Ooh Shiny!

This girl loves glitter. It could be for a festival, or a party, or Halloween, or a Tuesday. I like glitter makeup, embellished outfits, crafting.

So of course I'm totally crushed when my zero waste peeps remind me that glitter is actually just micro-plastic. Buzzkill.

OK, you're going too far with this eco-warrier stuff, you say. However, micro-plastics are far from a foreign concern. Several countries, including the US, have already banned or started phasing out microbeads in beauty products. Now, research scientists are starting to suggest glitter should be banned as well, and one chain of UK preschools has proactively banned craft glitter. The concern is that these tiny plastics quickly get into our water and are a pollutant to sealife including seafood. Plastic is now also found in the large majority of our drinking water.

Fortunately, we can still sparkle on. There are plenty of people who both love glitter and the planet that are making affordable, alternative products.

 (Image via ecostardust.com)

Almost all of these are made from cellulose from sustainably farmed eucalyptus trees! They are vegan, cruelty-free, biodegradable, compostable. Here are just a few examples:

UK
Eco Stardust - Each pot of cosmetic grade glitter is under $5.

Eco Glitter Fun - Individual glitters run around $5 with kits costing around $10-30.

NY
Greenpoint Glitter - Fine and chunky glitters starting from $12.

Found on Amazon
Minke Bio Cosmetics

Found on Etsy
The Sparkle Party - a shop from Australia offering a variety of chunkiness/sizes.


and a ton of other options searching tag "sustainable glitter".


Now that we know how to safely source all the sparklies, shine on! :)

Holiday Fail

Well, dears, I've been meaning to make reusable gift bags out of all that lovely fabric I got from Seattle ReCreative. I've cut the fabric, gotten all lined up with my sewing machine, and... it jammed. Repeatedly. For hours.

I think it just needs to be cleaned well, but in the meantime, I'm going to give myself a gift: a little patience.

My Mailbox is Full of... Just Advertising

This time of the year, my mailbox is extremely full. No, it's not Christmas cards quite yet. It's catalogs, and more catalogs, and some reminders to charitable organizations I've donated to in the past.

While I will likely be doing a bit of shopping and donating this holiday season, I don't need a full recycling box to remind me to do so. :)

To stop the madness, you can always call or email each company directly. However, this can take a lot of time to track down each company.

I'm loving a site called Catalog Choice to opt out of paper mailings. This is a free service. Per their FAQ, they have over 9000 companies listed. Most of them you can fill out a quick form on their own website to opt out. For some, they redirect you to the company's website to their own form or email address (they've already done the Google legwork for you!). All of your history is tracked in a personal dashboard for reference. Catalog Choice is non-profit reducing mail for environmental purposes, so they communicate their environmental wins. If this screenshot is too small for your device, a couple impressive numbers are 500K mature trees saved and 3.6B gallons of water saved.

 

Another service is DMA Choice. This service costs $2 for 10 years. DMA is the Data and Marketers Association and has about 3600 members that you can opt out of mailings from. In addition to catalogs, they also have magazine offers and other categories of mailings. A couple cool things: they allow you to opt out in bulk. If you are getting mailings from specific companies you've done business with previously, you still need to remove yourself from that business itself, but this removes you from mailing lists that these direct marketing companies purchase. Direct Choice also lets you register deceased relatives. While a bit morbid, it's nice to be able to stop receiving ironic insurance offers for someone who can no longer benefit.

If you're starting to think about New Year's resolutions and getting 2018 off to a good start, take a half hour and make junk mail a thing of the past! :)

Re-Use, Re-Cycle, Re-Creative?

We're all familiar with thrift stores, second-hand stores, and consignment shops offering a variety of goods from clothing to toys to furniture to small housewares. But have you heard of reuse shops that specialize in arts and crafts supplies? Let me introduce you to Seattle ReCreative, located in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle.

This store is roughly 1000 square feet of many types of creative supplies plus room for classes and workshops, kids parties, and community events. What is cool to see is the broad variety of supplies they carry. Some more traditional fine art supplies, to common paper and fabric crafts, to more obscure ideas like vinyl records (seriously look at Pinterest for all the amazing ideas to paint on, cut up, or melt records into new objects!) and empty plastic bottles (perhaps to mix paints or store beads in).

