Chocolate Bar

Confession: I ate a chocolate bar. With a wrapper.

To appease my guilty conscience, I recycled the outer paper wrapper and turned the inner wrapper into a Valentine.


Here are a couple I've made - trying to take this picture really makes me appreciate the good photographers on Etsy. It's tricky to get good shots of greeting cards. The one in the middle is made out of, you guessed it, recycled CDs. 10 CDs down, 40 to go...

Now I'm off to go unglue my fingers.

Gifts that Won't be Wasted

If you are buying Christmas presents this season, and looking for something the recipient won't have to throw away someday, check out Intelligent Giving.

image from goodgiftsshop.org

It includes a link to the Good Gift Shop, where you can purchase a brain cell for 15 pounds (~$30). From the site: "Everyone feels the need for extra greymatter. Bring out the genius in friends and family. Give help to all edgy examinees. 15 not only gives the gift of a sponsored brain cell, but also to fund development of treatments for diseases like Alzheimers, Parkinsons, meningitis and cancer."

It also includes links to more serious sites rating charities using rigorous rubrics. Check it out! It's like Consumer Reports for charities.

Downsview Park "Trail of Lights" (Toronto)

From November 28 until the end of 2008, Toronto's Downsview Park will host Canada's largest walk-through holiday light show. Stretching 2 kilometers, "Trail of Lights" is powered by LEDs - over 400,000 of them.

It runs from 5 - 10 p.m. and costs $10-12 (more on certain holidays).

Check out this cut from the brochure, or visit this daily dose of imagery picture taken by Sam Javanrouh.

Green Valentines

The cool thing about making your own Valentines is that ANYTHING can turn into a heart.
A comic
Wrapping paper
Hilary Clinton's face in the newspaper
...
You too can be the proud creator of a Valentine full of the faces of Presidential hopefuls. Isn't that better than your typical v-day cards with Garfield on them?
For serious though. Recycle all that old media. Your friends will thank you for the lack of cheesiness (and so will the trees).



If you're not the crafty type, you can always look for gift advice from the pros:
The Sierra Club recommends vintage jewelry and fair trade chocolate.

InHabitat recommends Sustainable Skivvies.

Even the state of UTAH has its act together, for pity's sake, and recommends that you take public transit out on your dates.

Green Epiphany

In the spirit of the 12th day of Christmas, an epiphany - what to do with those unwanted gift cards! Useless extra pieces of plastic though they may be, you can exchange the ones you don't want at Swaptgift, Plastic Jungle, or Card Avenue. You can even donate the card to charity at Gift Card Donor.

42 Ways to Trim Your Holiday Wasteline

From Use Less Stuff comes 42 Ways to Trim Your Holiday Wasteline. While some border on impolite (turning down the heat before guests arrive to feast instead on their body heat?), some suggestions make sense - don't throw away leftovers, compost your tree, etc. Since Americans trash 25% more stuff from Thanksgiving to New Years, take a look at how you can throw away less.

Discardia and Green Gifts

I would like to submit an agenda item to the County Board of Supervisors declaring Discardia a government holiday. Dinah Sanders, who is the brainparent of Discardia, says, "Discardia is a new holiday. Why do we need a new holiday? Well, not exactly need, not as such, but this is a very good holiday." The next one happens Dec 21-Jan 8.


Discardia is the celebration of stuff-purging. It is the seasonal remedy for Affluenza. It involves:
1. Giving away the stuff you don't like or use.
2. Thinking about ways to buy less in the future.
3. Thinking about ways to give and ask for better gifts. This is especially timely for all you Christmas celebrators and New Years resolution makers out there, as Discardia coincides with Christmas and New Years this year.

The Heifer Project is pretty cool. You can give honeybees and knitting kits and goats.

You can also make stuff, including mix CDs and cookies, or a coupon book for fun things you will do with that person in the future. Check out the other post on Green Holidays for other green gift ideas, or look here at EcoArtware for inspiration!

Green Holidays

Depressingly, it is time for winter holiday talk. I am adding to the millieu of pre-Halloween Christmas/Hanukkah discussion. Luckily, Ramadan has already passed for the year or we'd have another monotheistic religion on our hands to deal with. (Ramadan and Eid seem pretty green in my brief experience of them - you eat less, eat with your hands, and walk cookies over to your neighbors - no waste!)


Sustainable forest/recycled Christmas cards from Owl.
Sign the self-righteous Buy Handmade pledge today!

Laura and I were excited to read about this, even though THE HOLIDAYS are still aeons away.



TreeHugger.com has an eco-friendly Gift Guide for Christmas and Hanukkah. As one who recently begun to relish wrapping presents in brown grocery bags, I am excited by this guide to buying the gifts themselves. Find out about fabric gift bags, recycled glass ornaments, and natural beeswax Hanukkah candles. See what you think!