Still looking for a sweet little something to give to a friend for Valentine's Day? I've got a tutorial for coasters made with felted sweaters over on Green Your Way this week. It's a great way to give old sweaters a new life and create something new that you can use!
It's a fun craft to do with adults or kids any time of the year!
As promised, I'm excited to share my first post over at Green Your Way (a channel of the Life Your Way ezine). It's a tutorial to make a glass pendant necklace using repurposed paper. The pretty paper I used for my necklace came from my Yuzen Box (a monthly goodie box filled with natural and organic products). See the full tutorial over at Green Your Way!
Do you have any eco crafts on the agenda this week?
My mother gave me a very special gift for Christmas. A wall hanging made from repurposed neckties. But these weren't just any neckties - they were my dad's.
My father passed away in March of 2011. He was a university professor and I'm pretty sure he wore a necktie every single day that he taught a class. He was traditional that way.
Continue reading "A Special Gift Made with Repurposed Neckties" »
Don't have time to get all Martha Stewart and make homemade gifts for your friends and family this year? Don't fret - you can still give handmade even without getting out the sewing machine or the craft glue. Artisans selling their fabulously creative wares (and let's face it - probably nicer than anything you could make yourself) can be found all over the place these days. Here are a few resources to get you started on a handmade shopping spree...
We're a bit spoiled here in the Twin Cities (that's Minneapolis and St. Paul, yo!) since we have a whole slew of fun and funky gift shops, many which specialize in local, crafty stuff. A couple of my favorites are Digs Studio (right in my 'hood) and i like you up in North Minneapolis. Later this week I plan to check out Paper Hat, a relatively new shop in South Minneapolis. Do you have a favorite local store for handmade gifts?
By far the best way to see the most handmade choices in one place; craft and art fairs are abundant at this time of year. Keep your eyes out in your neighborhood and city newspapers or community websites. Find them at churches, schools, malls and even the local VFW.
My only issue with craft shows is that it's way too tempting to buy things for myself! Like these pretty repurposed tin earrings that I found at the Handmade MN show recently. Does your community have a craft fair or two during the holiday season?
Let's face it, there's really no better place to shop for handmade gifts online than Etsy. Whether you are searching for something specific or just browsing around, you are bound to get lost in the pure thrill of it all. I'm seriously awed by all the creativity out there and available for sale on Etsy! Just today I found these adorable needle felted mushroom ornaments. Teacher gift, perhaps?
Have you bought any handmade gifts this year? Where are some of your favorites places to shop handmade?
(top photo from Digs Studio website)
Just in the nick of time for the holiday season, I'd like to introduce you to my newest blog sponsor: Zenoobi!
Zenoobi (zen you be) is an eco web-store started by two families with young kids who wanted to offer a range of natural, organic, and eco-friendly products all under one roof. So they rounded up the highest quality, stylish, environmentally and socially sustainable products they could find and started up a website.
Their carefully culled collection contains all types of products from clothing to body care to furniture and home decor. The company stands behind their eco-values by being a member of 1% for the Planet (donating 1% of sales to a network of approved environmental organizations) and partnering with American Forests to plant a tree for every sale.
What I appreciate most is that they sell some unique brands that I haven't seen anywhere else. Like these beautiful organic cotton pillows from ferm LIVING:
Adorable recycled wood push toys from Manny & Simon:
The sweetest organic cotton kids shirts from Zebi:
and these cute but practical stainless steel snack cups from Eco Vessel:
Plus they sell plenty of well known eco-brands like Think Baby, Kate Quinn Organics, Bambu, Earth Mama Angel Baby, Preserve and more...
To help launch their business, Zenoobi has offered to give one lucky Mindful Momma reader a $50 gift card to use for anything on their website! I personally would put it toward one of the ferm LIVING pillows. What would you choose? Let me know in the comments and use the Rafflecopter form below to enter. The giveaway will go through midnight on Wednesday, December 5th, 2012. Thanks and good luck!
(Disclosure: Zenoobi is a paid advertiser on Mindful Momma.)
I'm over the moon about my newest blog sponsor - Blue Fish Clothing - an independently owned women's clothing company that makes artisan designed and printed clothing out of organic cotton and other natural fibers.
Founder Jennifer Barclay began designing clothes for herself as a kid and her designs soon wowed customers at craft shows and music festivals. Her business grew and grew and before she knew it she was the hit of a major fashion trade show in New York! Still, Jennifer made sure that her company kept to its values of being earth-friendly and artisan-made:
Blue Fish Clothing is available at three retail locations (Taos, NM, Frenchtown, NJ & Fairfield, Iowa)
as well as online.
If you are wondering how they do it, here's a video of a printing artisan at work. So amazing!
Instead of saying any more I'm just going to show you a few items from their latest collections.
The Eventide collection:
The Contre Jour collection:
The sculpted pocket top from the Ancestral Patterns collection:
One super lucky Mindful Momma reader will win the sculpted pocket top shown above in the color of their choice (I personally love the juniper color shown)! Please use the Rafflecopter form below and leave a comment on this post letting me know your favorite Blue Fish Clothing designs. The giveaway will go through midnight on Friday, November 23rd.
(Disclosure: I was sent an item of clothing from Blue Fish in exchange for my honest opinion.)
When I got married 21 years ago, I was not much of a diamond girl. At that point it was more of a frugal thing but the more I learned about the terrible human cost of the diamond trade, I preferred to stay away from those deceptively pretty objects. But if I were to be married today, you would find me swooning over Brilliant Earth's gorgeous, ethically produced engagement ring designs for sure!
Brilliant Earth diamonds are guaranteed to be conflict free in the most widely used definition of the term, which means that they do not come from sources that finance rebel forces against recognized national governments. Better yet, Brilliant Earth goes beyond conflict free by guaranteeing diamonds are free of all types of violence, workers are paid fair wages, child labor is absent and diamonds are mined ethically and with respect to the environment.
Continue reading "Ethical Diamonds & Fine Jewelry from Brilliant Earth" »
If you are a fan of yoga and active lifestyle apparel, it is likely that you have run across the brand prAna before. One of my favorite shirts is a prAna design that I bought through Title Nine a couple of years ago. Well, a brand new prAna store just opened up in the Twin Cities area (50th & France in Edina for those of you who are locals) and I could not be more thrilled! To celebrate the opening, prAna held a Flash Flannel yoga event in front of the store last week. This was my first outdoor yoga event and although it was a little chilly, we kept warm doing yoga in our new prAna organic cotton flannel shirts!
Continue reading "prAna - Apparel with Purpose {Giveaway!}" »
Even the most green people I know are often at a loss for buying affordable, eco-friendly clothing. Most conventional clothing retailers just haven't jumped on the eco-bandwagon yet. I see the occasional organic cotton t-shirt around but other than that, I have to seek out sustainable duds in specialty stores or online.
So I figured you would want to know about this new-to-me brand of people and earth friendly apparel from a company called Repair the World. Their clothing line is made from a specially manufactured fabric called Reparel that is a blend of recycled polyester and recycled cotton. They sell a lot of basics like t-shirts (including kid sizes) but also some really stylish tops and dresses like this lovely pullover...
Have you ever been to the Rocky Mountains? If not, I highly recommend you add it to your bucket list! We just spent a week in Grand Lake, Colorado, a cute little town at the base of Rocky Mountain National Park and it was spectacular! The perfect setting for our family reunion.
We saw lots of wildlife - including moose right near our cabin!
