As of 01-18-09, the Celebrate Green blog is now at

www.CelebrateGreen.net/blog

We will no longer be posting entries on this blog.

Please visit us at the new location for all the latest news

and fun.

Thanks to everyone who participated in our t-shirt-onesie contest to find a great green saying. The votes are in and the winner by a landslide is Lesley Papola of Petaluma, CA won with her eco-humorous directive, Eat! Sleep! Compost!

Lesley wins a t-shirt with the saying printed on it from www.LittleChickieWear.com and a copy of our book Celebrate Green!.

Thank you to all our participants and especially our finalists, Karen Renzi, Julie Bonn Heath, and Alisa Bowman.

Eco-festival fun

We had a terrific three days at the Eco Gift Festival in Los Angeles. The best part for us was meeting people we’d been in touch with only via the internet.Two of them were members of an incredible network of entrepreneurial women, Savor the Success.

If you’re a woman and own a  business or are thinking of starting one, we suggest you seriously consider joining STS. Membership is fee although you can upgrade to a paid membership that offers lots of PR opportunities like participation in this incredible holiday catalogue.

Here’s to the merriest, happiest, greenest holiday season ever!

Yes, being eco-friendly means buying less, but you don’t need to forgo giving altogether when you choose gifts with meaning, gifts of service, handmade items and those that are worth every penny. Here are five we think will hit the mark.

For the one who has everything: Why not gift them with the opportunity to give. Check out www.TisBest.org where you can create your own gift card, then email it. Your recipient can then choose from among 250 non-profits to share their gift with. Give any amount starting at $10.

For “she’s no Martha Stewart”: A green decor makeover by Amy Woidke of Ecokind Design. Amy’s talents are many and her designs reflect your taste, yet are as eco-friendly as possible. As she says, “Consider giving the gift of a daily empowering experience, of moving a loved one towards a more personalized, supportive and empowering space, from which they can live their best life!” Best of all, through December 31, 2008, you can get 20% off on gift certificates.

For the bride and groom to be: The Everything Green Wedding Book by Wenona Napolitano.  Filled with terrific ideas for a classic wedding with an eco-twist. Just like our book,  Celebrate Green!,  Napolitano’s offers dozens of ways to make any wedding more special than ever by helping brides and grooms choose earth-wisely whether they are considering the place, the dress, the food, the ceremony, the decor or any other aspect of their memorable day. The couple will especially appreciate all the resources Napolitano provides. And when you’re gifting them with this book, be sure to include a message about visiting The Everything Green Wedding blog, where they’ll find even more ideas for creating their dream day. (And of course, the book is printed on 100% recycled paper.)

For the kind-hearted movie star wannabe: Bamboo sunglasses from Kayu Design. Not only are these gorgeous and made from sustainable material, but for each pair purchased, Kayu donates a sight-restoring surgery for someone in the developing world.

For the cutest baby in the world: A darling cap made from a recycled sweater. Whether cashmere or wool, these caps are to be treasured for their design and the fact that they are recycled and handmade with love. This will be an heirloom, guaranteed.

We’ve got more suggestions coming your way later this week.

We could blog every day for ten years and still not cover every aspect of going green at the end-of-year holidays, so we’re not even going to try. But for the rest of December, each post we’ll highlight various aspects of making these holidays more eco-friendly.

Remember that every idea can be applied to any holiday or celebration. Our goal is to get people thinking about how to approach gifts, activities, food and decor from a green perspective. If all of us change just one or two aspects of what we do when it comes to these special events, we will make an enormous impact.

Take wrapping paper, for instance. If every American wrapped just three fewer gifts in paper, we’d save 47,000 football fields worth of wrapping paper. Isn’t that stunning? Doesn’t that make it worthwhile to consider alternatives?

You’ve probably wrapped a few gifts in newspaper, the comics or cut down paper bags. Those are good alternatives, but remember, it’s always best to choose re-usable items. Recycling takes energy, so while newspaper is preferred to purchased wrapping paper, there are more earth-friendly solutions.

Plus, don’t you want your gifts to look gorgeous? If so, you’ve got to try our discovery of the season, fabric wraps! Variously called furoshiki (in Japan) or bojagi (in Korea), material makes a sensible and perfect wrap for any package. You no longer need to use tape or ribbon and surely you have scarves or even napkins at home that could work perfectly.

Just take a piece of fabric, learn a few easy techniques and your gifts will be receiving oohs and aahs before they’re even opened. Best of all, the recipient can use the wrap herself or pass it on.

When Lynn’s mother passed away, she inherited a number of gorgeous silk scarves. She doesn’t wear scarves, so imagine her joy at realizing she could use them to wrap gifts for those she loves! Some will be passed on to Corey via gifts to her. Then Corey will use them to wrap gifts for her daughter. What an amazing way to share love and gift the Earth at the same time.

You can make your own wraps from fabric you already have. That’s what we did in this video where we demonstrate how to do a simple fold (along with a hint for a fun holiday craft). The fabric should be thin and if you don’t have a machine to sew around the edges of two pieces, then turn them right side out, you can use pinking shears or, depending on the fabric, leave the edges to fray!

