Beautiful Sweets Fall Colors cookies (shown above) – all natural and organic with a fun splash of fall colors, including assorted leaves, pumpkins, acorns and other fall-themed cookies. The company also uses gorgeous, eco-friendly recyclable gift packaging.

Autumn Rose Bouquet – VeriFlora Certified orange Milva roses, fall colored spray roses and hypericum berries or Italian ruscus.

Maple Leaves & Gingerbread Acorns – all natural, Kosher, leaf-shaped maple butter cookies and acorn-shaped gingerbread cookies,  plus the Dancing Deer company uses eco-packaging when possible.

Fall Asiatic Lilies – VeriFlora Certified Asiatic Lilies in a fall-themed bouquet contains a mix of two to three colors selected from red, orange, and/or yellow.

Chocolate Covered Pears – Rogue Valley pears, dried moist and then covered in organic dark chocolate with a white chocolate spiral.

Organic Culinary Herb Wreath – Crafted from organic marjoram, dill, thyme, sage, lavender, anise, cinnamon sticks, and yarrow, and accented with chili peppers. An excellent Thanksgiving gift idea or decor idea instead of flowers because you can actually season your meal with it!

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Eco-friendly Thanksgiving Flowers & Treats

Following are some great ideas for eco-friendly gifts you can start making now, and by Christmas you’ll be good to go.

Reusable Garden Tote: Perfect for the gardener in your life, or mix it up, choose a non-garden design and make a tote or two for anyone.

DIY play kitchens that actually look amazing and professional but at half the cost of a store bought play kitchen. Best of all you can make most of them with recycled goods and non-toxic finishes.

This homemade sugar body scrub is so amazing, if you package it in a nice jar with a computer made label, your best friend will never guess that you made it at home. Lemon Bath Cookies are a good bet too.

Easy as pie Canning Jar Gifts – layer them carefully for a professional look and use organic goods.

Cinnamon Marshmallow Stars – not vegan! Cute though and would look amazing in hot cocoa.

For a great stocking stuffer try homemade chunky crayons made with recycled old crayon bits.

An amazing list of 50 edible holiday gifts you can make – some are super fancy. Make sure you use organics.

NOTE: If you want to make a homemade gift, and aren’t sure where to start, take an hour and browse Etsy. Etsy is all things handmade that you can buy, but it’s also an excellent place to gain some amazing inspiration for projects you could pull off yourself. If you need more tips listen to NPR’s broadcast about eco-friendly homemade gifts.

[image via stock.xchng]

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Homemade Eco-Gifts for the Holidays

The Buttbutt is a rain barrel that can collect rain water from any standard drainpipe which is a good thing, since saving your rain water is smart. But man, to get this water you’ve got to tap into somewhere a little odd, as you can see in the image above. It even comes in three colors!

ShackUp has another less butt version, that’s still creative and fun; the bottlebutt, which I think makes a nice ironic point. Too funny.

If you’re looking for fun these rain barrels are totally for you. If you want something that won’t frighten all the neighbors as much, take a look at a modern less-butt-like rain barrel.

Wow? Could you use a rain barrel butt?

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Waterbutts – Rain Barrel Butts!

Forget the greetings: Greeting cards are highly overrated in my opinion. Yes, some are special, but they tend to end up in drawers, and take up way more time and money than they’re worth. Nowadays you can send a green e-card for any occasion and in many cases send them for FREE! It’s a time and money saver. If you must have paper greetings, go with recycled paper cards, plantable paper, or some cute sustainable birch cards that won’t sit in a drawer like the nesting bird card from Night Owl Paper Goods (shown above).

Plan for greener wrap: You can use recycled content wrap, wrap you saved from last year, or even aim for wrap that is not just wrap, but a gift too like a reusable bag, basket, or a clever hide box.

Choose the greenest Christmas tree you’re comfortable with: Not all families want to shun the tree just to stay green, and that’s totally fine. There are greener Christmas tree choices available for green families and individuals.

Use LED Christmas lights: LED holiday lights save lots more energy than traditional Christmas lights, and look clearer and brighter in my opinion as well. In fact, right now Home Depot is offering a trade-in program for old Christmas lights that give you a discount on new LED lights, but hurry the offer ends on November 15th.

