Envelope I made from a paper grocery bag

Over the past year, I have done a pretty good job reducing the use of plastic in my day-to-day life. There are a few areas I need to work on, like the use of plastic produce bags at the grocery stores and farmers markets, but overall, I’ve done better than I have in years past.

For 2010, I decided to make an effort to cut back on the amount of paper I use .  I am usually mindful of my paper usage when it comes to eliminating unnecessary magazine and catalog subscriptions, junk mail, grocery stores bags, and reducing office and shipping paper. My use of miscellaneous paper products like napkins and facial tissue can be excessive at times, though I only buy 100% recycled paper products.  In an effort to reduce the amount of paper I use, I started using cloth napkins at the dinner table and handkerchiefs instead of facial tissue. I normally only use cloth napkins when I have guests, but whats stopping me from using them everyday?  Thankfully, I haven’t purchased a roll of paper towels in months, so that’s also a good start!

Have you made an effort to reduce the amount of paper and/or plastic in your life? Do you have any other ideas aside from what I mentioned?

Crafting a Green World – DIY for Environmentalists
Crafting a Green World is a network of bloggers, artists, crafters and designers that teaches us a wide variety of environmentally friendly do it yourself  design and art projects.  You will find a wide variety of projects such as jewelry, home decor, accessories, stationery, baby supplies and so much more. All projects utilizes eco-friendly and  chemical free supplies and rehashes all types of materials such as glass, newspaper, fabric from old clothes, buttons, shipping peanuts, junk mail, CDs and more.  Whatever it is, you can be sure someone has or will make something useful and artistic out of it on Crafting a Green World.   Some of my favorite projects includes Recycle Grocery Bags Into Eco Packaging and just about everything in the home and garden section.

The bloggers at Crafting a Green World also introduce various artists such as yarn spinners,  organic fabric,  stationery and jewelry designers.  The buy handmade section is my first stop when I’m shopping for handmade gifts. Many of the featured designers and artists sell their creations on Etsy.

My contribution to Crafting a Green World: San Francisco Bay Area Resource for Eco Home Improvement

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Green and Gorgeous
Green and Gorgeous is a brand new blog by Jennae Petersen of Green Your Decor and Hibiscus Creative. I’m less familiar with Hibiscus Creative, but I have loved Green Your Decor for quite a while (so much so, I wrote a sort blurb about it several weeks ago).  I’ve learned so much about eco-friendly home decor and design and discovered a lot of resources on her blog.

What’s discussed at Green & Gorgeous?  Just about everything else related to green living including her own personal journey.  Jennae goes into a variety of subjects from  fashion to food to cell phones. What I love about both her blogs is that she writes about green living and related subjects without finger pointing.  When you check out her blog, don’t forget to enter her Nostalgia Organics soap giveaway.

Eco-Rainbow

Previous post in this series: Eco Fashion: What is it? and Eco Fashion: Do it Yourself – Organic fabric

Knitting is a fun pastime for me that doesn’t take up much time.  Its great while waiting in line, riding public transportation or just sitting in a park. Its portable, quiet, doesn’t require machines, and if you mess up, you can always unravel the yarn and start over!

For me, the most simple item of clothing to make is a scarf.  Check out my previous post on holiday gift ideas for instructions on how to knit.

Eco Friendly Yarn Resources

Ecobutterfly Organics carries organic and fair trade cotton yarn in in a variety of colors and sizes. They also have fun notions such as recycled glass beads and purse handles made from recycled wood.

O~Wool “The Vermont Organic Fiber Company is the leading wholesale supplier of yarns and fabrics made with certified organic wool.”  Sustainable agricultural processing  in the creation of organic wool both for hand knitting and commercial use is this company’s speciality.  Though they do not offer their products online, they have a link where you can find retail stores that does.

Eco-Cotton Blend by RedHeart Redheart yarn has a new blend of recycled cotton yarn made from T-shirt remnants.

Second Time Cotton by Knit One, Crochet Too Second Time Cotton yarn is made from a blend of cotton and acrylic fabric scraps from the garment industry.

Tierra Wools located in a small village in New Mexico, is a  spinning and hand dying and hand weaving workshop and retail store.

Ceallach Dyes This eco-friendly yarn manufacturer uses solar power to heat set the dyes used to color the yarn.

The Yarn Tree offers organic merlino wool yarn.

Lion Brand Yarn is great for your basic organic cotton yarn.  The yarn is not dyed so its available in four naturally occurring shades.

Blonde Chicken Boutique Tara, owner of Blonde Chicken Boutique hand dyes and spins local wool to make yarn in the coolest shades.  Check out her Etsy shop!

Happy knitting!

Harmony Art

Previous post in this series: Eco Fashion: What is it?

Just as there’s a wide variety of finished clothing made from organic fabrics, you can also find the raw materials to make it yourself.

Organic and sustainable fabric resources

Green Depot offers organic, hemp and other fabrics in a array of colors, prints and textures.

Harmony Art has certified organic cotton sourced from India. On her site, Harmony shares her reasons for sourcing and importing from India. “How come some of your fabrics are imported from India?”

Noonday Textilles This Etsy seller has hemp fabric that can be used for a wide variety of clothing and home decor projects. This fabric is hand dyed using low impact dyes.

Thea and Sami Hand-printed organic cotton, help and linen using water-based, solvent-free inks.

Bunte Fabrics offers organic fabrics in fun, unique prints and colors. Perfect for kids clothing.

Mod Green Pod has a wonderful collection of US grown organic cotton canvas that’s perfect for all of your home decorating needs and desires.