But if you aren’t up to sewing or don’t have fabric lying around the house, we suggest you take a look at our favorite spot for buying, www.BoboWrap.com. Being as Lynn is a polka dot fanatic, she immediately fell for the luscious dotty wraps, but if you’re a little more conservative, Patricia has plenty for you to choose from. The less expensive wraps are single thickness and while the more expensive ones may be cost prohibitive to use for every gift, they’re perfect for those “special” ones. Not only will the gift and wrapping be appreciated, but the wrap may get passed on for a long time. If that isn’t a special gift, I don’t know what is.

By the way, we have a full page of wrapping those simple techniques in Celebrate Green!

We’re so excited to announce the Celebrate Green coupon sheet, two pages of 50% off offers from online stores we love.

You’ll have to hurry if you’re interested though, because the offers are limited to stock on hand and the stores are under no obligation to substitute for the items listed.

All those on these sheets meet one or more of our criteria for “green”–recycled or repurposed, made by people who are paid a fair wage, made of sustainable/organic materials, and/or, the company makes a real contribution to their communities.

Offering these fabulous deals are:

www.BotanicalPaperworks.com
www.ClementineNW.com
www.LaLaNatural.com
www.AToyGarden.com
www.BringItInABag.com
www.Geekware.com
www.MyLittlePakora.com
www.Reteez.com
www.YoagYoga.com
Juicy Bags
Donna Thomas and Shaklee
A Punkin Card Company

Here’s a link to where you can download the PDF, and remember there are two pages to the PDF. Don’t forget to scroll to see all the bargains!

Enjoy!

Thank you to everyone who participated in our contest to win a copy of Celebrate Green! and a bunch of other goodies. The winner was Leslie C whose name was chosen impartially via www.Random.org.

It was inspiring to read what everyone wrote about how they plan to put a bit more eco into their holidays this year.

As we say, it’s not one person doing everything, it’s all of us doing small things, that makes a huge difference.

If you’ve been waiting to purchase Celebrate Green! until we get closer to the holidays, you might want to do it now.

As of today, until supplies run out, when you buy the book, you will be able to take your choice of one jar of the most delicious shea butter you’ve ever put on from Vintage Body Spa or a box of melt-in-your-mouth truffles from Sjaaks. Pay nothing but shipping for the shea butter and one penny plus shipping for the chocolates. Wow, what decision!

And tah-dah, the finalists in our baby onesie/t-shirt contest have been selected. You can vote by going here. Nothing to join or sign up for. We’d just love to see you vote for your favorite among the cutest phrases you ever read. We had lots of great ideas come in and Gwen, from Little Chickie Wear, on whose organic onesie or t-shirt the phrase will appear, had a tough time choosing the finalists. Vote today and invite all your friends to participate too.

Yesterday Corey and I had a ball doing something we’d never done before. Mary Kay at Edmonds Bookshop, invited us to created a display with Celebrate Green! in one of her store windows.

We tossed around a lot of ideas, but came up with something very simple for a theme: Read Then Recycle

We turned our books into a variety of fanciful objects (a purse, table, candleholder etc.), to prove the point that there’s more than one way to recycle a book after you’ve read it. Even while we were installing the window, we got lots of kudos. The window is whimsical, different and totally us.

If you happen to be in Edmonds, WA, stop by the Bookshop, say hi to Mary Kay and tell her you think our window is AWESOME!

Lots of our books have been given away via websites like KIWI and Hallmark. But this month, we’re giving away a copy of Celebrate Green! ourselves. And to make it even better, if you win, you’ll find some super surprises when you open the box. (Can you say “chocolate?” and a gorgeous hemp bag from Bring it in a Bag and…well, you’ll just have to win and see what you get!) Retail value of what you receive will be between $50 and $75.

All you have to do to win is to leave a comment on this blog about what you plan to do to green up your Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah or any other special event between now and December 31.

We’ll choose our winner at random from all submissions by mid-November so you’ll be sure to have the book and goodies before the holidays.

Thanks for your participation. We look forward to reading all your great ideas.

And by the way, be sure to check out all the other great offers at the Holiday Gift Fest.

We’ve almost made it through our second Halloween after the founding of Green Halloween. We’ve been working non-stop for the last two months and frankly,  I’ll be relieved when all the little ghosties and goblins have gone to bed tomorrow night.

But the support from thousands of people as well as the media exposure we’ve gotten has been amazing. From California to Florida, East Coast to the Nortwest and in Canada from Nova Scotia to Vancouver, the media is talking about Green Halloween. I think Corey could do an interview in her sleep (maybe she has!), and I’ve been writing so many tips articles for magazines, newspapers and blogs that tendinitis in my arm is threatening to sideline me again.

But despite the work and the feelings of overwhelm, spreading the word about Green Halloween and Celebrate Green! has been one of the most exciting adventures of our lives.

Be sure to watch Corey’s interview on CW11  It’s the beginning of a series we expect to do on green holidays and celebrations.

Here’s to a bootiful, EEK-O friendly, happy Halloween to you all! Oh and let me share for the first time, our tagline, “Changing the world one holiday at a time.”

Thanksgiving here we come!