A Deeper Green

So as it is December I know many of us are starting to get into crazy gifting mode. I previously did a green gifting post, but decided that I wanted to do something a little different this year. I won’t be buying much in the way of gifts as I really don’t have the income to afford gifts for all my many many family members.

But I will still be giving presents and I thought I would share some of my thought processes with you, my lovedly readers. These thought processes are not to give you a “guide” to anything, but are an effort to encourage you to think outside the box when it comes to green holiday-ing and gift-giving.

Since the holidays can always be a little overwhelming for me on the money front, and I really can’t foresee not giving gifts to the special people in my life (especially when they are always going to give me nice gifts) I spent a lot of time this fall thinking of alternatives.

In my gift giving in general I have tried to move away from stuff based gifts to a more experience based gift giving philosophy. It’s worked pretty well, and honestly its made gift giving easier for those few people in my life who seem to already have everything. But the problem with experiences as gifts is that they tend to add up in price. Which is something I can’t really handle financially this year.

So, after spending a lot of time thinking about my best solution, I decided that I should move to a more “create-a-gift” approach for this year. Lately, I’ve been flexing my baking skills (made a pumpkin and apple pie from scratch for thanksgiving this year with stuff from the farmers market!). And I always like a good excuse to be crafty. So with those powers combined I think I’ve managed to come up with some really good gift ideas.

I will be baking mini breads and cookies. I’ve also concieved of an idea to make scented and colored bath salts (Epsom salts and essential oils, combined!). I will be making mix CDs and using old wrapping paper and cards to decorate. I’m using my creativity to put together the best gifts for everyone that I possibly can.

Will I still buy a few things? Yes, of course. I plan on buying baskets and probably a few crafty materials. The farmer’s market also has some great local honey and bee wax items that will flesh out my gifts nicely. But despite these purchases, I am feeling really good about the thoughtfulness, environmentally friendliness  and tastiness of my holiday gifts.

What kind of gifts might you be able to give that reflect your personalities and views while still being exciting to your… um… giftees (?)? What changes can you make in your holiday routine that will help you to be a greener and happier person this holiday season?

I know that if I came up with some ideas you can too. So think about it, and feel free to share your ideas here.

Also, in the green community there was a nifty push last week to celebrate Buy Nothing Day as a counterpoint to “Black Friday”. This fits nicely in with this post, so I gathered together a couple posts I saw about “Buy nothing day” for you to read at your leisure:

Boycott Black Friday and celebrate Buy Nothing Day, via Twilight Earth

Thanksgiving, Buy Nothing Day & my travel mug, via fakeplasticfish

Have a great day

Dear Brekke,

I know that the best thing to do would be to not shave my legs, but seriously?!? That’s just not gonna happen. I wear skirts to work! What is an ecofriendly shaver to do?

You’re Awesome!

~ Crazy shaver

Dear Crazy,

As members of a society where hairy legs (and armpits and even sometimes faces) can get you a weird look or two walking down the street, it’s strange how difficult it can be to find ecofriendly shaving options. Those with easy to shave bits (read mostly smooth lined faces) have it easy as they can break our a straight razor and look great doing it. Those of us with more delicate areas (like knees!) to shave may have a more difficult time though.

My best advice to you would be to invest in shaving soap as opposed to spray on shaving foam and to use a recyclable razor. Additionally a razor sharpener is probably a good investment.

But wait?!? You are uncertain where you can find the above wonders? Well lucky for you Ask a Brekke has all the links you need.

~ For shaving soap try Simmons Aloe Vera. It comes in citrus! That’s way better than the random berry smell we usually get.

~ For a better razor look into Preserve. They make the handles of their razors and toothbrushes from recycled plastic and they come with a pouch to send them back for more recycling. You might be able to find them at a local store, but if not… www.drugstore.com

~ Want to sharpen those blades and extend their life? Try the Razor Saver. I’ve read some mixed reviews about it on the internet, but the consesus seems to be that it works well if you insert a two-blade razor and run it back and forth across the sharpening surface a few times.

And there you go!

Hope this helps, and I wish you happy shaving for the whole summer.

(This was not an actual written-in question. A friend mentioned wanting to know about eco-friendly shaving and I just got silly. Whatever, you know you were amused at least a little.)

So today, after spending several days hunting around trying to get more red wiggler worms locally for my worm bins I finally settled on a place and made my order. I will soon be getting somewhere around 1000 red wiggler worms delivered from Kalamazoo, Michigan. I ordered them from www.wormwoman.com. There is also some other good stuff for getting started on worm composting/vermiculture there.