Here's a sampling of some of the great inventory today. A huge box of of rubber stamps:

Buttons - use them for their original purpose or to craft an adorable angel ornament:

Paints galore:

Scrapbooking or cardmaking paper. Full 12" sheets and smaller pieces:

Canvas stretcher bars for the serious painter:

A whole wall of yarn! Some partial balls, and some completely new skeins, along with knitting needles: 

And the reason for me going today. They carry a large selection of fabrics, and I scored about 14 yards of holiday fabric. Check out my next post for what I'm doing with it. ;)

Not shown here were stacks of postcards, greeting cards, National Geographic magazines, vintage photographs, tile, beads... great for collage, card-making, school projects, mosaics, jewelry-making. Today, I observed that most items were going for about 10-20% of what they would cost new/retail. For example, the fabric was just $2/yd, an incredible skein of fuzzy sparkly yarn was $2, and cards and postcards were just $0.10.

This store has so much potential for both shopping and donating. How many times have you tried a new craft and decided it wasn't for you? Donate the leftovers! How many times have you or your kid wanted to try a new craft but you're worried about the investment just to give it a try? Shop at a steep discount and see if you like it. Even better, you can just buy a few pieces of something without purchasing full sets. I think too about teachers who end up having limited budget for supplies or even spend some of their own money: think how far that same money would stretch here, for art supplies for their students or creative materials for bulletin boards.

Ultimately, this store allows for low-risk creative pursuits, while funding a community space and keeping many pounds of leftover arts supplies out of the landfill.

You're Funny... Looking!

We waste a ton (actually 1.3B tons or 40%) of food each year in the US. That's... insane, especially given the numbers of hungry people that could feed.

While some of this food is meal leftovers, a good portion never even makes it to our plates. It is sorted out prior to grocery sales, because it is less attractive or doesn't meet a certain standard.

There's nothing wrong with this produce besides it's a little funny looking. Some petitions are working on making governmental or corporate changes similar to the law France passed last year that fines grocery stores for throwing away food instead of donating it. They are appealing to alternative options such as using that produce in the store's deli offerings (a lumpy tomato isn't noticed when diced in a salsa), or just plain selling the produce.

Imperfect is a California-based company that is seeking to interrupt this cycle by going straight from the farm to the end consumer. They deliver customized boxes of organic fruits and/or veggies to your door on a subscription basis.

Shortly after I learned about Imperfect, they announced that they were going to start serving the Seattle area, and this week I got my first box! I was thrilled with the experience. While I didn't need to be home for delivery, they texted me when the driver was in my area and again when the box was delivered.

I didn't customize this first box because I was just curious to see what I would receive. Already, from the label on the box, I'm getting excited.

This is about 7 lbs of organic produce for about $15, and hey, I needed potatoes, onions, and leeks for my Thanksgiving menu anyway. :)  And I've literally never purchased a pomegranate, so that will be fun to try out something new. Now to open the box:

That's a lovely selection! Outside of some of potatoes being a little large and lumpy, and the onions and oranges being a little small, it's all perfect quality.

A bonus: they included a little recipe book for what to try with seasonal produce.

I'm definitely excited for my next box. Organic fruits and veggies with door-to-door service at non-organic store prices? Sold.

I'm Dreaming of a Green Christmas

Well, it's officially time: the pumpkin spice lattes have been swapped for eggnog, the preview ads for Black Friday are beginning, and it's getting dark at 4pm. I guess that means we're starting to think of holiday gift shopping!

There are lots of ways to think about reducing your footprint this holiday season:

• choose quality items that will have a long life
• choose gifts with reduced packaging
• buy experiences, such as tickets to a concert or gift card to a favorite restaurant
• do a swap: each person in the gift exchange chooses a loved book or movie to pass on
• shop local

Shopping local not only stimulates the local economy, but also reduces the fuel to move goods from place to place. One of my favorite shops is The Handmade Showroom, located at Pacific Place Mall in downtown Seattle. Open 8am-9pm on Black Friday, they are right in the heart of other conventional retail that you may be visiting on Black Friday, and feature dozens of artisans and crafters from the Pacific Northwest. In addition to the shop itself being a small local business, all of the products within are from small local businesses.

