I pulled together this post I’ve been sharing at my green-minded blogs. And I thought readers here might enjoy it as well. This post is chock full of green holiday goodness - plenty to get your holiday season off to an eco-friendly start:

Green Treats & Recipes

Remember, no matter the treat or recipe, you can always green it up by exchanging organic and natural ingredients for conventional.

50 Cute and Tasty Christmas Cookie Ideas

Cherry Dot Cookies

Organic Holiday Cookies!

Hey It’s Sugar Cookie Day - worth it for the pretty snowy cookie image alone.

Bacon Nut Stuffing - don’t forget, pork is a high pesticide food item, so buy organic if you make this dish.

Top 10 Turkey Tools

Pumpkin Cheesecake - one of my personal favorite treats.

What Else Is In Your Beer? AND Vegan Beer & Wine - I know beer and wine do not make a meal, but hey, they are treats, and if you have a drink, you may as well get the best.

Homemade Eco-Holiday Crafts

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If you’re looking for earth-friendly fireplace options, pay a visit to EcoSmart Fire. Fires aren’t normally the best eco-friendly heat solution, but an EcoSmart Fire helps you to have a toasty fire and still stay pretty green.

EcoSmart was founded in Australia, but their fireplaces are available all over the world. An EcoSmart Fire is an open fireplace, most with a modern look, that works for businesses, homes, resorts, apartment, and most other places you can think of. There’s no flu and it requires no installation or utility connection. The best part — it runs on Denatured Ethanol (a renewable energy resource), burns clean, and requires almost no maintenance. Each fireplace includes a burner kit at its core (as seen below):

There are lots of nice designs to choose from to. As noted above these are mainly modern designs though. There are a few rustic choices, or at least ways you can incorporate a rustic look, as the backdrop. Following are two design styles, but there are plenty more to browse.

Some benefits from the EcoSmart Fire website:

• “No flue, no hard connection
• Efficient and effective heating solution
• Independently tested
• Unprecedented design flexibility
• Fuelled by a renewable green energy
• You can regulate the flame and turn it on/off at any time”

Visit EcoSmart Fire to see many more design choices and accessories like screens and extinguishers.

Here in Oregon, it’s never too snowy. At least not where I am in Oregon. However, if you live somewhere super chilly, this beautiful ice wreath above is the perfect alternative to store-bought holiday outdoor decor. It’s completely recyclable, made of all natural materials, and so lovely. It would look great hanging on a gate, and a smaller one could even hang on your door.

BEST OF ALL: You will not believe how easy this is to make. Plus it’s way fun for kids.

Learn how to make Festive Ice Wreaths

[Image and tips via Junk Creation]

I know car tires don’t exactly live at your house. However, they do live in your garage and many get tossed each year; more than 250 million in the U.S alone. Consider all the other places that have cars, consider the fact that tires won’t decompose, and we’ve got a big old problem.

Solutions:

Don’t own a car: Not practical for everyone, but the absolute best option if you live in a mass transit friendly city.

Don’t own more than one car: Way more practical then most people think. If you’re one person with more than one car - why? That’s a waste of so many resources. If you’re a couple or family with two cars - also why? Plenty of families manage quite well with one vehicle to share. It’s not totally practical for every situation, but car sharing is more easily done than many people think.

Keep your tires in great shape: Expanding the life of your tires is a great way to conserve resources. To get the most out of tires be sure to rotate them every 8,000 miles, and keep them inflated and balanced.

After they die - recycle: You can locate a tire recycling place through Earth 911, or you can use some to make other things. A tire swing, a sandbox, a garden planter, and more.

Have you been keeping up with your tire care?

You can hire someone to run a home energy audit for you, or with the help of Home Energy Saver, you can actually do an energy audit easily by yourself.

At Home Energy Saver, you enter your zip code, and what shoots out is a typical round up of energy costs in your area. For example, after I enter my zip code, it shows that the average home’s energy costs are $1395 a year, while an energy efficient home in the same area costs about $737 a year.

There’s also a graph that shows which appliances typically drain the most energy in your area.

Next there are some questions to answer - all were pretty easy, so you don’t need technical know-how for this audit. Questions like…

• Does your house have foundation or floor insulation?
• Do you have a clothes washer?
• How many freezers do you have?
• What kind of heating equipment do you have?
• And so on.

After filling out all the answers, the site will show you where you can make changes, cut costs, and save more energy. It’s a really nice site, and even if you aren’t planning on making any immediate changes, it’s cool to know your options.

Visit Home Energy Saver

The other day we looked at how to choose the most eco-friendly Christmas tree. Today we’re going to start looking at how to deck it out in style (and in green).