So now I need to invest in more bin space. My few worms have been hanging out quite nicely in their little home under that table in the kitchen, but with 1000 new friends I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t even be able to close the lid on the existing bin I am working with.

So, if anyone out there wants some worms they are yours for now charge

I am pretty proud of myself for saying on my targets so far this month. I reached my writing goal this week, I ordered my worms, and I even cracked open the Green Housekeeping book (although fairly briefly).

Hope everyone else has April off to a good start as well. Have a great weekend!

and if you had a funny accent they would sound exactly the same.

I have recently secured permission from my new roommate and dearest boyfriend to make forays into the realm of vermiculture. I plan to be making my first purchases for my new worm composting system this weekend. It should be all sorts of exciting to share my adventures in indoor apartment composting with all of you.

What’s that I hear? YOU want to do your own worm composting at home? Well then here, this is the guide I will be using. Let’s do it together and compare notes

Why not swap it? It may be just as simple as asking your friends if they want to swap some similarly valued cards! Make a green decision to not accumulate junk, and get rid of that unwanted giftcard!

If you don’t have any obliging friends to swap with, here are a couple of potentially helpful websites. I personally haven’t tried them, so I can’t vouch for their effectiveness. Also if you do use them I would love to hear any comments you may have.

www.certificateswap.com - This site lets you sell gift cards and buy new ones at a discount or just get the cash from your cards. It seems to good to be true, so I’m sure there is some sort of catch. But I couldn’t find a “how this works” on the site to explain it to me.

www.swapagift.com - This site will charge you $1.99 to post your card and swap it. Also it seems that there is a way that you can apply some of the money on the giftcard to pay bills for you at this site? I don’t think they apply the whole value of the card, but who knows, it could be helpful. Depending on how much the card is worth, this could be a worthwhile site for you.

giftcardbuyback.com - This site will pay you cash for your cards, but only up to 80% of what they’re worth. I’m not sure how this business works or if it’s worth it. Let me know what you decide.

Hopefully these sites prove to be helpful for you, but if not, you can always use that giftcard to buy a gift for someone else who will really enjoy it, instead of buying yourself something you may or may not use, and certainly didn’t ever think you’d buy.

(also, be looking forward to more book reviews in the coming weeks, I have been a busy little girl, looking for good books to bring to you!)

Ok, so I’m a day late… sorry. America Recycles Day is actually November 15th.

America Recycles Day (ARD) has been going on for ten years, trying to get people to recycle their products and just as important, to BUY recycled products. Creating a market for all the things that we recycle is a very important step in the process. So please look for that chasing arrows symbol!

Please visit the ARD Website to find out more information about the mission of America Recycles Day.

Also, there are many things you can recycle that you may never have thought about, check out the link in this blog entry for an article on some difficult to recycle items.

Have a great Friday everyone, and HAPPY RECYCLING!

For those of you who know me, you probably know about my love for cheap clothes. My favorite places to find said cheap clothes are resale/thrift stores. The Find was one of my favorites in Orland Park! Sadly it is going out of business

Sooooo, in honor of the closing of my favorite thrift store I am writing an entry in hopes to help you find your own “The Find” and to help me find a new one too!

But first, the benefits of reused clothes.

- You share your clothing footprint with another person. Half the cotton, half the pesticides and maybe a third of the CO2.

- Most resale shops benefit a charity. The Find gave proceeds to a battered women and children’s shelter.

- If you are a shopper going to the thrift store is a crazy fun time, if not…well, maybe not so cool…

http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/www_usn.nsf

- go to find a center on the left and type in the zipcode of your choice

http://www.goodwill.org/page/guest/about

- One the lower left under Find Your Local Goodwill

And if that fails you can always try http://www.thethriftshopper.com/ a fairly comprehensive directory of charity driven thrift stores all over the place.

I haven’t found a new favorite thrift store, but at goodwill last week I bought 6 shirts for $19. If that isn’t enough motivation for you I don’t know what is. I think I will find a new awesome resale shop shortly and so will you! Happy shopping kids!

And let me know if you need a browsing buddy:-)

A friend fowarded this to me. A good collection of recycling information for those less known but still easily recyclable items you have lying about.

http://www.coopamerica.org/pubs/caq/articles/21Things.cfm

Another important thing I would like to note is that those of us who are recyclers should also make sure that we are buying recycled products and closing the loop!