They have a bit of something for everyone on your shopping list: sauces and confections for the foodie, cat beds and toys for your fur-babies, jewelry and accessories, kids dress-up costumes, screen-printed t-shirts, housewares... Want to level-up your conscious shopping? Some of the artisans use reclaimed or recycled materials! Top it all off with a letterpress greeting card.

A glimpse into the kids's section: 

Some of your local small businesses may be participating in Black Friday, but keep in mind that many of these business will taking the day to spend with their families. Small Business Saturday was started by American Express in 2010 to encourage shopping small and local and is observed on the day after Black Friday. Search social media for #‎SmallBusinessSaturday or ‪#‎SmallBizSat‬ to find participating businesses.

Finally, if you are crowd-shy and avoid shops this time of the year, consider checking out online marketplaces like Etsy and Amazon Handmade. These marketplaces feature small businesses and artisans, and highlight where the artisan is based from.

Happy holiday shopping, everyone, and may you discover a cool small business near you!

A DIY Halloween

A few weeks ago I wrote about starting my Ursula costume that I've been dreaming of DIY-ing for a while. Starting with just a black dress and a purple cape from thrift stores, it was time to get down to work.

Step 1: cut the skirt of the dress up to the thighs (however risque you want to go) into 8 strips. These will become your tentacles. Cut the cape into 8 long triangles, a few inches longer than the skirt strips, but tapering to a point.

Lay the purple fabric, back side up, on top of each strip of the skirt, pin in place, and sew such that the tentacle point and sides are sewn shut, and there is an opening at the top of each. There will be extra black fabric from each strip: don't trim this, when we flip the tentacles right side out, this will be part of the stuffing.

 

 Don't forget to have a little four-legged friend observe your work:

 

 Flip the each skirt strip right-side out. The seams will now be on the inside, and the shiny side out.

 

Now prepare some paint so we can add "suction cups" to the tentacles. I happen to have a bunch of craft paint laying around. If you don't, check out thrift stores that are focused on craft supplies like ReCreative.  I like add some fabric medium, which makes the paint a little less crunchy. An old deli container makes a perfect mixing tub.

 

To stamp on the suction cups, no special tools are needed. The top of an old shampoo bottle makes easy circles. 

 

Steps not pictured: to fill out each tentacle and also make them bendable, I stuffed them with the filling from an old pillow (free!) and some 1/8" armature wire. Once stuffed, I sewed each tentacle shut, using the couple extra inches of purple fabric to cover the filling. 

For finishing touches, I purchased a long sleeve purplish shirt ($7.99 at Goodwill), painted a shell gold and strung it from a necklace, and made myself up with bold eyes, red lips, and white hair gel. 

 

And voila! The sea witch goes on to party. :)

 

On Halloween, my co-workers wanted to dress up as Star Trek characters at work, but I couldn't let all the above crafting go to waste. One more piece, and I can be a sea-witch/alien mashup! I purchased this purple sweater (also Goodwill, $7.99), cut the collar off of it, and sewed on a purple dress belt as trim.

 

Not counting the purple tights, which wouldn't be included with other commercial costumes, here's the breakdown. 

Dress, $10, thrifted

Cape, $10, thrifted

Wire, $13.35, new (will reuse)

Purple top, $7.99, thrifted

Total: $41.24

A 50-70% savings over packaged costumes!

Made From Concentrate

We're not talking about orange juice - I prefer that fresh squeezed! Nope, we're talking about cleaners.

Selling dry powder, solid bar, or concentrated products is not a new concept, but let's make it a preferred one. There's bar soap vs body wash, powdered or concentrated laundry detergents, concentrated household cleaners, and those yard sprays that you attach to your hose for full yard coverage.

Why the shift? First, if you can remove water weight from your products, you are literally not paying to ship *water* from the manufacturer to the store or your doorstep. This also saves room and weight on the shipping truck, saving fuel. For concentrated liquids, you will reduce the size of packaging needed for the product, and for dry solids or powders, you may even be able to shift to non-plastic packaging.

So with all the reasons to buy minus the water and all the other products listed above that already have this model, why don't we see it more with beauty products? How many plastic bottles do we have in our bathrooms from shampoos to face wash?