Avoid one gift material: If all you do is avoid Christmas gifts made of virgin plastic this holiday season, well, that’s a big perk to your eco-footprint. Plastic is one of the big baddies when it comes to materials that goods are made with. It’s made with non-renewable resources (unless you buy recycled plastic goods), has a polluting manufacturing process, and is often full of toxic chemicals you don’t need. See how creative you can get this year and make it a virgin plastic-free holiday season.

If you need more tips for a fabulous green Christmas, take a look at the new book, I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas – this book offers excellent tips and advice about keeping it green this season.

Coming up soon one HUGE way to keep your Christmas eco-friendly this year.

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Celebrate a Merry Green Christmas

Hoot worthy bleached eco-friendly coir owl doormat. Printed w/pigment dyes. Coir is woven from coconut husks, and naturally traps dirt, absorbs moisture, and stands up to all kinds of weather extremes. A nice greeting at a doorway this holiday.

Bamboo drink coasters – 100% organically-grown bamboo, non-toxic adhesive, natural food-safe wood oil.

Organic soy candles from Dirt Candles – Dirt makes GMO-free organic soy candles scented with essential oils, botanical ingredients, and they use all-natural cotton wicks. They also have recycled packaging printed with soy inks and labels made from corn. Soy candles burn cleaner than wax and look great; plus fill your home with a lovely scent. Available in cool holiday scents such as Spice of Life, Gingerbread Man, Apple A Day, and more.

Reincarnated Indian Beer Bottle Lanterns – recycled beer bottles from India are reincarnated as tealights! Very nice.

Seeds of Joy Wreath made with contrasting shades of green foliage – Oregon Myrtle and Noble Fir with seeded eucalyptus and salal. Certified organic too!

Root of the Earth Serving Tray – A lovely flat-bottom carved burlwood tray made with reclaimed wood; perfect for serving, or showing off pretty fall fruits. Each piece is totally unique as well.

For some cool DIY green Thanksgiving decor ideas read…

• Fall Decor with Flowers & Leaves
• Decorate naturally with fall leaves

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Eco-friendly Thaksgiving Home Decor

Frontier Fair Trade Spices

• Sage used for stuffing, gravy, bread, soup, and more can also help fight upset stomach, reduce depression and even inhibits the development of different bacteria. Some research shows that sage can even help boost insulin action in those with diabetes.
• Rosemary used for potatoes, veggies, and more fights free radicals, relaxes your stomach, and has even been shown to aid memory issues in Alzheimer’s disease.
• Oregano has 20 times more antioxidant power than other herbs and is an anti-inflammatory that is useful in fighting all sorts of baddies from coughs to food-borne pathogens to cancer and more. Plus it seasons your stuffing, veggies and potato dishes nicely.
• Cinnamon, used for pie, cookies, fruit, cider and more is also a tasty way to help fight heart disease and diabetes. This powerful spice also is great for relieving nausea, can support digestion, and more.

Many other herbs and spices have excellent healing properties as well. Visit The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine to learn more.

Why organic?

Why not organic is the better question. Organic farming and organic food keeps pesticides and other nasty chemicals off your Thanksgiving table, supports your health, and supports the planet’s health.

Where to find organic herbs and spices:

• Frontier
• The bulk section at your local natural grocer
• Starwest Botanicals
• Mountain Rose Herbs
• TSP Spices – don’t love the packaging, but organic
• Grow some organic herbs right in your own kitchen!

NOTE: Before using a herb as a medicinal treatment read Herbal Medicine Cabinet Safety.

[image via Frontier]

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Healthy Organic Holiday Herbs & Spices

Bungaloo is thus more committed than other paint companies to exploring the fun-side of color. Bungaloo packages their paint in non traditional kits and employed actual designers to help them choose their color pallet – which resulted in the company snagging some of the out hottest and most classic colors for their line, while still not choosing so many that it makes the selection process overwhelming. Additionally, these are eco-friendly zero-VOC colors; nice if you like healthy air quality and lung functions.

