Green Options

Many of us are accustomed to watching TV on high-quality plasma and LCD screens, but we pay a severe price in energy inefficiency. Toshiba has come up with a solution to our energy woes: flexible OLED paper that doubles as a TV screen.

Many homeowners love do-it-yourself home projects, but are the products we use such as paint and wallpaper, non-toxic and safe?  We all want our homes to be free of cancer-causing toxins, especially when it comes to the decor we choose.  Not only is it important for adults, it is critical to use sustainable and green products around any area where children and pets play. Do we really want to decorate a nursery room or a recreation room with potentially toxic substances? I think not. But, how do you choose the right kind of non-toxic paint and wallpaper?

Fortunately we can now buy paints that low in or free of VOCs, or volatile organic compounds.  This is so important because the paints that do contain VOCs still release toxins years after they have dried. One hasty decision at the home improvement store can have very long lasting effects.  Non-toxic paints have significantly less odor that can spark allergic reactions, headaches and, nausea.  Make sure you are buying paint that is low on the VOCs or free of VOCs entirely.  Do this by reading the labels or asking your paint retailer. I have used C2 LoVo myself with wonderful results. The paint fume smell was non-existent. I was a very happy, green customer.

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.

My friend, Nicole, from Freshly Blended Press, is amazing with recycling wallpaper. She uses all those old wallpaper swatchbooks for material that would otherwise be thrown away . All of the wallpaper is used exquisitely for the covers of her wallpaper journals.

So, next time you come across wallpaper scraps think twice before tossing them out.

Nicole also donates part of her profits to The Humane Society.

Victoria has been profiling some great natural, organic, and recycled yarns for knitting and crochet in her Yearn-Worthy Yarns series. But when it’s time to sit down to the sewing machine, what’s a green crafter to do? Never fear, we’re here to help. We’re kicking off our Fabulous Fabrics series, and first up is organic cotton from Mod Green Pod.

Mod Green Pod creates 100% cotton organic fabrics for home decorating. The fabrics are silk-screened by hand with water-based non-toxic inks and finished without nasty chemicals. And did I mention they’re gorgeous? If you’ve seen the cover of this month’s Domino, of course, you already know that, because the cute fabric on the sofa is their Atticus print in green.

Their designs are drawn from nature, but they’re very sophisticated. My favorite is the Clara, a vine-inspired print available in chocolate, cream, or basil. The current fabric collection also includes several floral-inspired prints and stripes in five colorways.