Be my Green Valentine

What says “I love you” more than a gift that loves our planet too! This Valentine’s Day, instead of a paper card that will end up in the recycling bin (hopefully), why not carve your own in solid wood. This wooden postcard comes from a sustainable source and is blank for you to hand carve your own message of love. It’s soft and lightweight so easy to scratch your design (with keys or similar) and easy to post.

And why send a bunch of flowers when you can send a garden of flowers to last a lifetime. The ‘Love in a GroBox’ contains beautiful red flowers that have been carefully chosen for long colourful flowering displays. Comes complete with a special message so you can personalise your gift.

Love in a GroBox

For the ultimate Green Valentine’s Day, have a look at our ‘Eco-Valentine: DIY projects for lovers’ post.

Join the #BagBrigade to make Black Friday Greener…

I just joined the #BagBrigade at The Green Life Online and pledged to use reusable bags instead of plastic bags.

Tomorrow, millions of Americans will take to the shops and just think of all the plastic bags that don’t have to be used. Plastic bags have never been so un-fashionable. And for good reason! There are so many stylish options available for reusable bags these days. Here’s a round-up of three fabulous reusable bags…

Maggie Bags

We love these Maggie Bags made from Recycled Seatbelts. They come in a range of single colours, or multi-colours like the Autumn Leaves bag pictured here. These bags are made to last with four nickel plated feet on the bottom and internal zip pockets for your purse, keys or cell phone.

Rebagz Tote Bags

These Rebagz Cinchy Tote Bags are made from recycled rice sacks. The one pictured here is called Honeybee, and there are other fresh and funky styles available. These Cinchy Tote Bags are not only eco-friendly and stylish but they are human-friendly too because they are made under fair labour conditions. Makes a great shopping bag, handbag or even a briefcase!

Flip & Tumble

Finally, the Flip & Tumble Reusable Shopping Bag. Gorgeously designed in loads of colour choices. Reusable shopping bags that folds up into a tiny pouch when not in use, it’s so easy to take it along when you go shopping. This bag can hold 25 pounds and has a comfy fit felt shoulder pad.

Click here to join me and take the pledge to make plastic bags history!

How to shop safely

Q: When is a Coke can an elephant (or possibly a giraffe)?

A: When Farai’s had his creative way with it!

Farai is a member of the Mother City Craft Collective, a collective of traffic-light crafters who you can see selling their wares as you drive through the streets of Cape Town. This group of Zimbabwean crafters have joined forces to expand their market and create an alternative outlet for their crafts, an online shop. This has brought a new set of challenges for these artists, because the traditional wire & bead and wirework crafts that they produce are pretty heavy, which results in very high postage costs.

To reduce the price of postage (and consequently the carbon footprint of the piece) Farai has come up with an interesting solution. He’s using recycled materials that are a lot lighter than the materials that he usually works with.

These recycled Coke can animals and more are available from the Mother City Craft Collective’s recycled range, and as you’ll see, both the cost of the products and the postage costs are considerably less than the traditional. While buying crafts from this store makes a huge difference in the lives of these traffic-light crafters, by choosing from the recycled range you will be making a huge difference to the environment too.

So while necessity is the mother of invention, isn’t it great when it also leads to recycling, reusing and a greener way of doing things?

Review of fruit and vegetable teethers

Organic cotton green bean

Message to mummies! If you are looking for fantastic teethers I would like to share with you some of the best I have found. We are delighted to be stocking the vegetable and fruit collection from Under the Nile they are just so cool. The green bean is a firm favourite because it’s easy for babies to grasp, lightweight, colourful and soft but with enough firmness to ease aching gums. No chance of babies bashing themselves in the eye either. Or what about this fruit tote which comes complete with 4 different fruits watermelon, banana, pear and grapes.

Lovely tote basket of organic cotton teethers

These fruits and vegetables are all hand picked because they are made from 100% organic cotton which is coloured using metal free and vegetable dyes so no problem about them being chewed and sucked. An additional plus factor is that unlike the usual hard teethers they will absorb the dribble so much less likelihood of a sore face. Machine washable and can be tumble dried so if they get grubby it’s not a problem. Under the Nile are supportive of fair trade so you can feel reassured that your baby’s beloved toy is helping somebody else by ensuring that they are paid a fair wage.

These cute teethers will introduce babies to their 5 a day at an early age and hopefully help develop a positive attitude to eating up their fruit and veggies. All in all they have just got to be a win win buy.

EcoStreet

Posted in Shop Green

Be my Green Valentine