About the site: The Bungaloo website does make shopping for paint more fun and easy, with a nice range of color combos to browse – fun, global, mellow, and sophisticated. You can even use their handy customize a room function to see how colors work together in various living spaces. I think their color choices are super fresh too; my favorite collection is the mellow range shown above. The other collections are more lively too – if your taste runs toward bold.

BIG WARNING: Every single time I go to the site I’m freaked out because there’s this obnoxious music playing. One, I hate sites that play music on auto, because I listen to music while I work, and secondly, the music is not great IMO. Maybe it’s just my opinion, but if you don’t like a loud shock turn your speakers off before heading over.

Visit Bungaloo to learn more.

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Color Liquid – Hip Zero VOC Paint

Product: Digital Dollhouse, a safe online experience for kids that allows them to choose a home style then decorate to their heart’s content.

Cost: Memberships start as low as $4.95 per month – you get plenty of features for this price, but can add others for a little more.

Eco-perks and safety aspects:

• Architectural Digest “AD 100” designer Campion Platt, a known leader in sustainable architecture and green design recently partnered with Digital Dollhouse to create a new home for kids to decorate – the modern and sustainable beachfront dream home.
• Digital Dollhouse has no packaging, no manufacturing, requires no shipping of transport of goods, no use of materials or toxins and has a very small carbon footprint.
• Digital Dollhouse is Privo certified.
• Digital Dollhouse has a written privacy policy.
• Digital Dollhouse is a friendly, safe and closed online environment designed for kids of all ages. There is NO CHAT on Digital Dollhouse and members will never be able to share personal location or other information while on the website. Members can create ‘My Friends’ lists that allow them to view other member’s Digital Dollhouses and give virtual items but no text exchange can occur between members.
• Parents may also check in on their children at the Parent’s Dashboard.

Room designed by Digital Dollhouse member

How it works:

Digital Dollhouse aims to create awareness and educate children on design, architecture and history in a playful and dynamic online environment. After you help your child to create an account, he or she can choose a house style then paint, furnish and decorate their own virtual dream house and even purchase and re-gift items in a virtual economy.

There are fun home styles to choose from like a Victorian home, beach house, and there’s soon to be a castle, NY loft, and more. Each home opens up and you click from room to room, add paint, rugs or wooden floors or tile, wall accessories, furniture, and other home objects along with even people and pets.

Your child gets a set amount of coins per membership and then you get to shop for and buy new items to decorate your home with. The cost of a regular membership is $4.95/month which provides members access to the houses and 1000 Digital Dollhouse coins a month. 1000 coins goes a long way in this virtual world. For example a mirror may cost 20 coins while a pumpkin costs 10 coins and a bed costs 59 coins. I think that an average kid would be happy with a regular membership, but you could upgrade to the $9.95 membership which gets you 2,500 coins, design tips, and tricks from design gurus. Anything over that (you can buy extra coins) seems excessive to me, because one perk of this virtual world is that it can help teach your child to budget wisely – i.e. she wants the couch and lamp, but can only afford one, so which is more important?

What we thought:

My helpful reviewers were my boyfriend’s 11 and 13 year old daughters – who I figured were the perfect test subjects for this virtual world.

We loved the blank slate of a home to decorate. There’s huge attention to detail in each room and it’s really a creative process to start with an empty room and decorate it from the ground up. I hate shopping normally, but thought the little home boutiques were really fun. You can shop by home style, furniture type or check out a seasonal specialty boutique. Check out some of the realistic goods below – these pieces cost coins and then you use them to decorate…

We loved how realistic all the goods look and it’s fun to try and mix and match. There’s also a mass of specialty home products like ceiling tiles, rugs, wall coverings and more, so it’s very in-depth.

My boyfriend’s girls thought that decorating a home seemed dull at first, but then got way into it and would tell each other, “LOOK at what I did in my house,” share design ideas, and more. In the end they said that the virtual dollhouse world was “Really fun” and that it was cool to get to shop and then create a little world. They also liked looking at the gallery of what other kids were busy creating.

There are some fun perks as well, such as The Digital Dollhouse Team picks a free item to give away every day if you visit the play area (like a pillow or clock or so on) and there’s a daily design winner featured.