Enter salonsolids. I stumbled across them after being disappointed that I can't seem to find bulk bath and body products in my area. salonsolids is an online store for hair products (shampoo, conditioner, and styler). They are sold as granules, and you simply add hot water to mix them to a "regular" consistency. They come in a variety of scents, naturally fragranced with essential oils like mint, lavender, and lemongrass.

Sarah was kind enough to send me a shampoo sample to try. The small envelope was enough to last 5 washes.Check out this simple paper envelope - no travel shampoo bottles here.

Simply mix in whatever hot-water-safe container you have handy. Hello, mason jar! Or perhaps I'll reuse one of my previous bathroom bottles, cuz I do love a pump or lid to squeeze through.

I was a little nervous because I have frizz-prone, dry hair, and while washing, it felt a little too "squeaky clean". However, when my hair dried, it felt glossy and soft. After 5 washes, I'm pretty confident this formula will work with most hair types despite not having multiple formulas for specific hair types.

The products come in paper tubes that are recyclable or compostable. If you want to take it totally zero waste and reap the rewards, you can send 11 tubes back to salonsolids, and they'll send you a 12th product free.

I'm glad to see there are becoming more options low-waste beauty products. Mail order solids may just be for you!

Halloween is just 3 weeks away!

And with that, I realized that Thoughtful Consumer is 1 year old!! Thank you all for joining me on this ride, and reading the last 57 posts. :)

Every year around this time, I start creating my Halloween costume. Let's be honest, I've been thinking about it for months, but now it's time to get down to work.

I've never been into just picking one of those bagged costumes at a store. I find they usually run small, are poorly made, and cost a lot of money, making me pretty sad when I get home and half of my $59.99 costume sortof fits. Also, you're ending up with a costume that many other people will be wearing.

Last year, I wrote about swaps, which is one great way to mix up your routine. For free, you can mix and match pre-owned items from your friends to create a unique costume.

This year, I'm finally going for a costume that I've had in mind for a few years: Ursula from The Little Mermaid.

This store-bought costume is $89.99 and has no tentacles. :-/

This one is $129.99 and has tentacles, but I think I can do better for less. 

Both of the above are 100% new polyester. I think I can get away with a spending a loss less, and using recycled materials. When you have a specific idea in mind, thrifting + alterations can often be more targeted than swaps.

I'm starting with a $10 black evening gown that I bought from swap.com, an online second-hand store.

This dress is a little loose in the waist and tight in the hips, but no worries, because there are many alterations needed. (It also helps that T said "wow!" before taking this picture. :) It's a good departure from my usual jeans and tee.)

I bought a lavender cape for $10 at Lifelong Thrift that I will use for the lining/underside of the tentacles. Finally, I did buy some new sculptural wire from Amazon ($13.35) that I will use inside the tentacles to shape them. After wearing the costume, I'll pull the wire out for another costume or art project.

I have a long way to go taking these materials into a finished costume. In addition to a fun DIY project, I'll end up with a unique costume, and $90 in savings.

I'll be sure to post a step-by-step and finished pics closer to Halloween. Now friends, have fun at your own swaps and thrifting - can't wait to see what you come up with for costumes!

Reclaimed Materials: Bowling Alley Lumber

So, I'm visiting Detroit on a business trip, and come across something very New York: Shake Shack. Of course, I had to go in.

Yes, that is The Spirit of Detroit holding an ice cream cone and a burger. :) What else caught my eye was some stamping on the table.

Handcrafted in New York from RECLAIMED BOWLING LANES! It's amazing how many materials can be reused when a commercial space is demo'd or renovated. Some municipalities require a certain percentage of materials be recycled, and for others there's ability to sell them or get recycle credits for projects like LEED certification.

But did you know your own home projects can benefit from the leftovers? In the Seattle Metro area alone, there are several stores that second-hand sell building fixtures and materials. They include Habitat for Humanity's Re-store and Second Use Building Materials.

T discovered the Re-store when setting up his office/classroom space. We came across large chunks of granite countertop, cabinetry, and more, that could be rehab-ed or cut to size. What he ended up buying was several boxes of brand new carpet tile, presumably leftover from a project, and 1/4 of retail cost.