Start with LED lights: Read the rest of this entry »

Now that Thanksgiving is officially over, you may be thinking about getting your Christmas tree. But which tree is the best green choice?

Your best bet - a living Christmas tree:

Living Christmas trees are great because you can celebrate with them, then plant them. Need help?

• Care tips for your living tree.
• Find a living tree no matter where you live.

Go organic:

There are Organic Christmas tree farms now, and we all know that pesticide free is the best way to go, if you have the option.

Artificial Christmas trees vs. real Christmas trees…

When it comes to this battle, real trees almost always win. It seems fishy, I know, but cutting down a tree is more eco-friendly than an artificial tree. Why? Artificial trees are usually made from non-renewable plastics; some containing PVC. The toxins and other nasty chemicals used to create artificial trees make them a poor green decision. Also, real trees can be mulched and used in the garden or used for heat where as artificial trees cannot easily be recycled; in some cases, they can’t be recycled at all.

Have a tree-free holiday:

You can celebrate without a tree. There are plenty of ways to bring some pine fresh love into your home sans an entire tree. Consider wreaths made from gathered fallen forest branches, or a tabletop decor item made from swags of tree, pine cones, and berries. Your kids can even use recycled paper to create a fun pretend tree on the wall.

Coming up: I’ll be posting some eco-friendly Christmas tree decorating ideas - stay tuned!

Hey folks. I took the day off for my birthday, got a little R&R, and now I’m back and raring to go. The other day we started looking at ways to Set Your Perfect Eco Holiday Table. We started with bare basics, a decent earth-friendly table. Today we’ll be looking at what goes right on top of said table.

Linen table items are best because they’re reusable, and of course last longer than paper products. Plus, they just look nicer. Some good linen fabric choices include hemp, organic cotton, and bamboo. Although, I’m more of the mindset that if you use linen over paper, paying extra for organic is cool, because you limit chemicals, but honestly, any linens are better than paper. Here are some good choices for the holidays:

Amenity Cove Organic Placemats via Velocity - I like the cocoa and silver above, but these come in a great gray and espresso color as well.
Read the rest of this entry »

In the post, How To Read Holiday Food Labels we started looking at food labels so that you can make smart food shopping choices this holiday season. Continuing on with our look at labels…

Fair Trade: Fair trade is a little confusing. A good place to start is by reading: What is the difference between Fair Trade and Fairtrade? You may be seeing a Fair Trade label of sorts (see above) more during the holidays, on treats, coffee, cocoa, and more. The Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International, FLO-CERT GMBH, and TransFair are all key players in fairly traded goods (behind the scenes there’s a lot more going on - to get the full scoop, you’ll need to check out F&Qs at the above websites). To be labeled Fair Trade, a company must meet quite a few objectives - issues like fair wages, working conditions, and worker’s rights are taken seriously by Fair Trade labels.

One problem with a food item labeled as Fair Trade can be that some companies use it as a greenwashing technique. For example, a company who is (or was) an eco baddie, may enact fair trade conditions within their company, but that doesn’t make other poor eco choices ok, and it also doesn’t cover up what a company has done in the past that may be questionable. If your goal is a green company, a fair trade mark may mean little.

Hormone Free; rBGH Free, or rBST Free: The war on this label raged again this summer, and it’s still unclear where rights regarding this label stand. Where you’ll see this label is on dairy products, meat, poultry, and eggs.The USDA defined the use of the term Hormone Free, but there’s no real meaning behind the label, and at this time the label standards aren’t even available to consumers - if you’re looking for products that support animal rights, hormone free means absolutely nothing. Animals can be treated horribly, and their milk (or whatever) labeled hormone free.

You can stay current with what’s up with hormone free labels by clicking here, but a better way to make sure you avoid hormones is to buy items labeled with the USDA Organic label.

More food labels to come - stay tuned.

If you’re looking to set your perfect eco-holiday, I’ve got you covered. I’m going to be running a table series covering everything from eco-friendly dishes to cloth napkins, to flowers. Starting with…

The table.

Of course you’ll need a table to dress up. Being that I happen to be heavily addicted to ogling eco-furnishings I see an untold amount of tables. I have lots of favorites. I picked a nice variety to share here. Hopefully you’ll find something to love.

The Lapis: A table I’ve always loved; well, not since birth, so always is inaccurate. However, I have loved it for a good long while. It’s lovely and light, modern and fresh, and simply glows. This piece is finished with an organic milk paint finish. Comes in various colors, but I’m sticking with linen, my fave.

+ Fernwalla

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