I liked that the site was safe, creative, and not your typical virtual fighting deal – this is low-key creative fun – perfect for a rainy day. The site is easy to navigate and it didn’t have weirdness like pop-ups or outside advertising. I would call this wholesome fun.

Any negatives?:

I think that this is a good tool for teaching kids about design, budgeting, and consumer choices, BUT only if you’re an involved parent. Kids do not need to be online all the time, not with the obesity epidemic in this country. Kids need to be outside, playing with other real kids, and so on. I think that you need to set a limit (as noted above, I think any coins over 2,500 is excessive) and limit it for the month. Otherwise, this virtual world does not teach about budgeting, but shopping to the extreme.

Overall:

Five out of five stars. This is a fun, positive and safe site that encourages creativity. Digital Dollhouse has a low carbon footprint, very little commercialism, (other than the shopping aspect), and if used correctly with parental supervision can teach about budgeting and online tasks.

I think it would make an excellent inexpensive stocking stuffer gift for the holidays – you could stick a little gift card about it in your child’s stocking and then they’ll get to have fun creating their own house.

Visit Digital Dollhouse to learn more. If you’d like to review before you make a final decision, you can view the FREE game version as well.

[all images via Digital Dollhouse]

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Digital Dollhouse for the Holidays

According to a piece in The Desert Sun, Phish, a band who draws major crowds is aiming to cut down on some of that waste.

Some perks for the environment that have been implemented at Phish shows include…

• Phish water bottles you can refill for free and which cut down on plastic waste.
• Festival 8 aims to up the recycling efforts from a previous tour (50%) to 90%. Recycling is also better organized now, with 300 sets of recycling bins in total on the grounds that are separated – black for real trash, green for paper and food, and blue for plastics and other recyclables. The organic matter is going to California Bio-Mass, where they will be composted and turned into organic fertilizers.
• Food booths that use recyclable napkins, plates, forks and bags.
• An eco-shuttle with bio-diesel powered vans and hybrids to ferry fans to and from Los Angeles and Palm Springs airports and area hotels.

Of course this is not the first time musicians have jumped into green. Cake installed solar panels on their studio so that their albums can be recorded with 100% solar energy.  Rock the Earth, is rocking and green; a non-profit, “Dedicated to bringing about positive and beneficial environmental consequences on behalf of members of the music industry through the means of active litigation and negotiation.” Musicians are even recycling their old guitar strings for jewelry. And more…

• Extreme green musicians: The Top 10
• Cake goes eco-friendly with solar energy!
• The Top 5 Buzzworthy Green Musicians of the Moment
• Green Musicians and Green(er) Music Festivals

You can do your part by taking a reusable bottle to shows and by recycling your goods.

[image via stock.xchng]

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Are eco-friendly concerts the new wave

The wines are from Boisset Family Estates and include…

Fog Mountain 2006 Merlot: Dark ruby color. Aromas of raspberry jam. Mouth-filling black cherry, dusty chocolate, and blackberry flavors finish soft with ripe plum notes.

Louis Bernard 2007 Bonus Passus Côtes du Rhône: Ruby red color. Red berry fruit flavors, lush mouthfeel, lovely balance, and a long finish. Great on its own or with barbeque! Blend: 80% Grenache, 12% Syrah, 8% Mourvèdre.

Yellow Jersey 2007 Pinot Noir 2007: Yellow Jersey Pinot Noir is a bright, fruity red wine from the South of France. Deep ruby red. Blackcurrant aromas add complexity and finesse. Soft tannins and perfect fruit balance, with a silky finish. Perfect with grilled fish or veal.

Today, all of the Boisset Family Estates throughout France, Canada, and California are certified organic or are on the path to achieving certification. All of these wines have other eco-perks, including PET recyclable bottles which offer a 50% lower carbon footprint than traditional glass and are lightweight and unbreakable.The trio comes in a 100% recycled and recyclable gift box.

Additionally, 10% of this product’s retail price goes to the EarthEra Renewable Energy Trust and the carbon footprint of shipping this trip is balanced by EarthEra. Bonus; the Eco Wine Trio is a gift steal at just $30.

[image via Wine.com]

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Wine.com Debuts Eco Wine Trio