You do need to dig through for the right pieces, but these stores have great finds for a unique home reno or Pinterest project. One building's trash is another one's treasure!

Cute as a "Button": Reuse #11

I'm visiting a dear friend in Portland this weekend, and begged her to take me shopping. I desperately need work tops, and Portland had the cutest boutiques.

Our first stop was a cute consignment shop named Button.

If you aren't familiar with consignment shops or know the difference between them and thrift shops, the basic premise is this: the clothes are being sold by their previous owners through the shop for commission. Because the shop wants everyone to make money, they tend to be more curated (higher quality and trendier) than donation-based stores. There are plenty of brick and morter consignment stores, as well as online versions like ThredUp.

I walked out with a cute ruffle-sleeved top from J Crew, in like-new condition. The cool thing about Button's tags, is they list the normal retail price, so you know what a great deal you're getting.

Bottom line: if you are interested second-hand clothes, and want to minimize effort digging through racks of various quality clothing, consignment could be for you. Selling through these stores is also a great way to recoup some costs while cleaning out your closet.

Retail price: $49.50
Button price: $16.95
My savings:  $32.55 (66%)

The previous owner will make $8.47.

Thoughtful Dogs!

Well, dog park volunteers and dog owners, that is... :)

T and I frequent Grandview Dog Park with Meeko. It has some great open space for play, and a grand view (get it?) of Mt. Rainier.

The dog parks in the area are fully run by volunteers via donations. The park has always had some great features, and the most recent group has made additional improvements.

There have always been several stations with rolls of bags to take care of your dog's mess, like this:

One of the recent improvements was the addition of bag holders throughout the park, where patrons can bring their plastic shopping bags:

But, you gasp, I don't have plastic bags! I always remember my reusable grocery bags!

For those who end up with plastic bags anyway, this is a great way for them to get an additional use. Using the collected bags also eliminates the use of a brand new bag for pet waste, which costs the volunteers or donors $$$ and time to stock, saving those resources for other improvement projects.

Next time you head to the dog park, consider grabbing a handful of bags to share at the park!

The other cool feature at the park is the rain water barrels used to collect doggie drinking water.

There are a couple water fountains throughout the park also, but the rain barrels allow dogs to get free water during the rainy and following months of the year. This saves on the water bill and allows the park to shut down plumbed fixtures in the colder months.

What interesting features do your parks have to best utilize resources?

A Little Weekend Sewing

Being a curvy woman, my pants always wear out in the thighs only, and the rest of the pants are still in great shape. It's super annoying to have to buy new jeans every few months after a little wear and tear.

After 4 pairs of pants piled up of my recycle or mend pile, I finally decided to give it shot. First step, acquire iron-on patches. You can find these fairly easily at craft or department stores. I got a multi-pack at Target: with 8 patches of varying colors of denim and khaki that can be cut to size, it's only pennies per patch.

Trim the patch to cover the holes, and iron on. Follow the directions on the package: mine was high-heat, no steam.

You could stop there, but iron-on stick tends to wear off after a couple washes. We can easily reinforce the patch by sewing back on forth over the edges.

Minimally noticeable from the outside - at least, less noticeable than skin showing through. ;)

Now, if it was for somewhere less scandalous, like the knees, you could try visible mending. There are several styles including the Japanese embroidery "sashiko" and patchwork "boro". Examples:

(Image from womanwithwingsblog.blogspot.com)

(Image from honestlywtf.com)

After an hour of work, I repaired 4 pairs of pants. Here's hoping I can now double the life of the pants, saving my self potentially $100s per year.

Potatoes v2

So my 2nd potato plant was ready for harvesting, 5 weeks later than the 1st plant, and yielded 13 ounces of baby potatoes.

And boy, what beauties they are! There are still several super tiny potatoes but the larger ones are almost small russet sized!

My full harvest from this plant:

And one of the larger potatoes in my hand for scale:

Lesson learned: keep the plants alive for as long as possible for full sized potatoes. I still have one plant left, a red potato I planted in June: I'm looking forward to seeing how my red potatoes fare in a couple months.

Real world savings? 13 oz potatoes for $0.00. 

