“Recycle material to make cool accessories”, what a novel idea.   The book encourages kids to be “ecowise”.  It encourages you to create your own jewelery by recycling  things found around the house.  The book has over 40 pages of craft ideas and gives step by step directions.  Give it a try.  What a great idea for a sleep over or kids party.  The crafts need supervision for the younger crowd.

I was so enthralled with the book , I thought I would try a craft or two.  Pictured are earrings I received as a gift from my sister made from Velcro scraps  and next to the earrings note the pile of silver paper.  I followed the directions in the book to make a paper chain to make a bracelet.  I made the mistake of using the silver paper liners from Wrigley gum to make my chain.  My dog, Remy, also pictured ate part of the chain while I was at work…the smell from the gum must have tempted her.   I had to share my efforts with you, keep your pets away from your projects, they may think they are toys or in my case food.

Jazzy Jewelry is a wonderful craft book, I rate it:

4.5 apples

"Guilty"

If you’re like me you are stuck somewhere in the country where there is about a foot and a half of snow on the ground with temperatures that have been hovering around 0 degrees for the past week. So what better time to start thinking about vacations in much, much warmer climates?

Destination Spa Vacations has a great list of tips on how to make any vacation green. Their vacation planning tips includes such things as:

• Checking to see what type of recycling program the hotel you plan on staying at has.
• Asking if hotel guests have the option to reuse sheets and towels instead of having them changed every day.
• Checking to see what other energy saving measures where you plan on staying incorporates. For example, do they use low energy lighting, or have low-flow toilets and showers?

Even if it is simply not possible to find a truly green place to stay there are still many things you can do to make your trip more ecologically friendly. For example:

• Pack your own coffee mug and water containers.
• Bring your own reusable shopping bag to reduce waste when you make purchases.
• Make sure electronics and heating/air conditioning are turned off when you are not in your hotel room.

For more tips, be sure to check out the full list here.

I started to plan a trip to a warm climate this week ( it was -11 degrees Fahrenheit  not counting windchill in the Chicago area where our office is located). I envy all of you in warm climates!! Well back on topic, I was looking at items at our GreenStoreAndMore to see if there was anything I could order for my vacation. I came across a great item – Flat Tire Shoes.  Their web site says “the brand that started with a blowout and created a breakthrough.”
There are a variety of sandals in many colors and sizes. The soles of these shoes are made from “Crumb Tech” – which is crumb rubber made from scrapped tires. What an innovative idea. The tops of the sandals are leather or suede and are very stylish.

I am going to order a pair. I will let you know how comfortable they are.

Inhabitat.com posed a question yesterday that is personally of interest to me. The question was, “Is Maker’s Mark Bourbon Whiskey Green?”

Their findings? Maker’s Mark does a lot of things that are very green, but there is room for improvement. If you enjoy drinking whiskey go to Inhabitat and read the post. It will give you ammunition to smugly mock your non-Maker’s drinking friends.

AltEnergyStocks.com has an article today entitled 10 Green Energy Gambles For 2009. If you’re like most people, you have seen your traditional investments take a nosedive over the last year. If this is the case you might find this list of stocks that trade for between $.30 and $7.47 to be an interesting read. I would never suggest investing in a specific stock or even a general investing strategy, because I simply don’t know enough about the subject. But I do suggest being familiar with as many different technologies as possible, and a lot of the companies mentioned in this article work with new and developing technologies.

thegreenguide.com has an article today breaking down 12 somewhat harmful substances that are very common in beauty products. The whole list looks like this:

• Antibacterials
• Formaldehyde
• Hydroquinone

• Mercury/Lead

• Parabens

• Phenylenediamine

• Coal Tar Colors

• Diethanolamine

• 1, 4-Dioxane

• Fragrance

• Nanoparticles

• Petroleum Distillates

If you have any of these ingredients in anything you own, or if you’re just curious about what these substances are, I suggest you take a look at the whole Green Guide feature

I was reviewing items for our site and I came across a WINNER that I had to do a blog on because it is such a great product that I did not know was available, Chester Creek Learning Keyboards.  I am sure educators know about this type of keyboard but I bet the majority of people are like me and have no idea it exists.

These keyboards fall into three categories - for children,  for adults wanting to learn the keyboard or for anyone with vision, learning or mobility problems.

The FunKeyBoard is smaller size and color coded making it easier to learn and find vowels, consonants, numbers and punctuations.  A child’s size mouse also comes with some models or is available separately.

The LessonBoard, a true winner, for adults or children, is a normal size keyboard that is color coded to ensure proper finger placement and learning. This is a must for anyone wanting to learn keyboard typing properly.

Another style that I am truly excited about is the VisionBoard.  These keyboards  have larger size keys and are easier to read  - available black on white keys and black on yellow keys.  They are perfect for anyone with vision problems.

All of these Keyboards are available at GreenStoreAndMore.com – the Lesson Keyboard is also our January Special,  check it out – free shipping!

I almost forgot, they are “green” and available at GreenStoreAndMore.com because they are RoHS compliant:

Take a look at these products and let me know if you are enthused about them as I am.

Our monthly poll question for January is up. You can vote on the sidebar to the right.

This month’s question has to do with the place of vegetarianism in the Green Movement. Basically we are asking if the decision to not eat meat has anything to do with being green. If you have an opinion on this topic, please take a second to vote!

So…. we started selling solar powered mole and gopher chasers yesterday. These gadgets claim to work by producing a non-toxic sonic pulse that critters find annoying and therefore stay away from. Since I am from an area where moles and gophers aren’t really much of a problem, I have never heard of something like this before. So my question to readers is do these things work? I’d hate to think we were selling a product that was worthless.

If you have a testimonial or opinion we’d love to hear it in the comments!

I was watching Emeril Lagasse’s Green cooking show on Planet Green a couple of days ago and saw an excellent recipe for fish and vegetable tacos that I wanted to try. The problem was that he went through the whole recipe too darn fast. So I decided to do a little online research to see if I could find the recipe there.

Not only did I find a video of the segment online. I found videos for what appears to be every segment of Emeril Green. Now I know that sometimes the show really pushes the boundaries of the definition of Green, but it always does a good job of urging viewers to buy locally. So if you are looking for some good Green recipes that aren’t too complicated to make you can find videos here: http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tv/emeril-green/emerils-recipes.html