thought I would round up some recycled and fair trade beads we can all feel good about:
This is a fabulous fun mini skirt project that will leave you some left over scraps for a DIY ‘bring your own bag’ project after. Don’t fret, it’s quite easy to make those jeans into a denim mini!
Supplies Needed
:
- Funky jeans past their prime (beyond patching or your style threshold)
- Scissors
- Sewing machine or mad hand sewing skills
- Thread of any color you enjoy
Step one: Choosing
Use either old jeans, or thrift jeans that you really love the color of but you just don’t wear that MC Hammer style anymore. Just make sure the jeans fit your hip or waist where you plan to wear the skirt.
Step two: Length
I like mine short, and I measure it against a skirt I already own that is the length I like by laying them flat on top one another. It’s a good idea to start with a longer length, since you can always go back and cut it shorter. Decide whether you want it to hit your knee, mid thigh, or super high.
Step three: Cutting
Once you know the length, cutting will be easy. Cut straight across both the legs at the length measured and wa-la, now you have some jean shorts! But you want a sexy mini, so take the scissors and begin cutting the inner seam line and cut open the crotch of the jeans. Then cut along the front seam up to the zipper. (If you made your skirt longer you may want to cut along the back seam 2-3 inches, so it doesn’t pucker in the back when you sew it back together.)