 

Skip the Travel Toiletries

I've previously written about hotel mini toiletries, and how some great hotels are participating in recycling of the minis. Recycling is an ok end solution for waste, but what if we take it a step back and don't create the waste in the first place?

On a business trip last week, I was excited to see the the hotel didn't have minis. Instead, they had refillable standard size bottles with pumps. No packaging waste, and no waste of half-used product.

Additionally, many hotels have signage similar to: "We're interested in saving water. If you are willing to reuse your towel, hang it up in a certain way." Have you found those to be effective? T and I will routinely hang our towels and find them replaced anyway.

This hotel took it a step further: if you refuse housekeeping for the night, they give you a $5.00 credit to use at the hotel. This housekeeping refusal saves the water and energy for the fresh linens, but I also like that the direction is clearer than "hanging your towel a certain way", and the small incentive to encourage guests to participate.

Kudos to Tempe Mission Palms hotel for exploring sustainable programs. What are some cool alternatives you've seen hotels offer?

WE HAVE BABIES! (Potatoes, that is.)

I started my early adulthood thinking I had a black thumb. All of my plants never lasted more than a few months. Then I realized I was always buying annuals. :)

A few years ago, I bought a cherry tomato starter plant at the Vashon Island farmer's market, and it grew rapidly taller, and grew beautiful little super sweet cherry tomatoes (in fact, the type was "Sweet Million"), and it renewed my faith that I might be able to not kill a plant.

Fast forward to this year, and I'm still not an amazing gardener, but after finding some sprouted potatoes in my pantry, I decided to try my hand at growing potatoes.

First, I found a YouTube video to give me some basic pointers, and I put the sprouted potatoes in some planters. The smaller planter ended up in my windowsill and sprouted quickly with lush green leaves. The larger planter had to stay outside and got a little slower start due to the cold.

Last month, the Seattle area finally started thinking about having Spring/Summer, and it was time to transplant the planters into the garden, because I didn't feel like my planters were quite large enough.

Well, the plants that started outdoors are still growing, and the leaves look green and healthy. The plants that started indoors didn't transplant as well. The leaves started yellowing, then wilting, and then dying altogether. YouTube tells me this means the potatoes are "done", but I was pretty sure this was a failed batch, since the plants died so quickly after transplant.

Tonight, I decided to play in the dirt to see if there was anything there, and lo and behold - I found over a dozen baby potatoes!!

Here's another shot with my hand for scale. Some are like small marbles, while others are almost new potato sized. Keep in mind that the parents(?) were regular russets, so even the larger ones are pretty small. I cooked one up and sure enough, it tastes like a potato. I can only imagine that the other plant, which will have more growing time, will result in larger more flavorful potatoes.

Overall, I'm pretty excited that I successfully grew something new, with very little effort. As you can see, I had no controls in place - some were started inside, some were started outside, I transplanted halfway through because I didn't have large enough containers. I watered them when I remembered to, but took a lot of short vacations and weekends away... Seattle has been temperamental weather wise, and ultimately, there have been few sunny days. Seems that potatoes are pretty easygoing. If I can do it, anyone can!

Zero Waste on Etsy, Part 3: Produce Bags

One area that I always feel guilty about getting disposable bags is the produce aisle. At least with regular grocery bags with handles, I find a number of reuses for them, but the produce bags are just so flimsy. For a single fruit or vegetable, I've started just skipping the bags altogether, but when you have a handful of lemons or loose mushrooms, it's still nice to have a way to carry them.

The good news is tons of makers are creating reusable produce bags. Check out this awesome mesh drawstring bag:

The mesh is so light that you don't need to worry about adding extra weight to the scale, and you can still easily see the contents and the number on the sticker.

I got this one as a part of a set of 12 from Love For Earth on Etsy. At $23.75, they are just under $2 a piece. They come in their own bag, so you can easily just grab the whole bundle. I have this pouch sitting inside one of my regular reusable shopping bags for a quick grab-and-go.

With the different sizes and colors of drawstrings, you are sure to have a bag that works for everything and your own organizational system. 

While shopping on Love For Earth's page, I also learned about the tag "teamecoetsy" (Team Eco Etsy). Simply enter this tag in the search bar when shopping on Etsy for products and makers with the theme of reduce, reuse, and recycle.