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Green Gifts for Mother’s Day

By Cameron Filed in General, Sustainability Tagged with , , , , , May 7th, 2010 @ 10:59 am

It’s that time of year again! Mother’s Day is this Sunday, May 9th, but before you head off to CVS or the Hallmark store to buy a card, keep in mind that Mother’s Day is an easy time to get something eco-friendly. There are green gifts out there for all interests and budgets, you just need to know where to look.

First, of course, check out the Sale section of MeridaHome.com. Starting at just $49.99, a new stylish and sustainable area rug is perfect for a mom that likes to decorate, or just keep a cozy home. Cute sale designs for spring include the sisal Parquet area rug in Spring Green and the soho wool area rug.

Parquet Sisal Area Rug in Spring Green

If a new rug isn’t in your Mother’s Day budget this year, make sure to enter your mom’s e-mail address into May’s Free Rug Giveaway for a chance to win a 4×6 jute area rug.

Another green gift idea is a piece of jewelry from any one of the twenty major jewelry retailers that are funding the protection of Bristol Bay, Alaska. Zale and Tiffany are among the major jewelers that pledged in April 2010 to no longer use gold from controversial Alaskan mines including Pebble Mine. By purchasing a piece for your mom from these jewelers, you are indirectly helping maintain healthy salmon populations and protecting the natural beauty of Bristol Bay.

Is your mom a working woman? Help her pack her lunches in a green way by giving her a sandwich bag from ReUsies.com. The stylish sandwich bags are under seven dollars and come in an array of cute patterns. I know my mom would love the Garden Floral Snack bag for $6.75. Not only are the bags adorable and stylish, they also eliminate the need for hundreds of plastic sandwich bags per year.

Finally, when I need some new green gift ideas, I check out Green Your Decor’s Green Gift Guide. The guide is separated into categories: women, men, kids, teens, anyone, for the home, pet lovers, stocking stuffers, and gifts that give back, making it easy to browse for the perfect present. My mom would love the Azuri Organic Cotton Scarf on the women’s gift list; it comes in 110 different colors and is just $29.00! Green Your Decor provides a diverse list that is sure to satisfy all your Mother’s Day needs.

Azuri Organic Cotton Scarf

Have a Green Mother’s Day!

Factory Scrap Furniture

By Cameron Filed in Interior Design, Sustainability Tagged with , , , April 30th, 2010 @ 5:18 pm

Recently in the “Architecture and Design” column of Treehugger.com (one of the best environmental blogs on the web), there was an intriguing article about coffee tables that were made almost entirely of wood scraps from door and window frame factories in South America. The tables were designed by Chilean design students for Remade in Chile. Remade is a South American program in seven countries that promotes the reuse and recycling of everyday waste to create new desirable and fashionable products.  Founded by Marco Capellini, Remade in Chile encourages aspiring artists and designers to use waste materials in their work by hosting international design contests. Most recently, the Animal Gallery in Santiago, Chile held its third Remade in Chile Contest in the heart of the city’s capital.  By the deadline on March 17th, 2010 the contest received 250 entries! Other projects included a line of dresses made from old Puma sneakers, waterproof sheaths for electronics made from wool and fiber wastes, and children’s’ chairs made from tights and nylons just to name a few.

These scrap-based coffee tables are beautiful examples of Merida Home’s mantra “sustainability with style”. While the coffee tables are chic and polished, owners can rest easy knowing that they prevented more materials from ending up in landfills or littering Chilean streets. Marco Capellini says projects like these that use waste materials also help keep end costs down which make eco-design affordable, since raw materials would have been more expensive. I look forward to see more innovative products that come out of Remade in Chile.

5 Easy Ways to Reuse Glass Bottles

By Cameron Filed in Interior Design, Sustainability Tagged with , , March 7th, 2010 @ 11:58 am
1. Create an easy, casual yet delicate tulip vase
Its just about spring which means flowers flowers and flowers! Old wine or liquor bottles are great flower vases because they are long and can prop up a droopy flower for longer. For example, I received a beautiful bouquet of tulips for Valentines Day a couple of weeks ago, and they are just starting to sag. I picked the droopiest flowers out of the bouquet and put one or two flowers in various old wine bottles around my apartment. They no longer look droopy, and the bottles add an elegant (and green) surprise to our decor.
2. Candle holder.
If you have skinny candles, they can fit right into the top of a wine bottle, which create the perfect impromptu candle holders. They can also be quite pretty if you peel all the labels off the bottles. Since wine bottles come in all different shapes and colors, you can create your own arrangement to suite your style.
3. Piggy Bank/Motivation Bottle.
I recently came across a neat idea in Shape Magazine, every time you go to the gym, stuff a dollar in an empty bottle. Like many, I struggle to get myself to go to the gym, but if I can save money by going to the gym it helps create that extra incentive I need. Then, hey, if you go to the gym everyday for a month, you can (safely) cut or break open your bottle and you have $30 to spend on a new, smaller, pair of jeans! Nice!
4. Water Carafe.
Bring a little European style home by cleaning out and peeling the labels off an old wine bottle and using it as a water carafe. I can just picture it – white table cloth, soft candlelight, and a green glass bottle as the water carafe – how Parisian!
5. Spice your own Olive oil.
Clean out a an old wine bottle, but keep the cork. Sprinkle in some of your favorite dried herbs and then fill the bottle with olive oil. The herbs will infuse the oil with flavor over time and add a new delicious taste to your cooking. One important thing to remember is that you should always use DRIED herbs or peppers because anything with traces of water in it could grow bacteria in the oil over time. If you do want to use lemon peel or fresh garlic, or other things that may have traces of water, you have to make sure that you refrigerate it.
Voila, 5 new ways to reduce, REUSE, and recycle!

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