Organic Fabric Thought this fabric is mostly for furniture and interior design, this selection is hard to resist!

Hemp Traders has a wide selection of hemp fabrics and hemp blends for both apparel and interior decorating.

Tenfold Organic Textiles offers naturally dyed organic fabric in a variety of solid colors.

NearSea Naturals has a large selection of orgaic cotton, hemp, wool,  and silk.  You will find denim, stretch knits sateen and more in a variety of colors and patterns for all of your projects.

GreenSTYLE by Robert Kaufman has a great selection of organic cotton, canvas and linen. They recently introduced ULTIMA-ECO, which is a fabric made out of recycled plastic bottles.

There are many other online fabric stores, but I hope this would give you a good start.  Later in this searies, will share resources for eco friendly yarn, clothing shopping and more!

Photo credit: Lolly Knit

We all know that organic food/produce is healthier for the body and earth, but depending on where you live and you own personal financial situation, the cost can be overwhelming.  Of course a solution to this problem is to grow your own food.  To the avid gardener, this is a no brainier. But if you have a black thumb (like me) and/or very little space to garden, this could be a real challenge.

Low Impact Living has this really great article on how to start an organic garden. How to Tuesday: Organic Gardening 101 This post is pretty much an “Organic Gardening 101″ course.

If you are challenged with space, you can try growing  items in pots that can rest on a small porch, balcony, deck or patio. Garden Guides offers this very complete guide to planting vegetables in pots in Guide to Container Gardening.

Sprouting is a great way to “garden” even if you don’t have any space.  Sprouts are easy to grow indoors right on your kitchen counter  – or anywhere in your home.  You can grow them in jars, trays and even bags.  Sprouts doesn’t require soil, and they are highly nutritious. Raw Art of Living/Tried Tasted and Served blog has this really interesting article on broccoli sprouts in Broccoli Sprouts, Ulcers and Stomach Cancer to name a few benefits.  Sprouting Instructions can be found at Primal Seeds, Chet Day and this YouTube video on How to Grow Bean Sprouts just to name a few online resources.

Start a community garden if you don’t already have one in your neighborhood. The American Community Gardening Association (ACGA) offers these great tools and instructions on starting a community garden in your area.

When you do buy…

Buy local and in season – Buying local, seasonal produce means less transit is necessary to haul in food = less cost to you consumer and lower impact on the earth.

Join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) – CSA’s is a great way to support local, organic farmers, and save money.  Find out what it is and how to join one at at localharvest.org.

I’ve had my own trials and errors while gardening, but with a little practice, creativity and patience, it can be done.

More gardening links (blogs):
Rooftop Kitchen presents: Planning Your Garden and Whats in Season

Sustainable Garden Blog

Does anyone have any gardening tips or money saving ideas when it comes to organic food/produce?

Photo credit: Deb Roy

Last year, I set a goal to never bring home disposable grocery store bags again. We had collected so many paper bags, we were running out of places to store them in our kitchen armoire.  Thankfully, most stores around here no longer offer plastic.

So far we have about 15 reusable bags split between the two of us at home, in the car, etc.  We either got them from places like Whole Foods for just $2 each or free from industry trade shows. Two dollars is decent, but I have seen some cost as much as $40 (granted, they are nicer).

If you don’t want to buy reusable bags just yet, reusing the paper and plastic bags you may already have (and not accumulating more) until they disintegrate  helps to0.  I ended up donating all of my bags to a local clothing consignment store – they only use used bags in their shop.

If you know how to sew, (even at a beginner level) you can also make your own.

Tipnut offers a compilation of 35 patterns for reusable bags for sewers, knitters and crocheters.  Several of the sewing patterns utilizes items you may already have at home.

For example…

Wisdom of the Moon blog offers instructions on making grocery store bags out of old sheets in Cheap & Easy Fabric Grocery Bags and produce bags out of sheer curtains under Cheap & Easy Fabric Produce Bags.

This is also a great post on instructables.com for instructions to make your own grocery store bag.  “Green” Re-usable Grocery Store Bags

Oh Fransson blog offers a pattern for her super cute lunchbox inspired bags at her Etsy shop.

Of course if you’re not a sewer or knitter,  this may not do you much good so you may need to buy some of your own.  In that case, hopefully this is a reminder for everyone to bring your own bags while shopping.

Photo credit: harakiri

Previous posts in this series touched on homemade gifts and giving a limited amount of gifts to help reduce or eliminate the stress, pressure and financial burden of the holiday season.

How about NO gifts?
Having a no gift policy may seem like a downer for some people, but it can be a welcomed change. There is no pressure to shop for the “perfect” gift, you don’t have to have a Christmas gift budget, no standing in line at the retail stores and post offices, and no clutter from useless gifts. Another policy could be gifts for the kids only.

Present the idea to your immediate and extended family in a positive way and highlight the benefits of a no gift policy.  Emphasize spending the precious (and many times short) time with friends and family instead of feeling the pressure of gift giving.     It could make it easier financially for everyone to get together during the holidays. The gift of family.  The gift of love and togetherness.  Maybe you can pool the money together and help out a family member who is in dire need.

You can also donate the gift money to a charity of your choosing individually or as a family.

I also love the idea  Marelisa wrote in her comment from the previous blog post on holiday gifts.  Offering services such as babysitting, housecleaning, shelving snow, etc in lieu of a material gift is a wonderful idea that would definitely be put to good use and not go to waste.

Buy Nothing Christmas ’06 has 59 alternatives to spending money this holiday season.